High Surf at Playa del Rey

A few weeks ago we had some unusually high surf here in Southern California caused by a hurricane off the Baja coast.  It brought very warm weather, too.

Having not shot enough personal work lately, I ventured out to my local beach, Playa del Rey, just north of LAX airport and about 5 miles from my home.  This being part of Santa Monica Bay, we usually have 2-4 foot waves.  During this time, we had 8-10 foot rollers.  This was a rare time that all of the lifeguard stations were manned as the undertow was also very severe.  There was a surprising number of people, considering it was a weekday evening.

I decided to take my 4×5 film camera to the beach and on the jetty.  This was a chancy thing to do, as major waves were crashing onto the jetty.  Yes, I got wet, as did the tripod, but I kept the camera case closed to protect the gear.

In this shot, the sun was just above the horizon, and gives that nice warm glow.  The lifeguard shack is actually blue.

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This is my favorite time of day, when you can see the blue shadow of the earth just above the horizon.  Because of the water movement, I shot a few extra sheets of film.  I like the unusual pattern of the water just beyond the rocks of the jetty in this one second exposure.

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You can see the surge of the surf in this image, shot just after the image above from the same place.

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This image is shot on color negative film and gives a totally different look and color palette.  I caught the wave crashing against the jetty.  Yes, I got wet during this shot!  The lifeguards wanted people to stay off the jetties, but that’s were the best views were!  There were about 20 of us out there.

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On this shot looking west towards the sunset, you can see a few of the hearty souls out fishing.  The standing water on the jetty is reflecting the sunset, but also shows that the water crashes on top of the jetty.

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Most people photograph the sunset directly, like the previous shot, but I think the better view is the reverse angle, above.  The warm glow contrasts with the coolness of the light in the sky and water.  This is a 45 second exposure, rendering the surf on the right and the mouth of Ballona Creek on the left smooth.  Marina del Rey is on the left.

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I moved further down the jetty for this night shot because I wanted to get some reflection from the standing water.  The water is quite velvety in this 7 minute exposure.  Note the streaks above the buildings on the right, as they are airliners on approach to LAX.

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For all of these shots I used a hand-held Sekonic spot reading light meter, a modern high tech digital light measuring device.  It is very accurate and helps me understand what the light is doing, including helping with the exposure, too.  I can see the light change in the shadows and highlights as the day goes to twilight to night.  Modern digital cameras also analyze the light to get the proper exposure.

It wasn’t always this easy.  Recently, a friend purchased a “Posographe” on ebay, which is a 1921 calculating device.  It doesn’t read light, but interprets what the light does in relation to time of day and year, type of sky, etc.  It even allows for interior exposures, based on colors of the walls, size of the windows and where they are placed.  I played with it a bit and it seems quite accurate, at least in relation to different situations.  Here are a couple of photos of the unit, both front (outdoor subjects) and back (indoor subjects).  It is actually a 6-varible calculator–remarkably complex, especially for its time.  It was a French invention, so most of the calculators are in French.  This is a rare English language one.

It’s about the size of a cell phone and made of polished nickel and hand painted onto porcelain coated steel (like your bathtub).  It was invented by a Mr. Kaufman and is really a 1920s computer.  Here is an image of the internals:

Making photographs has become so easy in the last dozen years, that’s it’s fun to play with such a tool from over 90 years ago to appreciate where it’s all come from…