Wave Stampede ©2013 Claudia Danforth Ward
Photographing waves is intoxicating to me. I've lived my entire life near the seashore and I also happen to be an Aquarian, so there should be no surprise that I love water - especially tidal waters. Over the years, I have photographed beaches, shorelines, surf, sand, and waves - but waves at a distance. It wasn't until our recent trip to Puerto Rico that I got up close and personal with the waves rising and crashing on the shore. I spent hours in the water capturing waves in their creation and demise, and I now think this "is what I want to do when I grow up". This is my first time out - so to speak - so some of these are a little rough around the edges, but I wanted to share them and my excitement with you ASAP. I sincerely hope you find these images as mesmorizing as I did.
Photos and slide show © 2013 Claudia Danforth Ward
Music: A Nom de Plume by Alexandre Desplat; soundtrack of "Casanova"
Thank you Ally, I was hoping for this kind of reaction!
Posted by: Claudia | Thursday, February 21, 2013 at 11:25 AM
amazing shapes- they remind me of the purest blown glass the way you have captured them.
Posted by: Ally de Groat | Tuesday, February 19, 2013 at 10:18 AM
Too cool, way (wave?!) too cool.
Posted by: Lee | Saturday, February 16, 2013 at 08:43 PM
Utterly fascinating...
Posted by: Barbara | Thursday, February 14, 2013 at 01:51 PM
Nancy, I started shooting these waves on the automatic setting of Sport with ISO set to automatic as well. I found the shutter speed wasn't fast enough to stop the action the way I wanted to, so I switched to Shutter Priority and set the shutter speed to 1/1250 second and set the ISO to 200. This worked fairly well although it did limit my depth of field with a fairly wide aperture of f/6.3. Wanting a bit more of each image to appear in focus, I decided to see what would happen if I increased the ISO to 400, despite the sunny day. The result was my aperture adusted to f/9.0 giving me the additional depth of field that I wanted. I happen to know that noise is not a real issue on the D60 at ISO 400. Remember it's always best to shoot at the lowest ISO that you can, on the D60 that's ISO 100 - that will always result in the best quality. When you want to "stop the action" first think shutter speed.
Posted by: Claudia Ward | Thursday, February 14, 2013 at 09:48 AM
I should amend that by saying that I often have too high an ISO and too slow a shutter speed, rather than the other way 'round!
Posted by: Nancy Lanzoni | Thursday, February 14, 2013 at 07:58 AM
Claudia, I love these photos. I normally shoot with an ISO fast enough to stop the action. I never thought about slowing it down. These are fabulous!
Posted by: Nancy Lanzoni | Thursday, February 14, 2013 at 07:54 AM