To The Beach...

So I had the urge to get out and take some photos yesterday. Hearing the news that the waves were huge, I decided to go down to the Huntington Beach pier and try to get some surfing shots. You can sometimes see some world-class surfers there, and shooting from the pier gives you a great vantage point. Well, long story short, the wind was high, the rip tides were strong, and there was not a single surfer to be seen! No exaggeration, none. Nada. There were some boys playing in about 3 feet of water with their surfboards, but that's it. Oh well, managed to take a few photos anyway...

I had to admire the young lady in the photo below. She was trying to get a "crabs eye view" photo on her cell phone! I'm guessing it probably turned out great, and she gets an "A" for creativity!

Further down the pier, they were selling kites and whirligigs. Here's a photo of a whirligig:

A much more interesting photo is created by manually focusing on the beach scene behind the whirligig. Gives kind of a pleasing, abstract effect.

Oh, and I learned something new in Photoshop you might be interested in. You can create your own stylized beach wave. Take a photo...

OK, so definitely not a beach shot, but just for demonstration purposes. Other editing software probably does this too, but in Photoshop, open a photo, click on "Filter", from the drop-down menu, select "Distort", then select "Twirl", and use the slider at the bottom to add the desired amount of twirl.  Here's what it looks like:

Surf's Up!!

Wild, eh?? Your results will vary, depending on the photo you select. If you look closely, you can see my Jeep wheel on the lower right and kind of make out the stretched-out Jeep.

Hope your enjoying a wonderful Labor Day weekend, and that you have time to get out there and take some photos!  Linking with: 
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