Heaven's Gate - Palos Verdes

Quite possibly my new favorite local image. Maybe it was the thrill of getting the shot, maybe it was that conditions lined up perfectly, maybe a bit of both. So we ventured out at high tide, and when I say high I mean up around 6'. This meant a few things; for one there were these huge waves crashing to the back of the cave making for the best possible foreground you could have asked for. But it also meant getting out here was tricky and required a bit of patience and timing which was why we were the only ones out here. This was also shot during the epic sunset we had this past Sunday. This cave faces south which does not always get the benefit of a sunset burn, but on that night the sky lit up in all directions. This was shot right as the sky turned pink when I got a rushing wave roll through. I took tons of exposures as I thought I was going to have to blend them due to the huge dynamic range but I was able to pull shadows and recover highlights from a single RAW file. Yes files are bigger, but cards are cheap and there is much more data to work with in post. There's no reason not to shoot RAW nowadays. Definitely an experience and a shot to remember.

Nikon D750, Nikkor 20mm 1.8, f/8, 0.8 sec, ISO-250

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