Marit’s Beach 3

During my recent trip to the Misool Ecoresort in Raja Ampat, Indonesia, I focused most of my effort on underwater photography, but I also attempted to photograph landscape images. My initial forays by boat were disappointing. During one of my first attempts, I tried climbing up what was maybe an 80′ pinnacle. It was incredibly dangerous, so I quit trying to climb on the razor sharp islands and focused on the numerous white sand beaches dotted throughout the immediate vicinity of the resort. One of my objectives was this fantastic little beach that was maybe 100m across the channel from the dive jetty. I motored by it while diving everyday for a week before I had the opportunity to visit it. Before I set up my camera, I removed the ever-present plastic debris that was on the beach at the high-tide line. Unfortunately, plastic is everywhere in our oceans and remote Raja Ampat is no exception. I was initially focused on using the sandy beach as my foreground, but could not figure out how make that composition work, so I moved out into the shallow water. I was immediately captivated by the sunlight refraction patterns and set about making them the foreground leading into the tropical island. I created this image when the sun was higher in the sky than I normally photograph, because the light had to be intense enough for the refraction patterns to be visible. I named this beach in honor of Marit Miner, who is one of the owners of the resort and who’s home is also built on this island. I created this image using my Canon 5DmkII, Carl Zeiss 28mm f2 ZE lens, and Singh-Ray LB Warming Polarizer. This image required minimal processing using Aperture 3 and Photoshop CS5.