Ithought it would be nice to stray a little from my travel adventures with my article for the letter ‘B’. Being the time of year that the northern half of our Earth is slipping fast into winter, 
Beaches around the world photos – Bonaire|Australia
It is obvious that I took these three photos keeping the rule of thirds in mind. One putting the emphasis on the sky i.e. vastness of the scenery, the other on the ocean making the angry waves the focus point. Using a selective focus, depth of field, makes the first photo’s subject stand out.
Beaches around the world photos – WA|The Netherlands|NJ
You can add a lot of contrast and dynamic to your beach photos by using the technique called HDR (high dynamic range). Simplified: Take more than one shot of the same scene (overexposed, exposed correctly, underexposed) and then combine these in the photo editing software of your choice to create the dynamic range that our eyes see. Clouds work really well for this, as does architecture. Along the way you can edit this as real or unreal e.g. painterly as you like through tone-mapping. These examples here are pretty realistic, except maybe for the clouds in the first one, even though they were quite threatening.
Beaches around the world photos – Bonaire|NC|WA|Greece
Look around you for interesting things to liven up your photo. Some may be very close. Others pretty far away.
Beaches around the world photos – Denmark & France
Bad weather at the beach? There is no such thing as bad weather. And that goes for photography, too. Underexpose for drama or overexpose for a more dreamlike feel. In Denmark the wind sent the sand flying, hovering over the beach, making it appear ghostly. The marshland in northern France is overexposed to emphasize vastness, reaching into the sky, no horizon. A good idea is to have a known object (or person) in the photo to give the viewer a feel for the size of the beach. Check out the pole in the first picture and the two tiny walkers in the second one.
Beaches around the world photos – Fuerteventura|NJ|WA|Bonaire
Frame your subject or have lines leading to it and emphasize with depth of field, focus. This, along with the rule of thirds, works for any photo.
Beaches around the world photos – Washington State
Suck the color out of your photos. Go black & white and see what you can add to of your photos. Sometimes less really is more.
Beaches around the world photos – Greece & Egypt
Get into detail. It is not all about the big landscape, scenery that you love. The little details can be very intriguing. I spent hours photographing a pebble beach in Greece.
Or, at the same beach, only get some of the pebbles and add a little of the ocean. Play with the depth of field. Get a close up of the water. Let it sparkle in the sun with added bokeh.
Beaches around the world photos – Australia
Here is a big DON’T! We took a trip down the coast from Cairns to Brisbane. Lots of photo opportunities, great beaches, good times. But, I highly recommend to not change the lens while a) on the beach or b) at a windy or rainy location. You won’t know the possible damage until you check your photos on the big screen. I am not even sure when I got all the dust on the chip of my camera. But I did, as you can see in the smaller photos. These spots are easy enough to get rid of in photo editing programs, but it is annoying and can cost a lot of time.
Now here is a question for you. I have been toying with the idea of writing little tutorials about my photography and editing. In this article I touched a few techniques, but did not go into any detail. Would you like me to? If you do, let me know in the comments and also which area interests you most.
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