Ruby Beach, March 2008
So a family puts a red cooler down in this shot. A bulky man strolls through my field (er, it feels like mine at the moment) and oh yes he’s watching me too. Lenscap off, the darkslide pulled and extended to shade the sun like a half-caution in semaphore. It would’ve likely been a surreal scene if a third party had been there to observe it; antique photographer, modern family unit, and a desolate and blustery March sunset.
The great thing about long exposures is that there is compositional relief from the average white family with a big red cooler. Their vapors mingle with the blasted light here, nothing solid or insurmountable, and I don’t think the composition suffers for it but still my sympathies are with the rock. It seems turned away from the sea, concerned perhaps with more modest demarcations of time.