"A Dream Approaches"...a new release from D."Bodhi" Smith

This is my newest composition entitled, "A Dream Approaches." It was captured on Coronado Island in San Diego this past Friday May 15th during an extremely high tide event right at sunset.

Unfortunately, this scene needs many factors to align: a high tide of 6 plus feet is a must, clouds coming in off the Pacific, and both have to happen at sunset. A tide of this magnitude happens only a few times a year, and I was lucky this time that it was occurring as a Pacific storm was hitting us here in Southern California, which is rare for the month of May. Thus, my alignment was possible, and I had a widow of about three days to get lucky with a capture...and of course, I was at this spot all three days.

I have had this picture in my mind for close to 9 months now, but had to wait through numerous occasions of getting washed out with no luck because one of the factors was not present. And ironically I LITERALLY got washed out during my first attempt in the 3-day window of opportunity that was given me from mother nature. For as the night before I captured this image, I fought that strong Pacific storm in a torrential downpour hoping the clouds would break at sunset, but there was no such luck and all that happened for me and my dog was that we got on heck of a natural shower, absolutely soaked, even drenched through my rainwear because of the veracity of the wind and rain.

But as you can see, the next night was much more kind for me and I caught this image. And consequently I managed to get another great shot on the third night that maybe someday I will process and put out there.

Anyway, this image is dedicated to the Annets (Jean-Luc and Julie) for their patience with me in trying to catch this scene for them...

The title is derived from one of Salvador Dali's paintings similarly named "The Approaching Dream"...since his surrealist influence is very strong in my photographic visions.

Camera Settings: ISO-100, f/8 at 45mm for 915 seconds using 2 Lee Proglass Filters (3.0ND and a 1.6ND) to drop the exposure 16 stops... this is two 15 minute exposures composited into one image using Photoshop CS6, which creates a perfect square for the final composition. The sun was setting about 45 degrees opposite of the reef and not directly over top of it as I wanted. So one long exposure is for the sunset and one long exposure is for the rock reef.

I hope this message and image find you well.

Peace,
D. " Bodhi "

#Nikon #D800 #Nikkor #Dolica #tripods #Lee #Filters #Big #stopper #LongExposure #BodhiSmith #Impressionist #expressionist #Sunset #SanDiego #Coronado #Island #reflections #reef #Beach #Seascape #California #Pacific #Ocean

Newer image, Entitled "The Greeters" by D. "Bodhi" Smith

My newest composition here is entitled "The Greeters." This was captured during my recent trip to the south island of New Zealand in March/early April, 2015.

After my plane landed in Christchurch and I gathered my luggage and got my rental car, it took me a bit to get acclimated to the left-side road driving and opposite instruments and controls in the car. But soon after I was headed down the left side of the highway towards the south parts of New Zealand. My first stop was to be the Moeraki Boulders on the coast but was unable to capture anything because of a massive rain system hanging over the area that was also dropping many lightning bolts onto the beach...so I relegated this spot for capturing later (images to come of these soon) and drove to the city where I was staying for the next couple of nights, Dunedin, for sunset...

Pictured here is the old pier on St. Clair beach located just south of Dunedin, New Zealand. On this evening there was a fairly low tide, so I got right down into the middle of the old pier posts to take this one amidst the waves. I liked the way the red illumination from the sunset was just creeping into the right side of the image and glowing off the pier posts and the wet beach sand. There was no way to get the setting sun into the frame because at dusk its aspect was behind some quite large hills that are just west of this beach, so I decided to center the island just off the coast between the pier posts. The island was named "Ponuiahine" by the indigenous Moāri which oddly means "The Girl's Great Night"...the local English name is much less original, it is named "White Island" because of the island's appearance from all of the white bird droppings that have built up the island over the centuries.

