Was wondering about the texture contest. This water looks like a textured substance, but since it's water, I guess it's not. Or does it matter as long as it looks like a texture? This night water shot was taken with very little light, and is approximately :30 of open shutter. She had to stand real still. Any comments on the texture question?

really lovely, illusion is my guess. Sharen

IMO, any material substance has a texture. Water simply has a fuild texture. IMO, once again though, the presence of the model, land, and sky, distract from the fluid texture of the water. I'd class this image more as a portrait than a texture study. It's a very good portrait though. The model seems very unselfconsious for such a long exposure. P.S. I also commend her for holding still for so long. Especially when you consider that that area seems to have a lot of crabs in it!!!

Oops! I typed "fuild" in my previous message. Obviously I had meant to type "ilquid". Sorry for the ocnfusion!

is that a 30 second exposure, or 1/30th of a second...?? If that's a 30 second exposure, I swear you and the wifey had to be BEYOND still for that, and it would still defy the laws of physics...

I understand how the water should blur with a :30 open exposure, but it really was an open exposure. At least my guess is :30, but it could have been less if I shot it earlier in the evening, closer to sunset. But everything I shot that night was in the dark, and with open exposures. I've noticed before when shooting open exposures at night on Gulf Coast beaches that waves came out more defined than I would have expected. Alpha, could the angle of a ripple cause light to reflect from some places more than others, so that if several ripples passed the same point, the light would continue to reflect from that same place, therefore burning the reflection in the print at the same place? Several ripples passing by, reflecting light from the same place (angle), might give the appearance of a still shot. Does that make sense?

Here is an example of what I just tried to explain. This is a crop from a picture in my gallery (Night Crabbin'). It was taken the same evening as the above picture on this thread. It obviously is an open exposure by the movement of the two sets of people walking in the water, looking for crabs with a flashlight. But note the reflection on the water from the group on the left. It has reflection breaks in the water (from the wind blowing), as if it was shot at 1/60th or maybe even 1/30th of a second. But I know for a fact that this one was at least :20 seconds, maybe more, so the reflection in the water should be smooth, shouldn't it? But it's not.

She used to be in theatre, and once she had a job dressing up and masquerading as a mannequin in a department store. After a while, when people were looking, she would scratch her nose or move in some way to surprise the onlookers. So, she found this job in the dark fairly easy, except for the occasional crab!

The first picture is marvellous in it's feeling of stillness Marshall, fascinating about the ripples being clearly defined! I like the second shot too, for it's sense of movement, and the memories it brings, I love night crabbing!