379 - Thor’s Well
This photoshoot at Thor's Well was probably the most unlucky session I've ever had. BUT... I also came away with one of my favorite photos in awhile while under extreme pressure.
So how did this shoot get so unlucky?
First off, whoever makes the tide charts can suck a massive cock. Kidding, I'm the one who fucked up. WHY THE FUCK WOULD I READ A TIDE CHART UPSIDE DOWN. GOD FUCKING DAMN IT. I thought high tide was at 7:30PM, turns out it was at 2:00PM. For connect, you can only shoot Thor's Well DURING high tide, because it creates the long exposure.
Luckily for us, we heard Thor's Well gets crowded, so we showed up to "high tide" 2 hours early, only to find out it was actually low tide right when the sun was setting. I'm 100% to blame for this, but ya know what? Nothing I can do now.
In retrospect, there's worse places to be waiting for two hours for the sunset. The whole area is nuts. Complete with crabs, massive waves crashing, and just the right amount of danger, this tide pool was sufficiently insane.
Someone even died like a mile down the road within hours of our arrival because they fell in the ocean. It’s a savage landscape.
Well now that you know the climax of this shoot, let's jump to what happened right after. The moment I realized I fucked up the tide times, the sunset starting kicking into high gear. Of course. It was as if nature said "Sorry you fucked up, here's a brilliant sunset, have fun.”
And when I say brilliant, I'm not kidding- it was absolutely gorgeous. But I knew I had maybe 5 minutes to capture it or it'd be gone forever. I abandoned my Thor's Well composition and began searching for something... anything.
Somewhere in my subconscious my mind jumped to clams. Small backstory, one of the first photos I was ever proud of before I even started taking photography seriously was this dumb shot of clams I took on my iTouch in middle school. Looking back it’s not a great photo, but at the time it was a masterpiece.
I looked around, and saw clams everywhere. Perfect. Let's recreate the shot, but with skill. Now to find the area where they're in highest concentration with the sunset backdrop.
Somehow I stumbled upon this small ledge full of em', and got up real close. Check this shot out:
My tripod couldn't get anywhere close to that low, so I had to balance the camera on some clams to complete the focus stack, which somehow didn't completely work out. If you zoom into the ocean area, you’ll notice it’s not entirely in focus. I'm not sure why- I think it was because I was flustered from rushing and trying to balance the camera.
Whatever. It's a solid shot given the circumstance and I stand by it.
Then the second unlucky thing happened. I DROPPED MY $3,000 CAMERA ON A CEMENT STAIRCASE WALKING OUT, AND IT FELL DOWN 10 STAIRS. To be 1000% honest, I'm not sure how the camera and lens is still working. Luckily the lens hood on the lens took the brunt of the fall, but it got jammed on the camera. I had to buy aviator snips at Home Depot to cut it off.
Other than that, the camera and lens work perfectly fine though!
Wait… if you drop a $3,000 camera down cement stairs and it doesn’t break, that makes this shoot LUCKY, right? Plus that clam banger I never would have got if the tide was right…
Yeah, let’s just call this shoot lucky as hell.
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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