This is the actual first image I took during my recent trip to New Zealand. So the title of the image comes from the fact that this composition "greeted" me to the beauties of New Zealand combined with the way the pier posts look to have faces on them (at the top) and are all lined up like ushers greeting people as they come off the ocean and "walk down the aisle" of these greeters onto the beach and then into Dunedin...

I hope this image and message find you well.

Camera Settings: ISO-100, 24mm at f/11 for 381 seconds using one Lee Proglass 3.0ND Filter (10 stops) for the longer exposure and on Lee .75ND Grad (2.5 stops) to balance the brighter sky with the foreground...image was captured at 7:30pm as the sun was setting (off camera about 90° to my position)...

peace,
D. "Bodhi"

‪#‎New‬ ‪#‎Zealand‬ ‪#‎South‬ ‪#‎Island‬ ‪#‎Moari‬ ‪#‎Dunedin‬ ‪#‎SaintClair‬ ‪#‎Dolica‬‪#‎Tripods‬ ‪#‎Lee‬ ‪#‎Filters‬ ‪#‎BigStopper‬ ‪#‎ND‬ ‪#‎LongExposure‬ ‪#‎LE‬ ‪#‎Nikon‬‪#‎D800‬ ‪#‎Nikkor‬ ‪#‎24mm‬ ‪#‎f1‬.4 ‪#‎Seascape‬ ‪#‎Pier‬ ‪#‎Ruins‬ ‪#‎Beach‬ ‪#‎Ocean‬‪#‎Waves‬ ‪#‎Landscape‬ ‪#‎Sunset‬ ‪#‎Dusk‬ ‪#‎Reflection‬

Newer image, entitled "Ambivalent to Becoming" by D. "Bodhi" Smith

Entitled, "Ambivalent to Becoming," this is another of my newest compositions captured recently on my trip to the South island of New Zealand. I am telling you, without hesitation, go visit this country...it is a very beautiful land.

I named this image "Ambivalent to Becoming" as I can personify these rocks as unhatched eggs...only these eternal eggs could care less one way or another if they ever hatch to become something else...they just sit and bask in the sun as they lay on the beach day after day, year after year, century after century, relishing in the idea that being is better than becoming. This might be my best title for an image of mine ever, IMHO.

I got up a few hours before sunrise and set off on dawn patrol for capturing the Moeraki boulders (pronounced "Mow-racky") at sunrise during a low tide event. My drive to this spot was a little over an hour, but because of the time in the morning, there was absolutely no traffic on the highway and I made it in less than one hour. Under darkness i headed out in search of these gigantic boulders. I was shut out by rain/lightning for capturing a sunset at this spot a couple nights previously, but luckily I was able to return to this unique scene before I headed over to the west coast of the island on my third day in New Zealand.

This is a well known spot for visitors and photographers alike to visit. Pictures of these boulders were even on the promo images for New Zealand Airlines during my arrival flight listed as a place tourists "must see." So it is not a surprise that this beach gets extremely crowded as people relieve their curiosity and get up-close and personal to check-out these egg-like rocks. And to boot, they are very easy to find with signage right off the main highway and access via a short, easy stroll on the beach.

I made the stroll up the beach in the dark to see the large silhouettes of these boulders in the dim glow of my headlamp at low lumens. Impressive in the dark, I could not wait to see them in the reds and purples of the morning light. But that would not turn out to be the case on this morning as the tide and the clouds just did not cooperate.

I was then joined by another aspiring NZ photographer, Mason Osborne as the sun was starting to rise. We were both comparatively disappointed because the cloud deck was just too thick on the east front to permit any of the red wavelengths of the rising sun to shine on the clouds overhead, resulting in a very lackluster and unspectacular sunrise. Bummer. Double Bummer. My idea of "Planned Chance" working against my favor once again...or maybe not?

As I pointed out previously, this location is well known, so before I ever stepped foot on the Moeraki Beach, I was told over and over by numerous guides and photographers to shoot here at low tide. I will tell you now that this is not so. Do not shoot this location at low tide, ever, period. This is identical to California's Bowling Ball Beach as it is best shot at middle-high tide. Low tide is too low. High tide is too high. Middle-high tide is Goldilocks just right.

