Magic Cloth

Long exposure = 168 seconds = almost 3 minutes.

Because of the foreground ice being so small, this long exposure was just as much a matter of luck as skill. It would only take one huge Atlantic surge within my 3 minute window to rock the ice or move it completely. In fact that is what happened on the 2 previous attempts… this was 3rd time lucky.

As much as I didn’t want the huge wave, I needed the smaller waves because they were keeping the sand wet for the colour build-up. The colour build up is a special application of the Magic Cloth and is the main point of this article.

At this point in time, I had realised that the saturation of colours was better in long exposure photography. I also noticed that saturation was better when the sand was wet but not while it was being washed. While it was being washed,the white of the surf washes out the reflected colours. The white of the surf can be desirable in some cases when it creates beautiful streaking lines. This is better with a not so long exposure of just a couple of seconds. On a much longer exposure the heavy white blur can spoil the image.