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Another one from Adraga, our last evening in Portugal and mother nature was very kind :-) This shot I like a lot because the scene unfurled only after I had setup my tripod. I wasn't planning for the sun to appear there, I composed the shot when it was still hiding behind the rocks and took one frame, then suddenly there was the sun and it couldn't have chosen a better place to appear :-) I had to blend two shots here to cope with the lense flares. To cope with the dyn range again the Lee 0.9 hard grad was enough... ah I come to like those filters.

Hope you like it, this is a little more of a scenic shot than my last one!

cheers

19th-century, Romanticist palace on a high rock & former monastery site, surrounded by parkland. - Google

After more than four years I finally returned to Praia da Adraga. One of my favourite beaches. It has changed a lot. Where I was taking this photo there was roughly 1-2 meters more sand four years ago. In the background to the left you see rocks which weren't there back then. This offered a lot new compositional opportunities. But this beach doesn't only change over the years. It changes within days. I went there four times and some rocks were gone again since the tide had brought new sand.

Photographing this beach was a real joy, especially with such great light. I took around 50 photos until I got the perfect wave for the foreground. You really have to ram your tripod deep into the sand for such scenes where the water washes around it, then it will be rock solid and you can camp on such compositions until all fits together. I just had to be carefull and watch for the occasional rogue wave ;-)

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Praia de Adraga is regarded as one of the best beaches of Portugal mainly due to the stunning scenery of cliffs, jagged rock out crops and golden sand. This opinion was confirmed by a poll conducted by a British national newspaper that rated Praia de Adraga as one of Europe’s top 20 beaches.

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On our third day we had the worst weather of our holiday. It was a mixture of dull grey skies and rain, not the best for landscape photography. During the day we went to Lisbon which for sure must look a lot better under a sunny sky. On our way back along the coast the sky got a little more structure and we stopped at Praia da Guincho to take some shots. Although the sunset light came through a bit it was nothing compared to the other shots I posted till now. So here BW was the only solution. There were quite some waves and I focused on catching some nice backflow around the jagged rocks. With some contrast added in postproc even the sky looks a bit interesting and I think all in all I got quite a decent shot, better than nothing ;-)

Photo Details: hoya hd pol + Lee 0.6 hard gnd + wet shoes and trousers ;-) It's quite funny when you look through the viewfinder with a wide angle lense attached to your camera and some waves are rushing in.. .they still look so far away ... next you are wet at least up to your knees.

cheers

Guess where I shot this ;-) I think by know you know this beach, praia da Adraga. Maybe I'm posting to much pictures I shot there but I had two very different evenings there and this beach is just full of compositions. In contrast to my last upload this was shot during a very calm evening. I went for the pano crop since the sky was just empty anyway and I think the wide view suites this beach very well.

Details: Hoya Hd polarizer + Lee 0.6 hard gnd

enjoy :-)

Praia de Adraga is regarded as one of the best beaches of Portugal mainly due to the stunning scenery of cliffs, jagged rock out crops and golden sand. This opinion was confirmed by a poll conducted by a British national newspaper that rated Praia de Adraga as one of Europe’s top 20 beaches.

Normally I don't like an empty sky during sunset. Usually this just looks boring on a landscape photo, the drama is missing and so on. But in this case I have to admit the clear colorful sky gives the perfect harmony. Those jutting rocks are such strong graphic elements in the picture that I don't need drama in the sky which might distract from them. That's at least my current opinion about this shot but I'd be interested what you think?

PS: I went to Adraga a second time with clouds in the sky and a very transformed beach, tides and rain did a great transformation in 2 days.. so I'll soon show some pictures as contrast!

About the shot: hoya HD Pol + 0.9 Lee hard grad Just some contrast processing and sharpening. I did increase the saturation too but the changes are not very drastic!

cheers

In contrast to my last picture from this beach here's one with a stormy sky. We went back to this beach on our last day in Portugal.