At sunrise, the tide was honestly just too low to really get anything spectacular with my style of long exposure photography anyway. The waves were not coming in far enough and flowing around the most interesting of the boulders on the beach. So my Options: 1. leave and make my way early to Lake Wanaka, or, 2. stay 3-4 hours longer on this beach until the tide came up and was surrounding the rocks and hope the cloud deck lingers to help block down the sunlight. #1 had no risk or variables. #2 needed allot to happen for it to work out. I opted for #2, I would wait, reasoning that it might be a long while before I made it back to this beach in the future. I decided I would hang out until the clouds started to break up or the tide came in and permitted me to shoot these rocks in the manner I wanted to capture them.

A few hundred people milled onto the beach and played around and on top of these boulders as the clock ticked away and the tide came in more and more favorably. The clouds hung out with me, as if wanting me to capture something special from this spot to take home to the other hemispheres of the world. I set up on these three rocks at the north end of the formation, more remote and aways from most of the tourists on the beach. I liked their roundness and contrast to the waves rolling in around them. I waited. The clouds waited as well. Then it happened, I got an image I really liked, this is the result. Glad I chose that second option, but I know I could have easily wasted my time and got nothing for my efforts, but "Planned Chance" did work in my favor after all. As I walked down the beach to the carpark, the clouds broke apart and the sun came out in its full bright glory. Insert a smile on my face as I strolled off the beach, got in the car, and drove off down the left side of the road to Wanaka singing to the steering wheel my rendition of Men at Work's "Overkill" which was playing through my iPod into the car stereo ...

By the way, these boulders make up a rare rock-reef formation whose only equal is actually found in my native California on the northern coastline in Mendocino county on "Bowling Ball Beach" (see my image a few posts below this one that is named "Idiosycre Sea"). I am not certain, but I think that I might very well be the only professional photog to have captured gallery images from both of these beautiful and eerie seaside rock formations located on opposite sides of the vast Pacific Ocean. And I hate to admit it, but this set of rocks is more photogenic and eloquent than the ones found in my homeland...I will be going back to revisit this scene as a sunset, and at mid-high tide in the near future. Beautiful rocks in a beautiful land.

May this picture bring a smile and brightness to your day

Camera Settings: ISO-100, 28mm at f/8 for 355 seconds taken at 10:56am under a canopy of heavy clouds...using the Lee filter holder system, I stacked four filters mounted in front of my Nikkor 28-70mm f2.8 lens for this exposure: three Lee Proglass ND Filters (3.0ND (a.k.a. the Big Stopper),.9ND, and .6ND for 15 stops in total) for permitting me to capture this extreme long exposure and one Lee .75ND Grad (2.5 stops) to balance the brighter sky with the foreground...

I hope this message and image find you well.

peace,
D. "Bodhi"

‪#‎New‬ ‪#‎Zealand‬ ‪#‎South‬ ‪#‎Island‬ ‪#‎Moeraki‬ ‪#‎Boulders‬ ‪#‎Dunedin‬ ‪#‎Dolica‬‪#‎Tripods‬ ‪#‎Lee‬ ‪#‎Filters‬ ‪#‎BigStopper‬ ‪#‎ND‬ ‪#‎LongExposure‬ ‪#‎LE‬ ‪#‎Nikon‬‪#‎D800‬ ‪#‎Nikkor‬ #24-70mm ‪#‎Seascape‬ ‪#‎Reef‬ ‪#‎Beach‬ ‪#‎Pacific‬ ‪#‎Ocean‬‪#‎Waves‬ ‪#‎Landscape‬ ‪#‎Reflection‬

Latest Image, "Repose" by D. "Bodhi" Smith

Here is my latest composition entitled, "Repose" This image was captured a few weeks ago on January 18 during another one of our gorgeous California sunsets over the Pacific Ocean at the Huntington Beach Pier.

