Along the main beach at Corona Del Mar near Newport Beach is this solitary rock that is pictured here. This rock is situated about 10 feet off shore during low tide which is when I took this shot. I wanted to try my hand at something simple and minimal and I had seen this rock every time I visited here but there were always too many people around it considering it was on the main stretch of beach. So how did I get this picture with no people around you ask?? Well I came real early around 4:30 am. The only drawback around initially getting there was I couldn’t see anything. It was real dark out and there were even a few people there surprisingly, but not enough to be a problem. I could still see the rock alright but I could focus on it so I had to wait a few minutes until I could actually see it enough to focus. Because it was so dark out I didn’t even had to use any neutral density filters to slow down the water which was a plus. I just set my camera on my tripod with the shutter release in hand and snapped away. What’s funny about looking at what I was seeing with my eyes and the actually picture taken is how different the two were. There was so much ambient light that flooded into the picture from the sun that was about to rise that I couldn’t see with my own eyes. It was a new experience for me because I knew it happened but this was the first time I had witnessed it so dramatically in one of my own photos. I kept the post-processing for this shot real simple surprisingly considering all the crazy colors everywhere but that was 100% ambient light.
