Photo by Andrew Sangster

Too Big

It was a very winding day in January 2024, threating a storm on the coast off the Pacific Coast. The image was taken from the Venice Pier in Venice, California with a 70-200mm zoom lens. A seashore recue specialist was practicing driving his jet ski through some very big waves for over an hour. The drama was very captivating for me. This shot shows his wise decision not to try to drive through this terrifying wave caused by the high winds.

Editing notesThis photograph was entirely processed in ON1. Though the shot was taken with a telephoto lens, the image was cropped to emphasize the power of the sea and further compress space. The colors were enhanced slightly using Brilliance AI to reduce the day's grey cast. Noise reduction in the Noise & Sharpening group was used reduce noise. And the spray needed just a bit of small detail enhancement using soft dynamic contrast. That gave the image the drama I was looking for. I considered eliminating the birds in the foreground, but I decided against it since I think they add something to the drama of the moment.

ILCE-1
ƒ/5.6
280mm
ISO 100
1/500 sec

Too Big

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