It was my 2017 trip to Corsica. I had been waiting all week to take long exposures of the beach break. Unfortunately, I had to wait for an evening when waves were breaking, and clouds were in the sky as the blue hour brought on the night. It's rare to see waves break and clouds in the sky in the summer evenings. Each evening was another disappointment – finally, an opportunity presented itself.
I secured my camera, added a 10-stop ND filter, and added an electronic cable release that could do timed exposures. I used the ND filter because if I had waited for the light to be dark enough to make the long exposure, I would have missed the colour in the clouds from the remaining afterglow.
The stone beach was quite painful on my knees as I squatted down to look through the viewfinder. My shutter speeds started at 8 seconds, then 30 seconds, and then 4 minutes as the sun dropped below the horizon.
Using the shift function of my 24 mm tilt-shift lens, I captured panoramas from seven different locations on the beach. The tilt-shift lens makes life so much easier. Panos are consistent, and there are no distorted frames for correcting.
Ultimately, I decided I liked this view best because of the human element implied by the light in the apartment. This element helps make it more than just what some might consider an experiment.
In Lightroom, I enhanced the light from the apartment. I added contrast using the local adjustment brush to help guide your eye around the rest of the image. I added a touch of yellow to just the clouds to recover some of what I remember seeing.
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Dimitri Vasileiou • Editor