Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, Mexico. December 3, 2009.
Between the beaches. Just to move things along as I process new images, I'm posting a single image of the rocks that separate the beaches, Zicatela and Marinero. Zicatela, if you go left, being the surf mecca, and Marinero, the other way, a swimmer's beach, part of the cove the comprises the town's fishing port.
This is as close to straight-out-of-the-camera as I've posted on this blog. Only a few tiny adjustments in Lightroom, and Photoshop for a very mild sharpening and conversion to Jpeg.
Update: Later the same day. Here are three more photos, just to give a better sense of the place.
Above, the same rock outcropping as the top picture. Below, by request, two of the early morning port. These were taken at 7AM. Sorry, I have nothing detailed of the fishermen returning with their catch. By that time, my camera was pointed elsewhere.
The Mexican Pipeline.
Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, Mexico. December 4, 2009. I'm not a surfer, just an enthusiastic spectator. If the picture above is not what is meant by the term "Mexican Pipeline", somebody please tell me. I googled the term (326,000 results), but didn't find an actual definition. As a visual metaphor, it works for these photos, although, like I said, I'm assuming.
Not having a long telephoto lens in my bag, I came up with this work-around: tripod, short telephoto, liberal horizontal crop. A benefit of a good high-megapixel sensor. I used a low ISO for best image quality (100) and a smallish aperture to protect focus (f8), thus my shutter speed was limited to 1/250th of a second. This would be too slow if I was shooting close-ups, but for this larger view, gives a nice softening to the sea spray and the slight motion blur on the surfers adds to the drama.
These were taken right in front of where the Zicatela road makes a sharp right turn after it comes down the hill from the highway. Another assumption I'll make is that it takes a fairly high degree of skill to ride waves like this. There's a concise few paragraphs describing the characteristics of the area's surf zones with insider lingo at this Tomzap page. I notice it's from 1995 - the medical situation he describes may have improved.
These are fairly arbitrary selections. I just picked the best out of what I was able to capture while I was there (7:00 in the morning, Dec. 2). I'll post the rest without comment.
