Trip to North Carolina, Part IV: Atlantic Beach 'sunrise'

The stop at Atlantic Beach during the weeklong swing through North Carolina entailed more photography than at Wrightsville Beach. That's largely because Lee Ann and I chased two sunsets and one sunrise there, compared to just the one sunrise in Wrightsville Beach.

I'll start the photo collection from Atlantic Beach with the sunrise, which occurred on the last day there. And it started out very disappointing. The day we chose to get up early for it (and this time we timed it properly), the sun was thoroughly masked by dense clouds. However, on the upside, there nevertheless were ample photo shots along the beach that morning, especially with herons feeding for sand crabs in the tide and people taking early-dawn strolls.

One of my favorite shots of the trip came that morning. Using the far end (270mm) of the Tamron 18-270mm lens, I was far enough away to inconspicuously get off a few shots of a man walking his dog as the two of them approached me. I turned my camera to shoot some herons as the man and dog came upon me, and when they had passed, the dog wandered out of the composition to investigate something that had piqued its interest.
That left the man alone walking away from me and into a wonderful composition featuring the pier in the distance, the tide splashing against the sand nearby, and a nicely spaced row of herons feeding in that sand on either side of him. I present the color version of the image here; I prefer the monochrome version that leads off the post. As always, you can get a bigger and sharper version of the images (especially if you access this blog using a mobile device) by clicking on the photos.

Another welcoming composition featured a woman (right), an infant bundled in her arms, walking snug to the lapping tide, just behind a couple of herons. A ship out at sea in the background and a gull in the upper left corner add secondary elements, hopefully offsetting the slight vignetting ones gets when the Tamron lens is zoomed at maximum focal length (270mm).

One couple who had seated themselves in a spot in the sand well away from the tide, after seeing us photographing anything we could find of interest, tried to alert us to the intermittent bobbing fins of a small school of porpoises they'd been spying for a while. I had trouble finding the fins even with their help pointing in the direction of the sea where they had seen them. When I finally saw them, I put the camera up to compose ... but as it turned out, my one glimpse of the fins turned out to be the only one I'd get. The porpoises had disappeared from view.

A full gallery of images from the visit to Atlantic Beach can be found following the link in this sentence.

Next: Atlantic City daytime

Above: The man pictured at the top of this post as I photographed him with his dog as they approached me. This shot was taken a minute or so before the one above.

Above: The start of a series of images featuring the herons feeding for sand crabs where the tide stops on the beach. A man eager to go for a swim prepares to dive.

Above: In my tweet (@konz2624) of this photo, I used a caption something along the lines of : " ... and my mate has to like long walks along the beach." 

Above: Among my favorites of "heron only" shots along the beach.

Above: I wasn't able to succeed in getting many shots of a heron with a leg in mid stride, but I got it with this one.

Above: I was going for the fishing boat/heron juxtaposition here for a composition idea. I'm not sure it works, but ... I present it anyway for your consideration. 

Above: I shouldn't have to say too much about this; it's strictly another juxtaposition composition.

Above and next two below: I finish with three landscape shots, the first (above) inspired by Lee Ann, who saw this leading lines opportunity before I did. She hasn't finished processing all of her photos yet, so hers could very well be much better than this. The image below I include because of the luck in including the seagull over the pier in the composition. The last image was something I had high hopes for ... for reasons now I'm not sure of. I think I was going for the spartan-like look of the white house standing out above the others juxtaposed with the wooden fencing. But I disliked the color version, and it wasn't until I converted it to monochrome that I felt it was worth keeping.