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.