Ivan and I met up again for a sunset shoot near Davenport. It's funny, but as much as I like to shoot alone, I have been to Panther Beach three times in the last week and a half with three different photographers. I've somewhat assumed the role of "photo guide", showing other photographers all the "nooks and crannies" of my favorite spots.

I gave Ivan the tour of the beach, and we settled in at the south end of Hole in the Wall Beach. The challenges included moderate surf made worse by the lovely wind kicking up a nice salty spray on the front of our filters. This wasn't mist, these were full blown droplets.

And luck would have it that as the sun started beaming through the clouds, creating that heavenly sky we all so love, my filters got a healthy dose of snotty ocean spat on them. I had nothing but files for the Recycle Bin.

We chatted a bit about the challenges of the evening, and I mentioned how I was getting to the point of not wanting to copy any of my earlier shots, as I felt I hadn't yet exhausted all the possible compositions of this beach. I joked that I was totally "ok" with copying other compositions from other photographers if I liked them.

And as the sun's last light waned in the evening sky, Ivan shows me a quick look at a really long exposure he just took. And I thought to myself, "damn, that's what I should be doing!" Maybe shooting with other people isn't so bad. Finding inspiration in the long exposure idea, I gave it a go. It's the only one from tonight that didn't have water droplets all over.

Nikon D300
Tokina 11-16mm @ 16mm
2 min @ f11, ISO 100
Tiffen 3-stop ND Filter
Lee .6 and .9 Hard Stop ND Grad Filters