Birthday Present

This bit of Southern California's Laguna Beach coast was a place I'd often frequent when I first got into landscape photography. It was only a few minutes' drive from where I worked at the time (as a photographer and associate editor at Import Tuner magazine), and is any beach/photo-junky's perfect happy hour spot at sunset. 

This particular image was shot on my birthday. Skies like this aren't common for May afternoons in Southern California. Sometimes, when I'm feeling extra narcissistic, I pretend the universe was throwing me a little party that day.  

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Equipment/process:

Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Tokina 12-24 f/4 AT-X Pro
Cokin Z-Pro filter holder
Hitech 0.6 SE graduated ND filter, 0.6 HE graduated ND filter
Manfrotto tripod
Remote shutter release
Clear umbrella

20mm, f/14, 2.0 sec, ISO 50
Levels, temperature, contrast adjusted in Adobe Photoshop Raw Converter
Two shots manually merged, skewed, cropped in Adobe Photoshop
Sharpened, re-sized

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See more, at: www.lukemunnell.com