Santa Monica Pier
Photographer Sam Abell teaches at the Los Angeles Center of Photography every year.
And every year he takes the class to the Santa Monica Pier for a few hours of putting into practice what he has been teaching.
This year we went a couple of days after a big storm and the surf was very much up.
I did take water pictures, and some will appear around here in the next week or two.
This photo does include the beach, but I suppose the subject is really the pier.
Sam wanted us to compose the photos very carefully and present them without editing
The only edits here are a lens profile correction for the decades old Nikkor 24/2.8 I was using on my Canon, and a touch of compensation for the sterile neutrality of the RAW file.
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Click the photograph for a larger version.
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burnt embers 
Terrific shot!
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Thank you Jane – I am pleased you like it 🙂
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Yellow arm, yellow post. One diagonal. The direction of movement of the walker lines up with the lamp post, giving a dissecting diagonal. The horizontal of the line of the pier and the metal strip ground the composition. So much going on! Very interesting and I agree with Mario, it still has the best of your distinctive style. (Hope it doesn’t sound like I’m grading your work, Mr E!! If it does, you got an A+😀)
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Hi Kate -Thank you! I don’t mind your “grading” at all, it is always interesting to see what catches the eye of other people. There are of course things that could be improved here, but overall I am pretty happy with this shot. I had to present 4 shots (8 actually – the “before” setup of the shot and the best of those obtained) and this was on my shortlist though I bumped it in favour of others (with you will see in these parts eventually).
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The fact you had to present before and after images, says a lot about his teaching style. So interesting to do that!
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This still looks like an Ehpem photo I am glad to say
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Thanks Mario – that is an encouraging thing to hear. I think I like the “before” shot just as much – that one has no people in it. I need to find non-people ways to animate my photos as that should feel more like what I do. Though, when I was selecting photos for a portfolio to present to Sam Abell and class, I found that many of my favourites did have people. Which was a bit of a surprise.
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