362 - Wreck of the Peter Iredale
After that recent shoot at Cape Disappointment, I got all amped up about shooting a shipwreck. See, Cape Disappointment is right by the Columbia River Ocean Entrance, which is one of the hardest places to navigate a ship in the world due to it's infamous "moving sandbars." Naturally, hundreds of ships have crashed here over the years. When I realized Wreck of the Peter Iredale was STILL on the sand right down the street, I couldn't leave without a shot.
A little background first. I'm at this weird point in this trip where I WANT to shoot 7 days a week, but I know it's not creatively feasible in my mind. I need at least one day off, preferably two days, to recharge that creative energy. Shooting 5 days a week is the formula for me to avoid burnout- and I learned this doing daily vlogs back in 2020.
So when the weekend hits, I don't know what to do. I want to shoot, but I know I can't or I won't make it the next five days in a row. It's like this weird suppression of passion for the greater passion. Obviously I've saved up money for this 9-12 month roundtrip, so there's not really any way for me to be "making money on the weekends," so I just end up relaxing a bunch. Which I guess is what I'm supposed to do when I'm working about 40 hours a week on photography anyway.
Which leads me to the weekend... We scoped this place out on a Sunday, when we were "supposed" to be relaxing, but a part of me wanted that sunset shot so bad... Because it was right there. Fortunately, it was a horrible sunset, so I was able to hold back on shooting the shipwreck until Monday.
Annnnd that's when this photography adventure happened. We showed up right on time. About 45 minutes prior to sunset, and right when the sun was about to disappear behind a cloud. I got a few warm up shots in, then nailed this banger right before the sunset disappeared for the rest of the day:
“Wreck of the Peter Iredale”
Sony a7rIII + Zeiss 24-70mm f/4
ISO 100 ~ 53mm ~ f/13 ~ 1.3s
(Want a Print? Get one here.)
Now, a few things about that shot. I learned something ENTIRELY NEW about seascape photography. Instead of trying to "time the wave," I set my camera on time-lapse mode. For this shot for example, I was taking a 1.3s exposure shot 30 times in a row. This allowed me to pick out the best wave shot in post, and hold a composition for a while.
My workflow turned into get a solid composition, do 30 shots. Get another composition, do 30 shots. Rinse and repeat until the sunset was gone. Timing a wave is much like timing crypto. It's basically impossible, so you should invest money/shots slowly until it works out in the end (most of the time.)
I stuck to 1.3 second exposures for this session because I don't know a ton about the specifics of long exposures on seascapes yet, and I really like the effect 1.3s was creating. Just subtle enough to capture the waves, but long enough to smooth them out a bit.
I need to do an in-depth dive into each long exposure shutter speed and it's effect on waves. I realize that some waves are faster then others, but I think for the MOST part they are same. Rivers, on the other hand, seem to vary enormously in speed. Correct me if I'm wrong.
To achieve this study, I'm going to focus on one specific shutter speed each time I go shoot a new seascape, and compare them. I think that'll give me a solid overview. I say that now, but we'll see how that goes in real life.
Well, that's about it. Easy enough shoot. No big hike or vlog, just show up, snag a photo, bounce an hour later. Sometimes I like these easy days. Just pure photography bliss- not too many variables to worry about.
I’m on a mission to explore as much as humanely possible.
Want to see my progress? Check out the Adventure Map.
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