Beach Photos

Venice Beach Walk

Submitted by Alik Griffin on Tue, 05/07/2013 - 23:14
This photo was taken between Venice Beach and Marina Del Ray at around sunset. I was more on the Marina Del Ray side looking towards the Venice Beach Pier. For the extreme long exposure I had to use my Light Craft Workshop ND 500. It's an ND filter that cuts down the light by 9 stops. This one is a lot of fun.

I'm still hoping to one day move down to this awesome little spot.

Today's Photo - Venice Beach Walk
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Low Tide at Miyajima Japan

Submitted by Alik Griffin on Tue, 04/30/2013 - 20:40
I like shooting HDR. You can pull so much more color and shadows out of a scene. A lot of my photos I shoot HDR but I try to avoid that 'HDR Look' since that's not really my thing. I do encourage people to shoot HDR though so they can get deep and rich colors out of the scene.

This HDR photo is from Miyajima Japan. I've taken several photos at this location on two different trips to Japan. And this place is awesome. The weather this time around wasn't that great though. While taking this shot it was very windy and pretty cold. I had to make sure my stuff didn't blow into the water. Or the wind didn't actually push me over into the water. It was that windy.

Today's HDR Photo - Low Tide at Miyajima Japan
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Rocky Bali Reef Break

Submitted by Alik Griffin on Sun, 04/28/2013 - 14:30
The beautiful rocky reefs of Bali make for some really interesting and picture perfect beach landscapes. I've been playing around more with some retro light leak looks with photoshop in my last few photos. Seems to add a new life to some of my old photos I never bothered processing because they didn't have that magical touch that landscapes really need in order to be great.

I today for the first time also signed up for an account on Deviant Art. I've always love Deviantart but never was a member, so I'll be posting some of my photography there as well. The community there is amazing.

Today's Photo - Rocky Bali Reef Break
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Low Sunset at Solana Beach

Submitted by Alik Griffin on Fri, 03/01/2013 - 13:26
This beach sunset photo is from Solana Beach which is in San Diego California. This is one of the coolest beach cities in North County San Diego in my opinion. It's just a different vibe than Oceanside, or La Jolla or Pacific Beach.

This sunset was interesting the night of this photo. There were some unique clouds but only off in the distance which created very cool negative space in the skies.

Today's Beach Photo
Batu Bolong

Submitted by Alik Griffin on Tue, 02/05/2013 - 23:08
Photography Tips Page

Last weekend I finished up a few video tutorials that I've been wanting to create for awhile. For now they are just the basics but I plan on getting a bit more advanced with them and eventually sharing all the tricks I use in my photography.

Hopefully this month I'll be able to make a completely HDR photography tutorials that cover every little thing about HDR. It seems to be a hot topic in the photography tutorial land and I've never been able to find really good and detailed HDR video tutorials that are free and made by people that actually produce consistent good HDR photos. And I refuse to pay for a tutorial since I believe knowledge should be free, so I've spent much of this last year learning HDR photography on my own and now I want to share it with new photographers looking to get started with this type of photography. So that means all my tutorials will be free and they will be awesome. So for now you can find them on my Photography Tips page. Have fun!

Today's Photo

Batu Bolong is just West of Tanah Lot which is the famous temple in the water of Bali. It seems there are temples just about everywhere in Bali. I'd like to see more of Indonesia one day. It's such an awesome country. If you ever go there you'll want to spend a full week. It's not the type of place where you can just stop by for three days. There is just too much stuff to do and see.
Sunset at Miyajima

Submitted by Alik Griffin on Tue, 02/05/2013 - 21:32
After spending all day at Miyajima we headed back to the boat to get back to the mainland before it got too dark. Surprisingly after doing a little shopping at the little tourist street there was still a sunset. It was a dark one so I had to do a rather longer exposure than usual. It always amazes me what kind of colors and light the camera can still pick up when set to a long exposure.

Today's HDR Photo
Sunset at Solana Beach

Submitted by Alik Griffin on Fri, 02/01/2013 - 01:53
When I lived in San Diego this was one of the main beaches I would surf at. Every year it seems San Diego gets more and more crowded and more of the cities are trying to doing the L.A. thing where they put a parking meter next to any place that could possibly fit a car. This is one of the last beaches I know of where there is still relatively easy to find parking in the middle of the summer that's free. The spots known as Cherry Hill located directly behind Frogs Gym. And in the winter you can get some great sunsets and there are many abandoned stair ways that once led up to the houses on the cliffs above that you can take photos around. Like this one. Except this one was still in use.

Today's Photo
Beaches of Bali

Submitted by Alik Griffin on Fri, 12/28/2012 - 13:44
One of the things I didn't do in Bali was go surfing. Although Bali is known for its epic waves, this trip was more about photography. I am after all trying to make it a career. There will be plenty of time to play later.

It doesn't look like it but you can actually surf where I took this photo. There is a small spot just in the foreground and another spot right behind me. It looks treacherous but it is possible, as long as you know what you're doing.

Today's Photo
Another Beautiful Sunset at Victoria Beach - Laguna Beach

Submitted by Alik Griffin on Sun, 10/28/2012 - 17:35
This sunset photo is from Victoria Beach. Sunsets and beach photos work well with a 2.35 crop like this. It really seems to features the horizon well.

This is an HDR beach photo. There really isn't a way to shoot a photo like this without multiple exposures, unless you use an ND gradient filter. I think today a lot more photograpehrs are moving towards HDR and combining the exposures in post rather than fiddling around with filters. I didn't tweak the colors too much on this one. I'm starting to like beach photos that have a more natural look. But sometimes if the sky and color is right, I'll push it a little more to give it a unique look and feel.
The Oceanside Pier

Submitted by Alik Griffin on Sat, 10/20/2012 - 18:02
The Oceanside pier is a tough one to shoot. It's very, very crowded. Probably more crowded than the Santa Monica Pier. This photo is taken later in the night, after most of the people who were lingering from the sunset left. The mist from the ocean created an interesting effect on my lens. It turned my UV filter into a soft glow filter. So I took advantage of it on a few shots before cleaning it off.

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