I wasn’t inspired to make a photograph when we walked by a crowded beach in Carlsbad, California. I mean what did I really expect? It was 3:00 in the afternoon on a busy summer Saturday. It wasn’t going to be the quinessential beach photograph at sunset with a quiet and reflective mood. I decided to lean into the energy and chaos and try to create some ICM magic.

It took me awhile to remember my preferred settings (Shutter Speed at 1/2 second + switching my Fuji lens to auto aperature + a 6 stop ND grad). Once I had them dialed in, I had to figure out how to isolate a part of the chaos and create something that didn’t have stark right angles from the horizon.

When I saw the umbrellas, I knew I wanted color. I began by isolating a few umbrellas with different colors (I didn’t realize how many blue ones there were when I started). It was hard to get movement and abstraction because so many people were sitting still during my 1/2 second exposure instead of moving around, even the volleyball players!

After an hour I walked away with 100 mutliple exposure images, I kept 35 (along with each source file), and whittled it down to 10 that I will keep in my files.

For more information on multiple exposure, intentional camera movement photography, check out our other blog: A Beginner’s Journey into Intentional Camera Movement (ICM)