Living at the Edge of the World | Emerald Isle, North Carolina
This weekend, I had the pleasure of welcoming Curt Fleenor and David Baker to my little corner of the world. We’ve all been in contact with one another for quite sometime and it was great to finally meet and do some shooting!
On Saturday, we ventured out to Emerald Isle to shoot the sunset. We decided to head down to ‘The Point,’ the very end of the island, to shoot the sunset. The long hike was only made worse by the numerous four wheel drive vehicles that sped past us. If only I had a permit… Anyway, clouds were nowhere to be seen for most of the day (a photographer’s nightmare) and the evening was no exception.
Sometimes you just have to point your camera into the sun and hope for the best. Here, my goal was to capture the wide expanse of the beach and the windswept sand as well as the homes that dot the end of the island. i cropped out the majority of the sky, leaving the nice sunburst created by my 8mm Rokinon lens.
I think it turned out alright, thanks to that awesome sand!
Cliffs of Emerald Isle | Emerald Isle, North Carolina
These ‘cliffs’ actually stand five or six feet high in parts and are a product of beach erosion on Emerald Isle. I have seen a few other local photographers sharing images of the beach’s condition in the past few weeks and thought I should head out and see it for myself. It’s certainly a different look for the beaches of this area!
I headed down the beach for a sunset photo excursion with Brad Styron and spent the better part of an hour canvassing these sand formations with my camera. (This is a the same shoot that my ‘Behind the Scenes’ photo came from.)
The shot: Nikon D90, 8mm Rokinon lens. 1/80 sec., ISO 200, f22. 3 bracketed exposure. With my three exposures, I made a tonemapped file to use for the portion of the sky with the sun. I then masked in the ‘cliffs’ and blue sky of the middle exposure and the foreground sand and water of the lowest exposure. The brightest exposure was discarded.
©2011 Zach Frailey, do not use without permission
Waves in the Sand | Fort Macon, North Carolina
It’s a very foggy morning here in Eastern NC, so I thought I’d bring some clearer skies to your monitors today. This scene was shot at the end of last week at Fort Macon, NC. From late afternoon all the way through sunset; I don’t think that I’ve had the privilege to shoot in more perfect light.
This was shot with what is currently my favorite and most useful landscape lens in my bag- the 8mm Rokinon ‘fisheye.’ It’s classified as a fisheye, and rightfully so at 8mm, but there’s nothing fishy about it. At the right angle, there is little to no distortion on the edges and it is sharp as a tack. I shoot everything with it at f/16 and up and it produces the sharpest landscapes I’ve made. And at around $300, it’s an absolute steal! Keep in mind, it’s 100% manual, but it’s fun and liberating to not be tempted to fall back into what the camera thinks is best.
The shot: Nikon D90, Rokinon 8mm lens, tripod held and remote fired. f/16, 1/200 sec., ISO-200. 2 exposures, manually masked in Photoshop. No color correction.
©2012 Zach Frailey
Getting Caught Up
Wow, I feel like I’ve been on vacation or something. The past two weeks have been ‘different’ to say the least. I recently started working a few days a week at a local newspaper and that’s kept me pretty busy of late. As my readers know, editorial photography isn’t what I typically do. However, shooting speakers, sporting events and breaking news has really helped revive a lot of things that I have kind of pushed to the side, photography-wise. I’m relearning things that I have unintentionally pushed to the side while doing my HDR photography, and that’s a great thing.
Two weekends ago, I traveled up to Corolla, NC on the Outer Banks to do seven family photo sessions. I had a great time and came out with some great shots. Again, portraiture is not something that I do all that often, but it was great and I hope to get into it a little more. I have a few sessions booked in the near future and I can’t wait to get them planned.
Thanks to all of this, the only photos you’ve seen over the past two weeks were from the archives and from those family sessions in Corolla. Today I’m sharing the last image from those family portraits. I edited this with some texture and my logo as a watermark with the intention as adding this to my promotional material. I think that’s a good way to close out this project- putting my stamp on the last photo edit to kind of signal completion.
I’m looking forward to getting out and shooting some fresh material in the coming days, keep an eye out!
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Beached | Abandoned on the Neuse
Walking along the ocean, sound and river shorelines can be a fun thing; you never know what you’ll find. This old abandoned sailboat has found it’s final resting place along the Neuse River. I’m not sure how it got there, but it may have come loose during a hurricane or storm, maybe set adrift, or even just dumped there like people sometimes dump cars on dry land. Despite the fact that it has been gutted of everything and every window has been smashed out, it still looks as if it could float. Future project for me?
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Photo ©2011, Zach Frailey. Please do not use without permission.
