In a significant way, photography is about time. A photograph freezes action and captures a moment. Looking at photographs we see the past, perhaps our past. Photographs become memories. Unlike the wizard photos in Harry Potter’s world, the people in our photos don’t move around to get our attention. The time slice is static, and the time capture is usually created with shutter speeds that are a small fraction of a second.

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When shutter speeds get longer, and are measured in seconds or even minutes, then the capture of time changes. Moving cars become streaks of light and people are featureless blurs (unless they hold really, really still like they did at the beginnings of photography). Water in motion becomes ethereal, like the action of the surf in the photo above and below. The waves crashing on the rocks have been tamed and gentled. The rock and arch almost look like mountain peaks peering through clouds.

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In both these pictures, I combined two exposures. Each exposure used the same aperture (f-stop). I used twice as long a shutter speed for the rocks as I did for the surf. I combined the exposures manually in Photoshop using layers, masking, and blending modes. This is not exactly High-Dynamic Range processing, as I explain in Multi-Raw Processing Versus Automated HDR.

The photographic trick is to absolutely and completely not move the camera between the two exposures. A tripod is, of course, required. But absolute camera stillness can be harder than one thinks it will be, particularly when the fierce wind that drives the surf is raging. Even the slightest motion of the camera will show up as a registration problem when you try to combine the layers. A solution can be to anchor your tripod with something heavy (like your camera bag).

Still Standing, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

I photographed this arch looking down a cliff on the western side of the Tomales Point peninsula on Point Reyes. Like Adamant, I combined two exposures to fully capture the surf and rock, and to create an effect that’s almost as though the rocks are peaks in a roiling sky.

[50mm, 75mm in 35mm equivalent terms, 3.6 seconds and 8 seconds, both exposures at f/32 and ISO 100, tripod mounted.]

Adamant, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

Adamant. Indomitable. This rock stands, no matter how the surf pounds. It stands on the Pacific side of Tomales Point in Point Reyes National Seashore.

My thought in making this image was to use a long time exposure to turn the surf crashing on the rock soft, white, and wispy, while rendering the rock itself solid and delineated. I used two exposures, one at ten seconds for the rock and one at twenty seconds for the water, and sandwiched the exposures together in Photoshop as layers.

[170mm, 255mm in 35mm equivalent terms, 10 seconds and 20 seconds, both exposures at f/18 and ISO 100, tripod mounted.]

Lee Shore, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

Mark and I hiked again on the Tomales Point Trail on Point Reyes. We watched sunset from a ledge high out over the Pacific, and I took this photo looking back towards the Tomales peninsula.

This time I concentrated on closer-in views of the water against the rocks and cliffs, captured via long exposures.

[200mm, 300mm in 35mm equivalence terms, 30 seconds at f/8 and ISO 100, tripod mounted.]