Sharing one exceptional evening from the Malabar coast as the iconic lighthouse at Kovalam started to light. At the same time, the calm waves in the Arabian Sea almost perfectly mirrored the cloud pattern above – just a blissful scene to witness and frame.

As for the place, Kovalam is a definite destination once in Kerala. The calm coastline offers everything from pristine sands to coconut groves, with a calm sea to enjoy. This lighthouse serves as a definitive symbol of this beach; hence, to create travel seascape imagery, it was always going to feature in my frames.

This was a deliberate plan to visit the place right after the monsoons (around September), a time when seasonal rains recede, but the cloud magic still presides over the evenings. But I must admit, I was plain lucky to find such exceptional colours that very evening.

The composition's idea was to capture the essence of this lovely beach, with the lighthouse standing tall over the surroundings. These foreground rocks acted as needed foreground hinges in the frame, and when the wave pattern spanned entirely of sand, it completed the drawing.

Choosing a lower ISO of 200 and a narrow aperture (F16) to render the frame entirely sharp as well as to enable some slower shutter speed was an automatic call. As for the shutter speed, I wanted to capture the scene's dynamism and hence decided upon a long exposure spanning 25 odd seconds. A 3-stop ND was used to prevent overexposure. I did play with shorter shutter speeds spanning a few seconds, too, but I guess the overall smoothness and wave trails worked out the best in the longest exposure (25 seconds, as mentioned earlier).

Later in processing, basic adjustments to tune contrast, colour and sharpness were performed in Adobe Photoshop.

Selective dodge and burn were applied to elevate the tonal contrast in the image. Here's the outcome.