When I was a website designer and developer at a company in San Diego, I worked on a site for a client located in Santa Monica. Proud of the location of his business, the client chose to feature the Santa Monica Pier on his site; sharing the iconic landmark with his customers. As you can tell from my other photographs in my Gallery, I am fascinated with California’s piers as they are all very unique and offer creative photography opportunities.
The Santa Monica Pier is a unique place to visit. It offers its visitors more entertainment than any other pier. If you’re not familiar with the history of the Santa Monica Pier, you may be surprised to find that the pier is two adjoined piers, once owned by two separate owners. The Municipal Pier first opened in September of 1909 to primarily carry sewer pipes beyond the breakers. The second pier to the south, Pleasure Pier, was built in 1916. The piers attracted many people in the 1920’s, but became vacant due to the impact of the Great Depression. In the 1930’s, the pier was primarily used as a ferry landing. Now, the pier is home to a plethora of concession stands, gift shops, the Blue Streak Racer (a wooden roller coaster), and the Santa Monica Looff Hippodrame which houses the carousel and is now registered as a National Historic Place.
Our Journey to the Santa Monica Pier
My wife and I love to travel. In fact, we spent much of this year discovering new places. From our road trip to Glacier National Park in Montana to our journey through Mexico, the Panama Canal and down to South America, we have had a great year of feeding our need to travel. During one of our road trips over the summer, my wife and I visited the pier on our way home from Yosemite National Park and San Francisco. We planned to take a quick walk along the pier, snap some photographs and maybe grab something to eat before our drive back to San Diego. Instead, we walked under the pier to the south end and captured image after image of the pier with the sunset in the background. The change in colors of the sunset and the carousel kept me busy as I was eager to capture each change. With the passing of time, the lights on the carousel transformed telling story after story with each rotation of the wheel.
Photographing Motion
To capture motion there are a few things to keep in mind. When it comes to photographing any type of motion, whether it is slow or fast, it is all about shutter speed. A slow shutter speed, with a tripod of course, can turn a stream of water to a silky fog flow. A fast shutter will stop things from moving; making them still.
A fast shutter speed could be anything over 1/500th of a second or even faster depending on your camera. What is shutter speed? Think of it this way – when you press the button to take a picture you are triggering your camera to capture the scene based on your settings of the amount of light you want. Using a fast shutter and a wider aperture will balance the amount of light to expose the picture. You may see this in sports photography. Photographers on the sidelines use a fast shutter to capture an incredible catch or players running down a field.
While shooting the image below, I found the perfect place to capture the scene. Using the waves, beach and pier I set up a dynamic shot by dialing down my aperture to balance the exposure. By the end of the night I walked away with over 200 images communicating the change in color and activity on the pier. The Santa Monica Pier is one of my favorite locations to shoot motion photography.
Pacific Wheel
I hoped this inspired you to get out and stretch your photography limits. Remember to always plan ahead, take your tripod with you even if you don’t plan on using it. Like all things, research and studying other photographers to learn from them. Please have fun and be creative.
Let me know if you have any questions regarding this topic or any other topics. I encourage you to view more photographic art prints from the Adam Dax Gallery and contact me to order prints.
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