A monster low tide occurred at the same time as the early winter sunset. Taking advantage of this conjunction, a friend and I wandered out on Duxbury Reef. Duxbury Reef, shown in the linked story from above, is one of the largest shale reefs in North America. It lies west of Bolinas in Marin County on California’s north central coast, and north of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, within Point Reyes National Seashore.

Like Atlantis lost beneath the waves, the landscape you see in this image is usually far beneath the water. In fact, as sunset quickly turned to darkness we hurried off Duxbury Reef ahead of the massive oncoming tidal surge. Our route off the reef took us through arched tunnels normally hidden by the ocean, and past the feet of massive cliffs to the footpath at Agate Beach Park.

Exposure data: 35mm, four exposures at shutter speeds from 2 seconds to 2 minutes, each exposure at f/22 and ISO 100, tripod mounted; exposures combined in Photoshop.

Comment: I used the 2 second exposure to capture the sunset colors, and the 2 minute exposure to capture the much darker foreground of the reef. The exposures were combined using layers, a layer mask, and a gradient. The longer exposure also allowed me to create the attractive fog-like effect, derived from the action of the water in motion.