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#244. Limbering up
By Paul Perton | Opinion
The unintended face of sunset
In the couple of weeks since I got back from Greenland, winter has arrived full-on in the Cape. The weather has gone from it’s usual late autumn balmy to wet, overcast and decidedly chilly. The thermometer plunged to 1C the other morning; a definite reminder of my recent Arctic trip.
So, it’s been a couple of weeks of re-charging my personal batteries and waiting for a break in the weather.
Driving home from a client meeting yesterday afternoon, the beach at Kogel Bay* and the setting sun beckoned. The tide was rushing in and I didn’t have long to get some of that luscious light, fresh air and do a bit of photographic limbering up.
Sunset rock at Kogel Bay
I chose to shoot a section at the south east end of the beach, just where fresh water drains from the neighbouring Kogelberg mountains, on to the beach. I wanted colour – this is very much a sandstone region – and sunset’s hues in its fullest splendour.
Fortunately, this beach doesn’t get much foot traffic in the week – I was alone, save for two large dogs (and their owner) that appeared as the tide started to become too insistent about getting its own way. Just as well; eight paw prints quickly made a real mess of the sand’s delicate tracery.
All shot with a Nikon D800e and either a 50mm f1.4, or 28mm f2.8 AI lenses. An hour or so with Aperture and Nik’s Viveza plug in and I’d got the colourful, sundown style images I’d hoped for. I think that I might even print one or two of them.
So, an hour on the beach, a few interesting pictures and a fine way to do a bit of limbering up and end a grand day.
Nature’s patterns
* kogel – loosely translates from Afrikaans as cannonball. One glance at some of these pictures will quickly explain how this wonderful beach got its name.
