Gull Rock

Just before sundown, the evening sun pours beautiful pastels into the sky and puts fire into surf and spray. The rock formation and gull put sky and surf into context and scale, and the cool blue water provides a strong base to balance the image. This photo earned a First Place Award at Santa Barbara Fair and a First Place Award at California Mid-State Fair.

I did not want to whitewash the sunlight through the surf, so my exposure left the rock formation rather dark. Dodging and adjusting the dark end of the luminosity scale revealed the shape and texture of the rock. A bit of noise was added to the sky to achieve smooth tones from eight-bit printers.