This is another extremely long exposure of over 11 minutes so that I could minimize all of the people who were roaming about on the pier and directly in front of me in the water enjoying the same sunset that I was...on this night, with this radiant sunset, there were ALLOT of people, so I need the extra exposure time to "erase" them from the composition.

The name come for the fact that the word "repose' has multiple meanings, each of which fits well for me with this image. Until this image, I had not captured a color image of the Huntington beach pier which even remotely overly thrilled me until this one, so this is another "reposing" of the pier before me. It also lives up a couple other meanings of repose--laying in tranquility or sleep, and situated in a particular place...this pier is "going to sleep" for the night as people leave after the sun went down....plus, it is a staple of Southern California culture and an icon in movies, music videos, album covers, pictures, and vacations.

Anyway, I hope this message and image finds you well.

Camera settings: ISO-100, 24mm at f/8 for 677 seconds (11mins, 11secs) about 15 minutes after the sun had set using one Lee Proglass .9ND Filter (3 stops) and one Lee .75ND Grad filter (2.5 stops) to balance the sky with the darker sand in the foreground.

peace,
D."Bodhi"

#LeeFilters #Nikon #D800 #Nikkor #80-200mm #Dolica #BodhiSmith #Huntington #Beach #Pier #Pacific #Ocean #Sunset #LongExposure #LE #PCH1 #OrangeCounty #California

"Coronación de la Puerta" new release by D."Bodhi" Smith

Entitled, "Coronación de la Puerta," this is my newest composition. It was captured last Sunday during a surprisingly low tide event at sunset on the extreme south end of Little Corona Beach in Corona Del Mar, CA. As the sun was setting, I never would have imagined that I would end up capturing this surreal little beauty with my camera.

Last Sunday, I was watching the clouds all day and hoping for something stellar at sunset. When it looked like maybe something special was going to occur, I headed off to Newport Beach with my dog, The Dude, as well as with my friend and fellow photog, Jeff Deveau. This area was selected for two reasons, Jeff had never really shot this part of Orange County, and it is a great low tide location to shoot, and it was a low tide on that evening.

We arrived slightly late after hitting a couple "detours" and traffic along the way, consequently it was only 20 minutes until sunset as we were walking down onto the beach at Little Corona. I quickly noticed that this low tide was much lower than it was supposed to be (according to my favorite app: "Tide Chart Free"). So, I decided to quickly hump the half mile trek southward down to the hidden arch; Jeff opted to stay at the north end of the beach by the sphinx and bypass the sketchy hike which can be tricky and slippery, especially when rushed.

The beach was overly crowded for a winter's evening, but I think that lots of people just all decided to try to watch/photograph a stellar sunset at this magnificent location on this particular night for some reason. Having all of the hordes of people present was yet another big part of my reasoning in my decision making process to head south to the hidden arch, especially since there is never more than 1-2 people tops ever down there as most people do not even know of the arch's existence.

My pup and I hustled down the beachline and actually safely made it before sunset in a record time. But, Wow, really?!? When I got there, I could not believe my eyes...there were 12 other people there. Twelve!? There was about 6 others photographing the arch, 3 on-lookers, and 3 people climbing on the arch. Never have I seen people climbing the arch, never. There actually might have been more people than pelicans and birds here for a change because of that fact.

Three of the photographers were set up pretty far back of the arch itself trying to catch reflections in the tide pools. This was not a composition I was crazy about, especially with the fact that the clouds were quickly dissipating at sunset as they often do here. Eventhough the climbers were in everyone's compositions as the sun was setting, I did not want to get in the way as well of the other photographers who were there before me by pushing forward to the spot I would rather have set up closer to the arch, so I set up in line with them and opted for my Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8 lens for this shot.

