Today offered a brisk easterly wind and puffy cloud formations. The plan was to go to Sachuest Wildlife National Park’s eastern shore to fool around with the water’s motion using an ND filter, and to think in “4X5” mode using my D850. It has a native ISO of 64 and with a 70mm lens, I would be shooting the equivalence of a 210 or so large format lens. I set the picture format to 4X5. A thought was to get experience akin to long exposure times at F 5.6 using slow film and an ND filter. I did have a full set of square filters in the car, but decided to try the circular B+W variable ND out of laziness. Unfortunately, the filter turned out to be 72mm and I had only 77mm lenses in my bag, I walked the half mile back to my car discouraged and scrapped the plan.
I took one image there of some fishermen and another of the beautiful rock faces at Sachuest Beach, the latter being an image I have taken countless times. I converted them to black and white and used the color grading to accentuate the skies. The .3 ND filter (square) I used was a poor choice. Something stronger would have been better.
Shooting at the beach made it clear I must venture to unfamiliar places with my camera. I am not going to get un-stuck by making images already made. Many say there is always something interesting to photograph in the most familiar places. I am restless. I need to find new scenes that kindle the fire.
