Few Days by the Sea in Poland

Dębki Beach, Poland
16mm, 2.5s, f16, ISO 50

Lots of kilometres last longer weekend. Just came back from Polish seaside having on the clock over 2'500 new kilometres. Took me one day longer as I had small issue with the car and had to service it before hitting the road back to Vienna.

Nothing major, but could be very major if not fixed on time. 

I attended Polish Scale Ship Modellers’ Forum Convention in Tczew, about 30 km south of Gdansk. Being there I had to take the opportunity to take some shots by the sea. Especially being land locked all the time here in Vienna.

Dębki Beach, Poland
27mm, 4s, f16, ISO 50

Unfortunately I have not had much time to move around but tried to make the best from what I could. On Saturday afternoon we went all the way to the north to hit open sea - to Dębki to shoot sunset. For the following day we planned sunrise in Gdynia and trip to Hel peninsula. So the plan was tight. Distances are not dramatically big but when I saw what was happening on the roads I knew I would not be able to do very much. It is middle of the holiday season and tourists with their cars simply flood everything and everywhere.

Aha, I forgot to mention, I travelled with my friend’s sister and her friend who both have lived in Gdynia for years and knew the places and are very keen on photography. I very much appreciated their help and tried to show them some of my tips and tricks in return.

Coming back to day 1, that is Dębki beach (coordinates 54.833486, 18.062457).

Gdynia Orłowo Pier
16mm, f13, 30s, ISO 100

I kept dreaming about storm and lightnings and huge waves shot. When we got there, well… it looked different to say the least. Quite cloudy but with potential to have sun breaking through (and it did later on) but with so calm waters that it looked like small lake. Got my shoes off and went into water, setup the tripod quite low and kept shooting. I concentrated on old wooden wave breakers to have some interesting foreground and chose to shoot long exposures in the range of 3-10 seconds to blur the water but not too much. In all cases I wanted to have moving water with some little dramatic sky and wooden trunks. They had to stay sharp with floating water around them. F16 should give me huge depth of field with 16, 20+ mm focal lengths and focus set manually to 1.5 metres. I used 3 stops ND soft grad and 3 stops pro-glass ND filter to even more slow down the shutter speed.

Gdynia Orłowo Sunrise
16mm, f16, 2s, ISO 50

The following day we went to Gdynia Orłowo (54.48138, 18.565451) where we shot sunrise. I found there nice pier and lots of stones that I wanted to capture. Got up at 03:30 a.m. in order to reach the location. Arrived to the place about an hour before sunrise so I was still able to capture dark scene with light reflections (picture above). I used semi dry algae as foreground  and the line of the beach nicely leads the eye all the way to deep end of the frame. It was about 30 minutes before sunrise and sky was already in quite huge contrast to dark beach. Here I used 3 stops soft ND grad to darken the sky and be able to properly expose for darks in front of me.

Then I moved to the other side of the pier and positioned myself on top great rocks and waited for the sun... The horizon was not clear so I could not geat real orange sunrise. When we saw the sun it was already quite high and strong. I went into extreme with filters. I wanted to have all details of rocks and algae and good sky. I mounted 3 filters! Polarizer to see some details through the water, 3 stops nd-grad soft and 3 stops hard grad. This picture is not HDR! On top all I used flash in my hand to illuminate the rocks. During 2 seconds exposure I flashed twice my hand held strobe.

Gdynia Orłowo Pier after Sunrise
24mm, 120s, f16, ISO 100

Sun went high on the sky but still with nice colours, for another hour or so I kept shooting surroundings and seagulls and then thought about something surreal. Let's put on 10 stops grey filter and get sun lit pier from eastern side and make the water blurred. 10 stops grey filter with conjunction of 3 stops soft nd-grad created really nice result. Again, this is not hdr, nothing blended. Out of camera picture with standard lightroom processing like white balance correction, contrast, vibrance etc. My standard settigs.

I love this 10 stops filter. I am using B&W 110 ND3,0. It brings some colour cast to the scene but I like its effect. Scenes become so surreal.

Hel Peninsula Sunset
16mm, 0.3s, f/16, ISO 200

In the afternoon we headed for Hel Peninsula (54.593077,18.810862). The trip is itself was horrible due to the traffic. You can imagine what is happening on the only one, one lane road along thin peninsula during summer holidays season. Return trip was even worse - 2.5 hours to cover something like 30 km!

But let's concentrate on the shot. I went to the very bottom part where open sea waters meet bay waters and waves crash against themselves. Well, they would if I had some decent waves. On that day again it was quite calm. I had to deal with what I had. I wanted to add some interesting foreground to the scene, did not want to have only water and sky and sun. Walked around and found old water treated piece of wood and "tossed" into the water... Once it settled on the sand I could shoot. I like longer exposures. This time I did not want to exaggerate with slow shutter speed. Wanted moving blurred water but also some details of it. Something below 1 second should do the trick. But shooting in the sunlight... I put 3 stops pro-glass grey filter from Lee and 3 stops hard grad. The camera was positioned literally 10 cm above the water and I had to clean the front filter after every small pass. Drops of water were coming from all over. But it was fun in the end, me almost sitting in the water. Thanks god, I had my friend Andrew with me who on that day became my assistant and held filters and cloth to wipe them after every shot. I waited for final shot to have the sun right above the layer of clouds. Just before sunset some couples sat down on the beach to watch the magic moment... and they fantastically added some human life to the frame. We spoke later on and I gave them my business card. Hope they will see the picture.

Hel Peninsula Sunset
73mm, 0.5s, f/22, ISO 100

Then when I thought all is over for today and I started to pack... I saw sun getting through layer of clouds with beautiful rays beaming into the sky. I had not much time... minute or so. As fast as possible I setup the tripod again and mounted 70-200mm lens and one 3 stops hard grad. And shot few pictures before the sun hid completely for the day. Ship heading towards harbour also composed herself perfectly to the scene. The lesson.... never pack to fast, wait another half an hour so for second magic to happen. 

Afterwards we were completely wet but it was so much fun to shoot and play in the sea. The water was quite warm and salty. Now my tripod needs super extra cleaning.