Boring Beaches

Ahh, summer is finally here and you head out to the beach for a weekend of fun in the sun with family and friends. But in the Pacific Northwest you're more likely to find a 4-leaf clover than a sunny day at the beach. Now for a true northwesterner, a slate grey sky will hardly deter a trip to the beach - we know how to handle this. Bring a jacket, some games, and a sense of adventure. So off to the beach you go with clouds overhead, sand at your feet, and wind in your face.

Essential to any weekend getaway to the beach - or anywhere for that matter - is your camera to record the memories of fun and adventure. You take pictures of your friends, your family, your pets, and your self. But when you turn your camera to the wide sweeping beaches of Washington, the scenery just falls flat. You love the open views to the horizon and the rolling waves splashing onto the sand, it's just no matter how you frame it your images don't hold a candle to the adventure you experience. It's just not helping tell your story.

Many Washington beaches along the southern part of the state and north out of Puget Sound are missing the dynamic waves and picturesque sea stacks of the wilderness coast of Olympic Peninsula and the Oregon Coast. Our beaches are wide, flat, and challenging to photograph, especially when the big puffy clouds that make the sky so interesting are also missing. When you get home and look at your pictures, they just aren't as exciting as you remember your day being. They neglect to tell your story. But there are ways to help you make the most of a flat beach scene to add to your fun and tales.

1. Look to your Feet. When we hit the beach we are overly excited for the freedom of open sand and fresh salt air. If you're anything like me, you want to head straight to the waves and start splashing. This idea is a challenge to pause and look at what is at your feet. You'll find amazing details at your feet. You can see shells, rocks, seaweed, driftwood, dead things, critters (and prints), and plants at your feet - all wonderful details to photograph. Try taking pictures looking straight down on the object. Or, get down low - even placing your camera on the sand (it's best if you place your camera on something other than sand like a towel to protect it from the abrasive sands) to get an image of it in the foreground and the wide beach extending seemingly endlessly beyond. A few detail images like this will add to your story.

In the image above, I was fascinated by these beach plants that looked like a tiny forest in the sand.

2. Look for Abstracts. Abstract photographs rely on visual storytelling without the benefit of an obvious subject but instead relates emotion through shapes and colors. At times, the image doesn't appear to have any relation to the natural world. Repeated lines and patterns when that is all you see can be abstract. Think of repeating sand dunes, or details of the dunes highlighted by light and shadow. Rippled patterns in the sand left from waves are abstract. Again this challenge is to look closely at the beach - to find the patterns and shapes that help relate the emotion of your time at the beach.

The erratic shape of puddle in the above image drew me in closer and as I looked at it, I saw the joy our dogs were having running freely.

3. I.C.M or Intentional Camera Movement. This can create movement where there is none or create an abstract out of a larger scene turning the ho-hum into excitement. For this, you will need a slower shutter speed (many cameras on your smart phones are capable of taking a series of images over a few seconds and blending them into one or there are a few apps that can help you take longer exposures). Try a couple of seconds - long enough to blur the image when you move the camera, but not so long that your subject becomes completely unrecognizable. Then as you make your exposure, move the camera from one side to another. Check your image and see if that works and adjust as you need to for the effect you want. This is also a fun effect to create in forests by moving your camera up and down. For beaches, I generally move the camera horizontally or parallel to the lines of the main subject. But this is your story and all you have to do is give yourself permission to play.

For the above image, I changed the setting for a 4 second exposure and slowly moved the camera from right to left.

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