Malibu's Sands of Fire

"Amazing Grace"

For just a few seconds the sands light up in Malibu every evening (and in the morning too I suppose). And sometimes if you are in the right place at the right time, you can be lucky enough to catch the beautiful sight that changes the sands to fire. It's the same concept that makes Horsetail Fall in Yosemite shine like a lava flow during the winter at Yosemite. 

**If you live in LA you may have seen this image featured in the Malibu Times Magazine in December. 

For this image, I can honestly say I got lucky. I was actually photographing a double rainbow over the ocean at the time and happened to just turn around for a second to see the last rays of light touch the sand from over the hill. 

Since I shoot M (manual) mode 100% of the time I've instinctively become accustomed to shooting under difficult lighting conditions. This particular scene required a very fast evaluation of scene using both the internal camera meter and a trained eye. 

I began with my standard ISO setting for longer exposures. 200 ISO

Why 200 ISO? Really, it's because it's my comfort ISO. Technically, 100 would probably be better but I just happened to use 200 on this one because of the rainbow I was shooting prior. 200 let's me shoot just a tad faster than 100. Since I expect to enlarge most of my prints I also like less grain and it allows me to drag the shutter just a tad bit more than higher ISO's without too much of a color shift.

In a nutshell, I metered for the middle of the scene in this image. But here is the lucky part; when I took the image I didn't see the sand lighting up like fire. It was only after I saw the image on a big screen that I noticed the 'fire on the sand". The sand actually only lit up for that second that I clicked this one and only image of the event.

For this photo, I metered the cliff-side, which was significantly darker. Knowing that the sky would be "blown out" I of course had to make an adjustment in the shutter. Instead of dragging at 1/10 as the meter suggested I bumped up the shutter to 1/60 which effectively averaged the brightest spot (sky) and the darkest spot (cliff) to create a balanced exposure. 

Here's the image details:

• ISO 200 
• F-5.6
• 1/60 sec shutter
• Shot at 10mm

Bottom line: Sometimes mixing photographic technique isn't enough to create a memorable image. Sometimes you just need a little luck...and the sun feathering the sands at the right moment. -cg