Seascapes can be beautiful. The ocean typically offers three different possibilities for great images. Firstly, the main compositional element can be waves or a wave. Secondly, we can focus more on the sky due to nice clouds or the sun. Lastly, there may be interesting foregrounds such as water movement, rocks, etc. The vast body of water by it self is mostly boring. To get nice images of the ocean we typically focus on one of the aforementioned suggestions. The bottom line is that you usually need to add something to it. At times that may be something in the distance like clouds or a boat or a sun. Other times we focus on the foreground.

          As mentioned in another blog, I go back to the same scene often because things change. Recently, I went to a beach where I reasonably often visit. I found conditions that I had never seen there before. Instead of the usual sandy beach there were streams of water in various places. Let's look at a few examples:

This is a very simple image. It is more of a skyscape than a seascape. It is the color and the reflection of the color that make the shot. Make sure to place your horizon well off center. Here is another one from the same night:

A theme that I often repeat is to work the scene. I want to get a few different compositions from the same scene. Shooting the same composition over and over to then pick the best one works well if you are satisfied with getting only one image from your shoot. That is just not me, I want to maximize conditions and get as many different images as I can. Therefore I move around quite fast. I am always looking for different foregrounds to place in my scene. I composed this image so that the foreground water points to the sun. We seek to have the viewer look into the image which is what this composition does. That makes this a strong composition. Even though the foreground is strong, I still gave more space to the sky. As you can see, the vast body of water is boring, so I minimized it. By getting down low the distance or space taken up by the body of water shrinks. Here is the last one from that scene:

I moved around again which changes the foreground completely. We love lines going into the image because the viewer's eyes will follow them into the image. Lastly, look at the scene and plan how you are going to walk before you start walking. Remember, in sand and snow you leave footprints. You don't want to walk in a following composition and ruin the next shot (unless you want to use footprints compositionally, but even then they need to lead somewhere, you do not want random prints all over the place). To summarize:

• Visit the same scene multiple times when the conditions are right

• Work the scene by moving around quickly to get multiple images

• Always think composition and color