Forays into black and white

Last weekend we got up early since there was a bit of residual storm surge from the hurricane that was out in the atlantic and Mike wanted to catch the last of the surf. I tagged along with my tripod and 100-400 (and regretted not bringing my other lenses of course), the day was hazy even at 8 am and while the surf wasn't quite what we were hoping for there was still enough for Mike to ride and bright enough for me to shoot but the results were at best disappointing for the color. I got 2 pretty decent shots, one of Mike and another of a short board surfer weaving in and out of the surf, but the color was so bleh that I played a bit with black and white. Not exactly what I was looking for but not as bad as the originals.

Mike:



Unknown surfer:



and then there was the mussel. I really liked this image when I was composing it, but it lacked that oomph for me when I was working on it, so I decided to play around a bit with it in BW and just left the mussel itself, a few strands of seaweed and a rock the original color and gave a very slight sepia tint to the rest of the image. Desperation should be the title of this picture:

It's not the surfing life for me

I've tried, honestly I've given it my all, bought the surfboard , the wet suit, the rash relief, Dr. Zog's sex wax and given it a good go. It's probably as much of my not going out more than once a month as it is my ineptness but I just can't surf. Oh, I've gotten up a few times, sure, rode a teeny tiny wavelet into shore twice but I got so knocked around in "moderate" surf yesterday that I think it's time to take out the boogie board, fins and my Ewa-Marine camera enclosure and do what I know won't give me whiplash because I am sore today and I have a whole new set of bruises that look like, well, like I got beaten about my legs and arms with a surfboard. So now it's time to hope for some better than moderate surf and get Mike out with his friends and actually have some fun getting wet.