Malibu Creek State Park

[DrRoebuck]

Went for a little hike yesterday. I'd spotted this really interesting tree and figured that might make for a good "magic hour" shot, even though the best angle would be into the sun. Nevertheless, when I made it back down the tree it'd been overtaken by an amateur modeling shoot.

Ah well.

I turned back toward the creek I'd just crossed and got what I could. My first shot had more sunlight, but nothing in the foreground. I moved back a little and recomposed, and within that 1-2 minutes the light was completely disappearing. I stacked a polarizer (to enhance the reflection), an ND grad and two ND filters (one was 8-stop) to get as slow a shutter as possible.

Thoughts?

[JoshD]

I like it. The reflection in the water is awesome, nice job getting the shutter speed down like that to achieve the effect.

Only nitpick for me is I wish the foreground was a bit more "attractive", but that's out of your hands for the most part. Maybe aimed a tad higher would lessen the dirt/foreground in view and bring more of the tops of the trees into the shot?

Nice one

[MB1]

Yup, that ugly foreground reduces the impact of those wonderful reflections. To me the reflections and the dry grass are the killer app in this shot.

BTW are you really a doctor? I've got a sick friend......