Clouds, abstracts, wildlife and wild grasses at North Topsail Island beach, N.C.

 

In the previous post, I presented an array of shots from an unusual sunrise adorned by a heavy haze and a remarkable warm-color skyscape.

Our stay at North Topsail Island in late August was brief, so the only other pictures I took while there were along the beach. Those are what I'll present in this post, beginning with one of my favorites, the cloud skyscape shown in the lead-off photo as taken the night before the sunrise illustrated in the previous post. 

The clouds were creating an interesting reflective tapestry on the beach, shown in the photos below. The first photo provides context -- the abstract op art in the foreground in relationship to the point where waves hit the shoreline behind it. The second photo is a separate photo, but cropped at the point of shoot to focus on the abstract are created by the patchwork of clouds.

The third photo below is a look further down the beach and the sky, where there were far fewer clouds. The fourth and fifth photos below return to the skyscape, only at a point where I turned more to the southeast and captured the sun in relationship to that cloud quilt.    

In the next series below, I present five photos processed through high-dynamic range (HDR) software featuring some of the homes along the beach near where we stayed. They include the fifth, into which I again integrated the cloud tapestry, only this time coming in late evening, as the sun was preparing to set.   

 

The final series of photos below show the beach during regular daytime hours (first); a few small birds (second and third) foraging near the shoreline, including the third photo in which the bird on the far left spotted me and began to hightail it out of there; a surfer (fourth), taking advantage of some strong waves energized by daylong high gusts; another wildlife member, carrying some food away from some crazy guy carrying a camera; a gull doing a fly-over near where I was shooting; and several shots in which I composed around the tall wild grasses sprinkled throughout the beach. One of those involved a photo with which I played slightly in post-processing to give the color a warm, dark-yellow sheen.  

Mix of heavy haze and clouds transform sunrise into a warm-color spectacle

I've now shot enough sunrises and sunsets that I usually don't spend a lot of time on either of them any more unless there is a new element to them that piques my interest. 

Such was the case the morning of Aug. 26, when Lee Ann I awoke just a few minutes before the day's sunrise along North Topsail Island, N.C. We had been invited there to a house rental by her son and daughter-in-law to spend a couple days of R&R. 

Other than routine trips to local groceries, pharmacies, fast-food eateries and home improvement stores, it was the first time Lee Ann and I had ventured outside of our home since COVID-19 was declared a serious health threat in early March.

There were other people using the beach, but nothing close to the numbers you'd expect during a hot August week in a normal summer. 

We had talked about rising early enough one of the two mornings there to walk along the beach at dawn. So on the 26th, when we awoke noticing that the morning's schedule sunrise was just a few minutes away, we rushed to dress properly, and I grabbed my camera ... just in case. 

By the time we hit the beach, we'd gotten there with a minute or two to spare, and we saw the scene shown in the photo leading off the post. It was a pre-sunrise warm-color spectrum enhanced by the presence of a tapestry of clouds in all sizes and shapes. I couldn't wait to see what the sun would do with all that once it inched above the horizon. 

The answer comes in the photos -- roughly in chronological order -- shown below. I made various compositions, in most cases integrating few people on the beach into the shot to dramatize the color and exploit the silhouette opportunities. 

My favorite has wavered from the lead-off shot, to the fourth one below of the sun kissing the ocean just as the last of the orb inches above the horizon, to one of two shots of people walking into the solar reflection on the beach near the bottom. And notice, also near the bottom, several thin clouds draping themselves over portions of the sun.  

I made three exposures of each composition to give me a choice on the best frame to work with in post-processing. 

 Next up: The rest of my shots at North Topsail Island from the recent trip