The Lens and the Eyebrow: Bird Rock, 8/23/11

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Bird Rock, 8/23/11

It's incredible how a 70 million year old rock can break in half instantly, geologically speaking. A whole opened up in the middle of Bird Rock in 2007, and by the time I first saw it in Spring of 2009, it had rapidly expanded.

When I came back a few months later, it seemed like the whole was a bit bigger. A year later, it was a verifiable arch.

Half the rock finally collapsed under its own weight this past winter. I only found out a couple weeks ago, and waited for a foggy morning to shoot the -now smaller- Bird Rock. Click on a photo to go to the full gallery.

I processed this set using a new B&W conversion plugin, and I'm amazed at the power of this software. I'm still getting used to what all the buttons do, so these photos are my first test prints.

I always use a polarizer when doing daytime long exposures. One twist of the filter can give me a milky smooth water, or one churning with rocks just below the surface.

The added structure and sharpness does wonders for the rocks, but it brings out more detail in the water than I would like. 30 seconds might not be a long enough shutter speed to fog the water for the effect I'm after.

My grandfather has been around my whole life too, but it seems as though I'm getting on a plane soon to see him for one last time. In both cases, the cracks showed up a few years ago, but it seemed like it was something that would still happen "in the future", not this week. Being 3000 miles away makes me feel pretty helpless, since my mom is bearing all the burden on herself with little help. I haven't been there for her the way I should have, but it hurt me to hear how much pain she was going through, so I didn't call her as much as I should have. But I'll be there for her very soon, when she really needs me.