However, it really looked like this was not going to be a night when I captured anything special as the sun was setting. The composition was really not doing anything for me. There were way too many people milling around for this spot, the light was off in the wrong direction, plus, the clouds and sky were stubbornly not cooperating well with me either.

From where I was set up, most of the rockband to the right of the arch was blocking out all of the wonderful colors in the clouds that were really glowing on the horizon five minutes after the sunset. The climbers were all standing on top of that side of the formation watching the cray reds in the sky absolutely going off like fireworks. Its brilliant colors pulled all of the other photographers around the side of the arch out of my sight to try to shoot it. This left the arch wide open all to myself for me to shoot. But, I did not move with them, for I was was just not crazy about the composition facing northwest, even though the colors of the sky were awesome. I decided to stick with my composition of the arch as "a door with no sky" in the scene except only those few glowing clouds that could be espied through the arch.

I actually could have moved forward to the spot I first wanted because everyone cleared out and headed back 20 mins after the sunset. But I was already set up and did not want to have to swap out my lens, filters, and then redial in my focus. I did get my wish of solitude, as all 12 people, including the climbers, evacuated the scene and were slowly making their way back north navigating through the slick and sharp rocks under the cliffs in the low light. Jeff said he saw the steady stream of headlamps slowly progressing their way towards his location. My pup and I were alone under the fading dim red glow of the sky.

I always overshoot. I usually will not leave the beach until the light is totally gone. I just do not give up that easily. Even on this night when I truly figured that a great shot was just not in the cards, I stuck it out just a little bit longer. More-often-than-not, I capture nothing as the light quickly falls of--it happens all too frequently, and unfortunately, is one of the banes of being a landscape photographer (if watching beautiful sunsets in isolated places on the beach can ever be any sort of a bane).

Ten minutes after sunset as the other people around me were clearing out, I had tried to capture a 15 minute (900 second) exposure using my Lee Proglass 3.0ND filter (10 stops) at f/11, but the image came out too dark in the dwindling light. Still, I decided one more shot (I am glad I made this decision!)...took the 3.0ND off and replace it with a Lee Proglass .9ND filter (3 stops), patted my pup on the head for luck, bumped my aperture up to f/8, re-focused at the new f/stop, set the timer for 500 seconds (8 mins 20 secs), and sat down on a rock next to my dog to enjoy the gorgeous colors still in the sky while my camera took its last shot of the night. Now, here before you are the results for your eyes to enjoy. :)

This ultra long exposure photograph helps me to ultimately fathom a deeper meaning of witnessing things before me that cross through into another dimension--sort of like the meaning behind the name of the famous rock group, "The Doors. " With chills running up my spine, I can imagine a partially delusional Jim Morrison watching a groovy surreal sunset such as this at this spot and afterwards finding enlightenment for a name that he would forever be linked with..

My title roughly translates in English to the "Crowning of the Door"... I was not going to put this image out there until after I finished processing my Easter Island series, but the Vice President of Sales at Dolica Tripods (Daniel C.) saw this image on the back of my camera when we were out shooting together last week. A big reason for me selecting my title in Spanish is to honor his heritage and parallel the name of the town where the picture was captured with my feelings of transcendence. Daniel's stoked reaction alone made me decide to process this image a little quicker...let me know if you think his reaction was right...

Camera settings:ISO-100, 80mm at f/8 for 500 secs using one Lee Proglass .9ND filter to drop the exposure 3 stops as the light was dropping off exponentially at 25 minutes after the sunset at 5:40pm.

This image is dedicated to VP of Sales, Daniel Calderon, at Dolica tripods for instilling the desire in me to process this image now and not wait until later...thank you Daniel.

I hope this message and image find you well.

Peace,
D."Bodhi"

#Lee Filters #Dolica #Nikon #D800 #Nikkor #Sunse t#Long Exposure #Orange County #OC #Corona Del Mar #Newport Beach #Low Tide #Arch #Impressionist #Surreal #Doors #Bodhi Smith