To The Lighthouse

Thanks for any constructive comment or critique I am always appreciative.

Your title fits perfectly ! the lighthouse is the only element which is vertical in a horizontal composition, so the eye travels from the accentuated lower side to its far away minuscule form very fast.

 

It reminds me of a song we have here " Two banks to the Jordan"( river)...The lighthouse tells of life and security point for sea travelers( like me too....;-)) on the far waterfront.

Very nice texture, and B/W conversion."Less is more " fits here very well !

Thanks for the comment Pnina and thanks as well, for your helpful suggestions as I worked on this image.

 

The title is borrowed from Virginia Woolf , it is the title of what is perhaps her most famous novel.

As is not often the case with landscapes, the beauty of your image resides in the simplicity of its composition, while the delivery of that small detail that gives the photo its title, is so subtle yet so powerful that gives it a depth that most landscapes lack.

To be brutally honest (I learned that from Ton---) if it were not for the tones of the water and the complete absence of any detail or color in the sky, I would find this boring. The mass of water beyond the rocks has a bluish tint to it on my screen. I cannot tell if there is color in it or not. But I like the pale bluish cast I see. And the sky with nothing but blank whiteness works so well. It screams of the vastness which is the ocean and the skies. Well done.

Juan;

 

I'm glad the sense of depth registered with you. Trying to establish a sense of depth with very little information as regards perspective and vast areas with no information between objects was a primary interest for me with this one. I used a long exposure to reduce the visual information from the water and sky, leaving only the islands and the lighthouse as cues. The distance between the island I am standing on in this photo and the Mink island group which you can see on the horizon on the right hand side of the photos is approx. 8 km.

 

Dave;

 

Honesty brutal or otherwise is what I always hope for so thanks for that. I agree with you 100% I was trying to create as minimalist a landscape as I could with the scene at hand. I stacked several ND 1.2 filters and a polarizer on the lens to get a long exposure and reduce the water and sky information. I also wanted to have the breaking waves soften the foreground rock. In reality the waves that day where around 1 meter.

 

As for the blue cast I do not see it myself. The image was converted to greyscale in Lightroom but was tweaked in PS so maybe somewhere along the line some blue managed to sneak back in.

Hi Gordon! Great seascape, very nice technique with wonderful results. I enjoy feeling that sea as if it were a clouds sea looked from a high mountain with that lighthouse on a far summit :-) I don't know the exposure time but it is very nice the smooth patern created where the waves should be. About color or not, I download the shot and after looking it with Color Dropper it is perfect neutral, no color in it except black and white. Best regards.

Jose Angel;

 

Thanks for the comment and for checking the colour cast also. The exposure information was 30 seconds @ f. 28. I would have preferred to not stop down so far but until I get a stronger ND filter this was what I needed to slow down the shutter speed to soften the water.

 

Now that you mention it I can also look at this as two mountain peaks separated by a sea of clouds.

Hey Gordon, this photo has a beautiful composition. The horizontal lines and minimalist atmosphere is great. What really makes this for me is how smooth the exposure has made the water and sky yet there's still a lot of texture in the foreground rocks. My only suggestion would be a square crop perhaps. The empty space in the sky does balance the image but I think it may work cropped. Anyway, take it easy man.

 

Ryan

Thanks for the comment and the suggestion. I tried this with a square crop and that seemed to work well. In keeping with the minimalism, I like it a tiny bit more as presented because that extra empty space at the top adds to the stillness.

Beautiful Image Very Well Done !