Landscape Photography
How To Take Beautiful Photos Of Oceans
The ocean is one of the most photographed objects of nature in our modern photography experience. Its calming effect seems to have a hold on everyone. Whether it’s the water itself or the movement of water that pulls us in or something else. Or perhaps the "openness" combined with the clean feeling of water has something to do with it. An ocean can 'de-clutter' our minds leaving us with a beautiful sense of stillness and freedom.
So how do awesome ocean photos turn out? What are the secrets? Well to start with, in photography, there’s the 'ocean' and there’s the 'beach'. The ocean can be photographed as the main subject. It can also be included in your photo but not as your main subject. To give you an example of this lets take these two pictures of the ocean.
The top picture uses the ocean as the secondary subject. A secondary subject is not the main subject in the photo but uses it to enhance the main subject. The first picture uses the tree as the main subject and the second photo uses the ocean as the main subject. See the difference?
When taking photos of oceans, your lines are of paramount importance. You have two lines with photos of oceans. The first line is where the water meets the sand and the second is where the ocean meets the sky.
How angled these two lines are from each other the better your photo will be. For example if you had two parallel lines then you have a very square and flat composition. If those lines had a significant angle from each then you’re creating some pretty nice composition. You’ll notice that most good ocean shots consist of the water-horizon line and the water-sand line are angled quite nicely from each other.
You’re probably thinking that most beautiful photos of the ocean always have a beach on a bright summer’s day with blue skies…well not all. Some are taken at dusk which presents itself a different set of challenges. The first is the setting sun. It’s lovely to have an orange sky with a setting sun over a beautiful ocean. But how do you take this kind of shot with even light throughout the picture? If you meter off the sun, everything else can look underexposed. And if you meter off the clouds you can have an overexposed sun. And what about flare?
There are a few possible solutions to this problem. Firstly about flare. Flare often happens when you are faced directly into a bright light source, such as our beloved sun. To avoid this I would suggest taking the shot at a slight angle, or perhaps waiting for the sun to go down just slightly over the horizon. This will leave a gorgeous orange brightness in the sky without the direct harsh light the sun can do. But be quick. The closer to the horizon the sun is, the fastest it disappears.
You can also place a few things in front of the sun to get a beautiful orange background with silhouettes in the foreground. This makes for a beautiful shot.
To alleviates the problem of the sun overexposing everything else in your photo try exposure bracketing.
Let’s say that your ocean is not being taken at dusk, but more like 4 o’clock in the afternoon when the day’s sunlight is starting to fade. You can take the first shot by metering off the sun. Your settings might be something like 1/1000 and f.16. Then, to experiment, you might like to shoot the second picture at 1/1000 at f.22. Then the third photo at 1/1000 at f.32. Now layer the images and see what effect you get. (You will need a tripod.)
You don't always have to do it this way. You can do it the other way around and keep the aperture the same and just change the shutter speed. For example you might find that your camera responds better when you try three photos at 1/1000 and f.16, 1/750 and f.16 and 1/500 with the same aperture.
Oceans are wonderful. If they are taken with patience and a plan, you can get the most beautiful picture postcard shots. Always remember your tripod, some sunscreen and a hat if you’re shooting in the middle of the day. Most of all remember your light.
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Happy shooting!
Amy Renfrey
Digital Photographer, Digital Photography Teacher & Author
