This shot by Kevin O’Brien took first place in Grade C in our recent ‘Seascape’ printed competition. This is how the shot came about:

I took this shot specifically for the competition as I wanted to try out some recently bought filters.

The location is Poll Gorm near Myrtleville, Co. Cork, a nice rugged, rocky area. The setup was manual, on a tripod with a Lee “Little Stopper” filter (6 stops), to allow a long exposure to blur the water motion, and a 2 stop Lee graduated filter to control the highlights in the sky.  The camera settings were f/11, ISO 100 and an 8-second exposure.

I tried a few shots from different positions but I chose this one mainly because I liked the light on the rocks in the foreground.

 – Kevin O’Brien