Shooting At Seal Beach

As mentioned yesterday, Saturday was the annual Worldwide Photo Walk. I signed up to walk in Seal Beach. Nice people. Lackluster setting.

I was very disappointed in what I brought home. Part of it was my self imposed lens limit. Part had to do with experimenting with neutral density filters. Part had to do with Seal Beach itself and the fact SB sunset shots include the oil derricks in Long Beach.

Oh–hazy too.

However, there’s a nice payoff in spite of my ineptitude. I just got this email from Gena.

We were so fortunate to have you photograph us last night. We talked about it being a magical moment. We were talking about our hopes and dreams and you captured the moment. We would love it if you could send the photo our way. We are going to be grandparents this week and would love to share with our grandkids some day. Thank you! We are eternally grateful!

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I came across Gena and her husband after the Sun had set. They were on the wet sand above the high water mark just north of the Seal Beach Pier. They were alone on the beach… except for the guy with camera gear moving toward them.

If I wanted I could have started snapping away without asking. The law says you have no expectation of privacy in a public place. That’s not how I operate.

They were in a conversation. I stood three or four feet back and tried to get their attention. It took a few tries over the sound of the waves before I made contact.

I told them they would make a beautiful shot, from the rear with no identifiable faces. Would it be OK?

All I asked was for them to be still. I didn’t want to pop a flash. This would be a long exposure. I planted my tripod in the sand, got it as low as possible and hoped for the best.

I used my 8mm fisheye for the shot. It’s totally manual, even focusing.

Here’s the rest of my catch. You’ll notice no pictures of the sunset itself! I found the ’47 Packard while walking to my car.

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BTW — if there are seals at Seal Beach, I didn’t see them.

3 thoughts on “Shooting At Seal Beach”

  1. You should’t be disappointed at all in what you brought home! You gave two people a wonderful, meaningful experience that will live forever through their children and grandchildren. I would say that as far as photographic games go, to use baseball parlance, that’s a home run. Way to go…

  2. Love the picture of the Packard. Your too hard on yourself, Geoff. Your photos are beautiful. I’m sure you took a ton of pictures to get these few beauties. (Isn’t that always the way)

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