A brief respite at Myrtle Beach

It would be understandable to posit that the more a photographer returns to a place or locale, the less likely he or she would find something new and interesting to photograph.

In recent years, I've visited -- and returned -- to several favorite places on the East Coast where I've enjoyed getaway time in recent years. If you follow this blog regularly, you probably can cite them for me. The top five on my list right now (and not necessarily in this order) are Wrightsville Beach, N.C.; Myrtle Beach, S.C.; Savannah, Ga.;  Charleston, S.C.; and the Florida Keys.

For a couple days last week, I returned to Myrtle Beach. I've probably gone there the most because it's the second closest of the five I listed above (technically, Wrightsville Beach is closer, but it doesn't have the accommodations for the affordable cost as do the others).

I didn't really go many places on this trip; I stuck close to the beach, where there was beautiful weather, and Lee Ann's grandson Jaxson wanted to frolic in the sand and salt water as much as he could.

So my pictures were limited to family shots for the vacation album ... and some compositions I came across along the beach and from the elevated vantage point of our resort room's balcony. On the day we arrived, I had the view you see in the photo leading off the post, taken from the balcony in our room. The polarizing filter did great justice to the varying sea colors and clouds, I felt.

I managed to arise early the following morning, and got some sunrise shots with which I was very pleased (three photos below), including the one of Lee Ann's daughter Mindy and grandson Jaxson watching the sunrise from a chair on our balcony. It turns out that my shots of the latter turned out better on the iPhone (and the one in this post is that shot) than they did on the 6D.

As always, to view a larger, sharper image, simply click on the photo. This is particularly helpful for visitors accessing the blog from a mobile device. To view a full gallery of my two days' worth of shots, follow the link in this sentence.

Photo geek stuff: I shot most of the images with my Canon 6D and Tamron 28-300mm f/3.5-6.3 Di VC PZD lens, most of the time equipped with a B+W polarizing filter. When sunlight disappeared, I removed the polarizing filter. I took a few shots with my iPhone X. With the 6D, I bracketed my shots for three exposures for later blending into one frame using Photomatix high-dynamic range (HDR) software. The three exposures were the normal metering, and 3/4 of a full stop above and below the normal metering. I set my aperture at f/8 for most shots and used ISOs of 100 to 500, depending on sunlight and/or shade. My shutter speed was the variable in the bracketed exposures. For sunrise shots after the full sun appeared above the horizon, I stopped down to about f/18 or f/20 to better control the high-volume of key lighting from the sunlight. I wasn't able to control the aperture for the iPhone shot of Mindy and Jaxson in this post.

The beach was populated by shoreline fishing poles like the ones you see in the photo above and first two below. In the second photo below, a fishing boat and the curving coastline showing downtown skyscrapers appear in the background.   

I got the relaxing gentleman (above and below) from both sides of the beach. Elsewhere, I came across the woman you see in the second photo below. 

A brief montage of beach walkers (above and below), a runner (second below) and two women whose dogs had a less than friendly encounter when they crossed paths (third below). 

While on a walk away from the beach toward Kings Highway (U.S. 17), which spans the length of Myrtle Beach along its main commercial corridor, I came across the scene depicted above and below. Above, I passed the spot heading toward the highway. The sun caught these articles on a concrete block wall just enough to spotlight them. But on the way back (below), the spotlight was gone. 
 

Above: I'd never seen this home, self-named Tree House, on that walk to the highway, so I stopped to get a photo.  

Above: This shot -- with the sun lighting up the ocean with sparkles in the background -- I made a monochrome because even high-dynamic range treatment couldn't bring out sufficient detail to support a color version. After converting it to color, I boosted the shadow detail to extraordinary high levels in Photoshop Elements.