Churn - Cape Kiwanda, Oregon

After searching frantically and finding lots of new places to shoot while heading up the California Coast I am starting to draw blank. There are tons of great spots that have been photographed time after time, but I would prefer to get a few some what unique spots as well. This usually happens through pure off the path exploration. Unless anyone wants to hand over some GPS coordinates for good locations, say between Los Angeles and San Francisco anywhere near the coast?

Enough with trip planning, I have some cool videos to share. My project over the past few weeks has been to rid my Lightroom Picture File Catalog of any pictures that I don't really care for anymore as well as set up a more efficient file structure using smart albums along with some other drag and drop sort of setups. There really isn't a need to muck up a huge hard drive with garbage files, I also find it to be so much more inspiring looking nice picture compositions. Often times looking through these pictures I'll get inspired and go off on a post processing tangent. For those of you interested in the workflow / organizational part of my post processing, check out the video below. I made this video last year, but it still has a bunch of good tips in it:) I also recommend the Why You Need an Artistic Workflow Article by Klaus Herrmann which is a great read.

Dave's Post Processing Workflow Video Tutorial

The Shot

Last summer was my official immersion into the world of photography. Prior to that I never really pushed myself in terms of travel photography since picking up a camera in 2011. The real tip in the scales came when I decided to ditch the Canon 7D and buy a Nikon D800 along with a few good Lenses. After the D800 arrived one of the first trips I made was the Oregon Coast and Cape Kiwanda. Upon arrival I realized all those amazing pictures I had been seeing from guys like Aaron Reed and Chip Philips at this location were not just "Walk Ups". I kept coming back to the location, and finally on the 6th time the waves were moving around pretty well. Here is my first post from the trip along with some post processing info:)

Post Processing Info ( Grab some discount codes to the programs below at bottom of About Me Page )
Processing Time: 45 minutes
Music: The Path - Carbon Based Life Forms
Drink: Ninkasi Sleigh'r

Lightroom 4

• Single RAW file captured at an exposure time of 1 second.
• Bring out shadows and blacks
• Slight Clarity brush on water for some pop.
• + Vibrance & - Saturation 

 Photoshop CS6

• Apply Tony Kuypers Luminosity Masking Actions & Techniques to bring out the "mid-tones" and "highlights" in the water.
• Apply color correction using "Color Balance" adjustment.
• Selective color balance to the water and the red rocks. 
• Selectively adjust contrast using "Curves" adjustment.
• Nik Color Efex Pro Contrast, Sunlight, and warmth / glow.
• Nik Output Sharpener ( selectively )
• Noiseware Professional by Imagenomic, the best NR software out there...
• Slight global vignette application
• Save to JPEG.

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