Montezuma’s Dream

Sunset at Playa Montezuma

One of the best things of seeing a new place is the sense of wonderment you get when you see something.  Something that is commonplace to those people that see it more than a few times will obviously give the newcomer a different feel.  I’m not stating a secret.  This is pretty common knowledge. But what I think about when I try to capture the image of that moment in time, is the communication of that same emotion I feel at the time.  It’s my philosophy that a photographer’s goal in life is to learn all the skills/techniques possible to best communicate an emotion through the visual image.  I want my viewer to feel what I felt when I saw the scene I’m taking or notice the same things.

This image taken in Playa Montezuma in Costa Rica is about 76% there.  I think I was able to capture the blending of waves and clouds into the same horizon to give that sense of the eternal renewal…one just becomes the other endlessly.  I also tried to set the tone of the image as dreamlike, as if you were just about to enter the next phase of reality.  I think there were a few things I could have done to make the shot that much better but you sometimes play roulette with slide film and a manual camera.  I shot this using Fuji Velvia 50ASA film on my Leica M6 TTL with a 35mm F2 Summicron lens.