Many Footsteps Before Me
Where was this shot taken?
Piha beach in the Waitākere Ranges on Fri Sep 14, 2018 around 7pm. It was slightly windy but quite warm for a September day.
What else can you tell us about this photo/day?
It’s titled “Many footsteps before me”. A small nod to the countless photographers who have been there before me as well as to those who made the footprints in the sand.
A single image capture at ISO 100, f11 @ 1/10th sec using the 16-35mm f/4G; a Lee landscape CPL; and a 0.6 soft GND. I’d only just bought the D850.
I’d visited Piha three nights that week hoping to capture both sun and clouds following a spectacular sky display on the Tuesday night that I missed. Wednesday night there were no clouds at all and I didn’t even get the camera out. Thursday night was almost entirely overcast and on Friday night as I set up, I wasn’t sure there would be much in it either. I’m glad I hung around though as I’d wanted to capture the beauty, space and popularity of the beach at sunset (South Piha car park had been almost full on the Wednesday night).
The several days effort to get a halfway decent shot of Cath’s favourite beach was also an attempt at proving to myself that I can keep going there and taking photos even if she’s not with me as we pretty much did everything together. It’s hard to venture out at times but perseverance is helping, and rewarding.
What was going on behind the camera that we cannot see?
A fair amount of patience. At one point prior to this shot a wee lad wandered along and started jumping around in the two puddles in the foreground. Earlier, a large group of walkers filled the frame as they quietly meandered past. Neither event synced up too well with sunset itself so I settled for capturing people’s imprints in the sand instead as a way of showing the beach’s popularity. The only people in shot here are a couple of tourists from Edinburgh (who spent their sunset filming surfers), and another photographer focused on Lion Rock’s coastal background, to the right of frame.