Originally we had planned on going down to the Ursa beach which was a big MUST GO THERE on my list. But unfortunately the weather didn't let us go. The Ursa beach is only reachable through a steep 45minutes hike along the cliffs... well usually no problem and I would normally have gone down there despite the weather. But after all this was a vacation and I had my girlfrind with me and when we started the hike it became so windy that it was very uncomfortable. Also the tracks we were walking on seemed to serve as little water runways in case of rain and well, this day it looked like rain. We might have gotten down to the Ursa beach but the way back very possibly with rain was not how we wanted our vacation to end. That's the part when you have to remind yourself that doing photography is a hobby which should be fun and that your very, very tolerant girlfrind might be a bit pissed if she got drenched just because of one or two decent photos ;-)

So we went back to Adraga again and this was a good decision. After above Image rain started and 5minutes to the car was much better than possible an hour climb ;-) Also what was very interesting was the transformation the Adraga beach had gone through in the last two days. The rain and tide removed nearly 3 feet of sand and rocks emerged where the last time only their tips were showing. And it was also a complete different shoot because of the weather.

About the shot. Again I used a lee 0.6 hard grad here so one exposure was enough. But I also learned that when I go on with this shooting technique I need a better camera. The 40d is good but when it comes to shadow detail and noise It's quite hard to get everything right in one exposure. This in mind I'm quite happy with how this shot came out!

cheers

Praia de Adraga is regarded as one of the best beaches of Portugal mainly due to the stunning scenery of cliffs, jagged rock out crops and golden sand. This opinion was confirmed by a poll conducted by a British national newspaper that rated Praia de Adraga as one of Europe’s top 20 beaches.

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Praia de Adraga is regarded as one of the best beaches of Portugal mainly due to the stunning scenery of cliffs, jagged rock out crops and golden sand. This opinion was confirmed by a poll conducted by a British national newspaper that rated Praia de Adraga as one of Europe’s top 20 beaches.

I still have a couple more from portugal.. Here's one from Cabo Raso, which is a great place to do photography. The rough coast there gives many possibilities to find your spot and the sea at this place is quite rough which gives you the opportunity to capture good water movement too. We had a great sunset with nicely lit clouds but after sunset the light became real magic..The purple hue of the clouds in this shot is no processing result, it's just how it looked.

Details: hoya HD Pol + Lee 0.6 hard grad Processing: Main work lightroom 3 and then d&b contrast + selective saturation adjustments to finish it off.

Hope you like it, was quite a windy evening where I had to constantly whipe my filters.

cheers

Anima is the Italian word for Soul. I decided for this title as this location is one of the reason why I started with seascape photography. When I first visited this location, I was speechless. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to capture that feeling with an image, but I felt the need to do so. Six years later I came back, and that's what I saw and felt on my skin.

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A lovely sunset in Portugal, near Ursa beach

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A stormy morning on the rocky coastline near Cascais with the Cabo Raso lighthouse facing the turbulent ocean.

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This is the last shot I took at Cabo Raso on a magnificent evening for photography, meaning plenty of clouds with the light shining through and an abundance of color right after the sun had set. I tried to arrange the shot so that the gap in the clouds harmonizes with the swirling water in front of me, unfortunately in the upper right there was no light getting through and nearly no texture in the clouds but I still like it.

I used a lee 0.9 hard grad and a hoya hd polarizer and the postprocessing was mostly contrast adjustments.

have a nice weekend, hopefully I'll find the time to go out shoot again, even if it's only here in germany ;-)

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I just can't stop it.. here's another one from portugal, not the big scenic shot but more focused on those jagged rocks and the water tumbling around them. This was also shot in Praia das Macas during a very colorful sunset.

And I'm sorry but I fear I will have to post some more photos from portugal over the next time, the weather here just sucks currently and if there's a decent sunset, I just can't find anything valuable to photograph. Yesterday I was driving around the local area here for about two hours deperately searching for something worth to shoot.... Well guess I have to go to the german Alps or the black forest again soon, here it's just too frustrating :-(

So I keep posting stuff from Portugal..... and at the latest in mid may you'll see some brand new stuff. I'm currently working out the last details for my trip to Scotland in may. If you have any suggestions you're welcome. The plan is Trossachs, Glencoe area, Skye, loch torridon area, Stonehaven and a bit of the east coast, Edinbrugh... Hope I'm not missing something important, for the north there's just not time :-(

tips are welcome :-)

cheers

Praia de Adraga is regarded as one of the best beaches of Portugal mainly due to the stunning scenery of cliffs, jagged rock out crops and golden sand. This opinion was confirmed by a poll conducted by a British national newspaper that rated Praia de Adraga as one of Europe’s top 20 beaches.

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