Everything that occurs in our lives can be summed up by the choices we make and the chance that our choices will bring an outcome we desire. Some chances we take are more predictable than others. We go to college with the expectation that we will graduate, find a job, and then get paid. Others take chances with less predictable outcomes. Some may perhaps skip college altogether or start their own business with the hope they’ll arrive at the same outcome.
The chances we are willing to take are ultimately dictated by how much risk we are willing to accept. Balancing risk with opportunity is something I’m constantly managing, in both my personal and professional life. Opportunities almost always come at the cost of another. Pursuing opportunities to develop my hobbies is a constant balancing act to ensure I don’t sacrifice other important aspects of my life.
In the general sense, it can be difficult at times to determine which chances we should take when opportunities are presented to us. If we take one path and not another, will we regret it in the end? Will we ever know what could have been if we would have taken the path we chose not to take? Sometimes the path we embark on is a series of random events that we could never have foreseen at the beginning of our journey. One opportunity leads to another and before we know it we are somewhere completely different from where we originally intended.
When I bought my first camera, I never imagined it would lead me to the journey I’ve been on in my travels throughout the world. When I headed out to Newport Beach on this boring and drab evening, I was faced with two opportunities. I had to decide between shooting photos at the beach and staying home to edit photos. Knowing the weather wouldn’t be interesting, I took a chance and went to the beach anyways. This path opened my eyes to something completely new, abstract seascape photography.
When I arrived at my spot, I realized the weather was too boring to shoot wide like I usually do. I had no other choice but to try and focus in on the details instead. I was out of my photographic comfort zone for the first time in awhile. I was shooting seascape photos at the beach, not with my trusty Canon 16-35, but with my 70-200 telephoto lens instead. It felt completely foreign to be using such a long lens at the beach. At first I didn’t know what to do. I could either pack up and go home or force myself to change my perspective. I was so upset by the poor conditions for shooting photos but I was determined to make something of the evening. It’s difficult to explain exactly what happened but basically I just started experimenting with different compositions, focal lengths, and shutter speeds, and then fell into a groove. I started really digging my results with certain shutter speed and focal length combinations. When you have a firm understanding of the exposure triangle and the settings on your camera, your photographic possibilities are endless. Even though Southern California is still in a dry spell for interesting weather, I’m finding myself very eager to return to the beach to expand on this recent discovery.
Technical Details
Focal Length: 159mm
Shutter Speed: 1/1000 second
Aperture: F/11
ISO: 800
Comments: Shooting with a telephoto lens allowed me to zoom in on the water droplets from a distance without having to worry about getting washed up by the tide. The high ISO of 800 allowed me to increase my shutter speed to 1/1000 of a second without under exposing the photo. I could have opened up my aperture to F/4 instead of bumping the ISO to 800, but doing so with a long telephoto lens would have required me to sacrifice my large depth of field. I wanted all of the water droplets to be in focus as much as possible, so a smaller aperture was in store for this shot.
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