Recently I drove south through Portugal and had the opportunity to pass Comporta.
The last time I was here was back in July last year, when I took two of the first shots I ever submitted to deviantART; [link] and [link]

When I took those shots, we were blessed with amazing summer evening light. They were taken around 40 minutes before the sunset, but this time I was passing the same piers in the middle of the afternoon. As we had a couple of hundred kilometres to drive that day, we couldn't afford to wait for better light.

I decided to give the whole scene a different treatment, as the harsh afternoon light wasn't special at all, I tried to focus on composition and mood. I used a Hoya ND400 filter, combined with a small aperture to give me a really long exposure time, which is why the water has flattened out so much.

While I would have prefered the golden light of my previous visit, I was happy to have the chance to shoot this wonderful location again, and the result is something altogether different from the last time I was there.

It's also interesting to see how much of the pier has fallen down in the last 10 months.

Taken in Comporta, Alentejo, Portugal
Nikon D80 | Sigma 10-20mm | Nikon Cable release | Hoya ND400 filter
f22 | 13 seconds | - 0.7 exp. comp | 10mm
Shot RAW, complete workflow (B&W conversion, contrast and sharpening) in Apple Aperture