475 - Playa Maderas
I’m just going to cut right to the chase, because nothing happened on this shoot. It was one of the most boring adventures I’ve ever had. Either that or too much crazy shit has been happening lately.
Yeah, I think I’m going to go with that. Come to think of it, every day lately has been scams, hitting pedestrians, breaking bones, electric bug bites, or whatever else is in the mood to throw a wrench in our day. Finally we have a relaxing day on the beach and I don’t know what to write about.
I’ll give you a brief rundown- we landed on Playa Maderas, a popular surf beach in Nicaragua. We hung out on the beach for a day, liked it so much we decided to spend another day, then we did a sunset shoot. I put off writing this blog post for far too long because there was no story.
Here’s the photos I got when the sunset finally did come around:
“Crescent Blush”
Taken on Sony a7rIII + Tamron 17-28mm f/2.8
[ISO 100 ~ 17mm ~ f/9 ~ .4s]
(Want a Print? Get it here.)
I like to think of this shoot as the first time I “discovered” how to edit like a lot of artists (i.e. Ryan Dyar, Jimmy McIntyre, Nick Page, Marc Adamus, etc.) I’ve found inspiration in. The “surrealist fantasy” edit style. I’d say my biggest lesson with editing these was learning to color dodge.
This essentially means doing your normal dodging and burning routine, except with the same color of the item you're dodging. For example, the staggered rocks in the bottom right of that pic were made with a light orange brush set to 12% opacity in soft light blend mode. Previously I’d dodge with simply a white brush set to the same opacity and blend mode. But fun fact, this WASHES COLORS OUT. Don’t do this.
Another editing tip I’ve been using is to dodge and burn the skies as well, something I never previously thought of. I also used blur filters (set to about 5% opacity) on the highlights (especially near the sun) to give the blown out parts a bit more of a glow.
Boom. There’s three edit tips right out of the gate. My second shot was from a little earlier in the shoot, before the orange colors began to pop:
“Aged Arrowhead”
Taken on Sony a7rIII + Tamron 17-28mm f/2.8
[ISO 125 ~ 17mm ~ f/9 ~ 1/160s]
(Want a Print? Get it here.)
I thought the foreground looked like an arrowhead, and honestly this was almost my only shot for this shoot. But I decided to abandon this composition at the last second in favor of those stacked rocks in the previous photo.
A good choice, but a risky one at that. I could have very well struggled to find a composition and ended up with nothing when the true colors popped. But I’m a greedy bastard and tend to make gambles like this more often than I’d like to admit.
I almost had a third shot that was a banger, but some local kid came up and wanted to practice his English with us, so I decided to entertain him for a bit.
I can’t pass up a good opportunity to talk to the locals, especially if they approach us. I realize I probably should be learning about culture and shit, not just taking photos.
Alright. That’s all I got for today folks. Two bangers and no goddamn story. Oh well. BYE.
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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