Playing with Water - New Abstracts

Winter's finally here!  We were spoiled into thinking El Nino had completely run the winter weather out of town, but as we get into the end of January it's very clear that the brisk New England winter has arrived, however late.  On a rather beautiful sunny winter weekend I found myself walking along Hull's Cove in Jamestown, a lesser known spot facing due south out towards the open ocean.  I hadn't shot any water panning or "mocean" abstracts for quite some time and found this beautiful day to be the perfect opportunity to just play with some water!

I only had about an hour of good daylight, so I walked along the beach until I found a spot where I could look down along the waves as they rolled into the beach.  This technique works best if you can follow the progress of a moving subject across a horizontal axis, so just standing and looking straight out to sea isn't going to cut it.  

The tricky bit was the unpredictable nature of this wave, and with a little wind the few lumps and bumps were magnified and the wave crest never broke quite in the same spot.  This made it harder for me to set up my shot since I was using my long lens and found myself constantly reframing so the wave would be near the center of my composition.  I had to watch each wave roll in and as it started to stand up I would look through the camera to quickly compose and start shooting at just the right moment to catch the curl!  This only works if vertical movement of the camera is minimized so the constant repositioning made for plenty of bad shots.

As the sun sank lower I played with the little 4 inch waves closest to the edge of the beach.  These little guys can be just as fun as the big waves!  I couldn't pick just one shot to keep from the afternoon so here are three different varieties, each with their own unique sense of attitude and style!

Prints available at www.catebrownphoto.com