Parlee Beach Sunset

I don't know why it took me all these years to realize the beach isn't that far away. I'm very lazy for initiatives sometimes but 15min drive is very lazy. So I checked the tide and planned a low tide with the sunset. I never went so I didn't know what to expect.

Surprisingly there were more people than I thought and it was freezing. This is mid-April but still, it was much colder than I anticipated. I went with my buddy and we were there early. So it was a long wait until the sunsets.

While we walked and checked for compositions, there was these cool pattern in the sand from the receding tide.

These shots were taken with my Fujifilm X-T3 + Fujinon 27mm F/2.8. This is out of camera raw with Lightroom presets (Adobe Color):

I really liked the pattern and the square crops suits this well. I think waiting for softer light would've been better but it's a good baseline. For global adjustments, I lowered contrast a little bit, increased texture, clarity, and a little bit of dehaze. For the tone curve, I lifted the blacks and the whites. In the color grading, I cooled the shadows and warmed the highlights. There are 2 ways of vignetting. One with a radial filter, which has more control, and the other is with the Effects tab. I used the latter since I didn't need anything fancy. I added a local brush adjustment over the whole image for the highlights only. Not sure why since I used the color grading but I usually prefer the brush as it gives me more control with the other settings.

27mm 1/30sec F/8 ISO160

The sun was finally setting and there weren't any clouds in the sky. It was more like hazy. It's still high but I like the contrast and warmth in this image. I'm very surprised I didn't need to bracket this image.

I was a bit underexposed because I was protecting the sun highlights so I increase the exposure just a little bit but mostly increased the shadows almost all the way up. I decreased vibrancy but just a tad. In the tone curve, I lifted the blacks. I cooled the shadows in the color grading tab but I didn't touch the highlights. I don't often play with the Calibration but for the shadows, I moved it to the purple by 7 points and move the blue to the left by 5 points so not much.

For local adjustments. let's start with the sky. I cooled the temperature, decreased contrast, highlights, clarity, and dehaze. Really trying to soften it up. For the foreground, I increased the texture, clarity, and saturation. There's also another gradient filter for the foreground but it stops at the midground and it's just to brighten up a bit because it was too dark. For the highlights, I used a brush with a mask and increased the temperature and the tint to purple. This time for vignetting, I used the radial filter because I didn't want to darken the foreground but also I increased the temperature.

27mm 1/250sec F/11 ISO160

This is more what I had in mind when I went to the beach. Even though I didn't bracket, I should have because recovering the shadows was messy.

It's rare but I increased the tint for more purple to increase those pastel colors. I decrease the highlights and increased the shadows to retrieve the lost details in the sand. This softened the image a lot so I increased the vibrancy to get a bit more punch in the colors. Again with the tone curve, I lifted the blacks but it's only slightly. I usually don't go above 10 points. In the HSL tab, I moved the blue hue to more blue than teal and decrease the blue saturation because it was not balanced with the rest of the colors. No color grading. In the calibration, I moved the blue primary to teal and increased the saturation just a bit. This affects all the colors in the image and that's why I adjusted the blue in the HSL tab.

For local adjustments, I placed a gradient filter and decreased the highlights. I have one for the rest of the image to increase the texture and clarity so we can see the water and sand ripple a bit better. There's another just for the sand and only for the shadows to increase the whites and temperature. From the right, I have another gradient filter to cool the temperature so it makes a nice gradient from warm to blue tones. At the bottom of the images, there's another one to darken the sand a bit. There's a huge radial filter to decrease the dehaze and a bit of warmth. For the water, I used a local brush and decreased the exposure and highlights. I couldn't use a polarizer because I didn't have my step-up rings yet.

27mm 1/20sec F/11 ISO160

My hands were so cold I could barely more them but nonetheless, I got some decent shots and I will try to go again. I'm just a bit concern about nicer weather, there's will be too many people and footprints around.

Most people prefer the second picture but I leaning on the last picture because of its colors and calmness. What's important when you shoot is what you like. Nothing else.