I can't blame it on the wind (this time)............

This is downright embarrassing.

I caught a train down the coast to an outer suburban beach yesterday with the full intention of taking some beach landscapes.  After all, I rarely take landscapes and the truth is………I need the practice.

But I feel terribly embarrassed to admit I forgot to change the Aperture on the camera.  It was left on the f3.5 for the most part, which is what I use for flower close-ups.  There are a few images at around f5.6, but the early images using the 50mm lens were f3.5.

I changed the ISO a few times.  I even changed the lens from the 50mm to the 18-200mm telephoto.

The landscape shots still look OK – thank goodness – but they could have been better if I’d used a higher Aperture.  This beach is actually a good place to take landscapes as you can get some rocks or plants in the foreground.

There was minimal wind and rather hot in the sun - I DID remember to put sunblock on my forearms yesterday, although my forearms are actually getting rather sun-tanned anyway.

I’m still going to share the images, so you can see the compositions.  The first image in this post is almost the same scene that I shot 2 years ago (even the same plants in the foreground if I remember rightly).

At this point in the early afternoon, I stopped walking to have lunch and just sat on my (rather hard) rock enjoying watching the waves crash on the shore.  They weren’t really big waves, but all the same, the movement and sound was very relaxing.

Nothing beats sitting on the beach watching the incoming tide and the gradual movement of the water as each surge of seawater creeps up the sand  towards you.  I did get rather hot though, so decided to just take a few more photos, walk up the cliff path and catch a train back into the city to do a bit of shopping.  My little printer/scanner/copier completely died before Christmas and I had a list of potential replacements to look at  & compare, which I’d researched on the internet.

The next shot shows what I was aiming for in composition (if not sharp focus).  This was the only piece of driftwood on the whole beach that I could see.  I wonder if it would still be there if I went back another day?  I’d like to have another try at this composition.

I was walking back along the walking/cycling path next to the highway to get to the train station in the last few shots.  You can’t see the beach at all on this cliff top path, but there’s always time for a few more simple photos along the way.

At least with these close-ups, the Aperture was closer to the mark.  I love the twisted, knarled shapes of the fallen logs along the cliffs.  Wish I’d stopped to unfold my tripod (which I didn’t use at all yesterday) – I was too hot and just wanted to get to the train at this stage, so took a few quick shots and was happy to relax on the train going back into the city.

I’ll go down to this beach again some other time, as I could see the point of land jutting out into the sea where I seem to remember there were some great rock pools.  I haven’t been to that point since I had a car back in the late 1990s.  But as long as it’s not too hot, I think I could walk down that far (as there is no public transport to the point).  There are some lovely tea-rooms (or restaurant) there, so if I was too tired to walk all the way back, I could call a taxi to that location to take me back to the train station.

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Tags: bayside beach, beach, driftwood, landscapes, rocks, sand, sea, waves

• January 10, 2013
• Bayside Beaches, Landscapes, Plants
• 6 comments