Michelle and I arrived 6:25 AM at Venice Beach to capture some sunrise images of the fishing pier. It was a glorious morning and the pastel colors of the sky were absolutely beautiful. The image to the left was the first one captured of the day. Using the Fujifilm X-E3 with the 18-55 lens, this is a 10 second exposure at f/16. 

The brightness increased quickly, and I added the GreenL 11 stop ND filter.The second photo, taken from the Sound side of Sharkey’s Pier, was at 60 Seconds, f/8.0 with the 11 stop ND filter. 

The sun rose quickly and struck the pier, totally changing the feel of the morning. Looking closely, you can see the flag is not out in the earliest image. By the time I walked to the South side of the pier, the American flag had been hoisted for the day. Pier walkers came out early and walked out on the pier whilst I was taking photographs. Most walked briskly and did not record on the image, but I did need to clone out a man with his coffee cup in the second photo.

The photo under this pier needed considerable post processing to get the look I wanted. Reviewing the image at home on the iMac screen, I noticed some barrel distortion from the Fujinon lens… or maybe the concrete legs had bowed a little! Either way, the legs needed to be straightened. I used the perspective tool in Capture one to correct the curve in the legs. I also did some basic highlight and shadow correction before sending the image to the SilverEfx plug in from NIK. Sometimes I use the plugin straight from Capture One, other times I will port the image to Affinity Photo for some retouching and open the NIK Collection from Affinity.

This was the second Seascape Photography session I did on this trip to Florida. Three days before I met Paul Cook of PC3 Photos and we photographed the sunset at Naples Beach. This was my first face-to-face meeting with a fellow YouTube content creator. We had a great time and created some really nice images. You can learn more about that adventure HERE.