Seascape Photography

Break These Seascape Habits: 5 Tips From a Coastal Photography Expert
Video Tutorials

Break These Seascape Habits: 5 Tips From a Coastal Photography Expert

I’ll be honest with you: for a long time, my coastal shots looked the same. Every single one. Long exposure, silky water, golden hour, repeat. I thought that was just what seascape photography was. It wasn’t until I started studying the work of photographers who deliberately broke that formula that I realized I had built a creative rut and called it a style. Watch the full tutorial on YouTube In this William Patino tutorial, he shares five tips developed over years of coastal shooting, first in Australia and then in New Zealand.

How to Read a Seascape Scene Before You Shoot: Lessons from Bombo Quarry
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How to Read a Seascape Scene Before You Shoot: Lessons from Bombo Quarry

There’s a particular kind of paralysis that hits me at dramatic coastal locations. Too many foreground options, water that won’t stay still, light that’s changing every thirty seconds. I either freeze up and shoot the “obvious” frame everyone else shoots, or I move too fast and miss the moment entirely. What I’ve needed, for a long time, is a reliable process for reading a scene before committing to a shot.

How to Shoot Stunning Sunrise Seascapes: A Field Guide to Timing, Composition, and Water Movement
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How to Shoot Stunning Sunrise Seascapes: A Field Guide to Timing, Composition, and Water Movement

There’s a particular kind of frustration that comes with standing in front of a gorgeous coastline and walking away with nothing but flat, underwhelming frames. I’ve done it. You drag yourself out of bed before sunrise, haul your gear to the water’s edge, and somehow the photos just don’t match what your eyes were seeing. For a long time I chalked it up to “needing better light.” Turns out, I was just missing a few fundamentals.

Shutter Speed for Waterfalls and Seascapes: What I Learned From Mark Denney's Approach
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Shutter Speed for Waterfalls and Seascapes: What I Learned From Mark Denney's Approach

I once spent four consecutive evenings at the same waterfall on a trip to Oregon, missing dinner every night, trying to nail one shot. The water looked either too frozen or too smooth, and I kept second-guessing myself at the dial. The problem wasn’t my gear or even my composition. It was that I hadn’t actually decided what I wanted the water to look like before I pressed the shutter. I was guessing, and it showed.