The Swallowed Giant
Open Edition
Hunting Island, South Carolina is what is known as a boneyard beach. That is where the ocean has eroded back into the treeline on the beach and killed the trees with salt water. However it takes a long time for the trees to rot away to nothing, so massive pieces of trees just sit in the surf zone. This day was a very windy day, up the beach you could see the sand blowing around and the white caps of the waves foaming up. I waded into the surf zone to approach this stump that I found. It was the perfect foreground image. I put on a very strong neutral density filter in order to get a longer exposure time so that I could capture the incoming waves. I kept getting spray from the waves on my lens and had to keep wiping it clear. My tripod was sinking in the sand whenever a wave would break over it. At one point I even dropped my shutter release into the ocean. But the risk to my gear paid off with this image, I love the dramatic movement in the waves through the tree. In the end I only lost one shutter release cable but my camera and lens survived. I was soaked to my knees by the time I left the area but it was totally worth it!