The ocean: always changing; always beautiful. I have spent thousands of hours on the shore gazing through my lens at different aspects of the Pacific and I am drawn to the shapes and colors of incoming swells. To me, there is real art in the swell and it only depends on how you choose to capture it. A slow shutter blur is one method that creates beautiful images. Here’s how it is done:

When I am shooting surfers, I really try and push my settings to the fastest possible shutter speed allowed by the conditions. I love to freeze drops of water spraying off the surfer’s board. But, to create ocean blurs, the opposite approach is needed – the action needs to be slowed down!

First, one needs a sturdy tripod with a panning head that will allow the camera to pan from left to right or right to left without moving up or down. Make sure the balance bubble on your tripod is set right in the middle!

Second, line up the horizon so that it is level in the viewfinder. This can be corrected in post production, but for the best motion blurs, it it best to set this through the camera.

Third, select the right lens. Remember that the more focal length you have on the ocean, the more compressed the scene will appear and this is good for motion blurs. I often use my 500mm, but have had good success with a 70-200mm lens as well.

Fourth, set your focus. I like to focus on the furthest breaking wave and then once set, flip your lens to manual focus so the focus will not change as you are making the blur image. The blur we are seeking is in the lateral motion, not the focus!

Fifth, place your camera into full manual mode. I like to shoot these with a shutter speed somewhere around a 1/4 second to a 1/2 second. During the late day, this usually means an aperture setting of about f16.

Now you are ready to shoot! It is also really handy to put your camera in live view so you can see what you are shooting though the back screen since the viewfinder will be dark during exposure. As you pan from one side to the other, depress the shutter and viola, you have it! Now just go out and have some fun!!!