The Monterey Peninsula in California is one of my wife’s and my favorite places. Her favorite spot is Fanshell Beach, which we visit every time we visit. This tiny beach is caught between a small knoll jutting into the sea and the looming rock cliffs of the Pacific Ocean.

My wife enjoys beach combing, often for hours, which leaves me wandering the beach, searching for images. On this occasion, I spotted the tide starting to form eddies around some of the rocks. I jumped on the rocks above the churning water only to realize that the lens on my camera was nowhere near wide enough to capture the image in my imagination.

I swung my backpack around and decided to go with the widest lens in the batch, a 15mm fisheye. I bounced around the rocks, leaping off just in time to avoid incoming waves and firing off exposures as the water swirled around the rocks. The tide continued to come in, and the water sloshed more than swirled until the water level was almost over the rock ridge jutting into the inlet. Finally, a half dozen images with good swirls!

Post-production was done in Lightroom and Photoshop. I corrected and enhanced the color and recovered shadow detail.