A Remarkable Day — Quicksilver Sea

April 8, 2020
by Michael Scandling
comments 23
California / Inspiration / Photo Log / Photography / Seascapes

DSC_4623_DxO11-2FBlog

December 23, 2017, Sonoma County Coast. This was taken about two hours before the shot in the last post. This is what this most remarkable day looked like. No post-processing except to straighten the horizon 1/10 degree (hand-held shot) and tone down the white at the top of the frame a just as tiny little bit. That’s it. It was a quicksilver sea. The Pacific was living up to its name.

Be well. Be kind. Do Good. Create.

(Nikon D500; Nikon 28-300 f/3.5-5.6G Zoom. RAW processing in DxO PhotoLab 3.2; Editing in Adobe Photoshop.)

The Author

California based fine-art photographer featuring abstract, impressionist, and minimalist seascapes — near and distant — and floral-based images. Fine-art photography can be seen at www.amagaphoto.com All original images on this blog are copyright 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 Michael Scandling. All rights reserved. No images on this site may be copied, duplicated, reused, published, or re-purposed in any way without express permission from the copyright owner, Michael Scandling.

23 Comments

  1. Steve Schwartzman says

    This time the sparkling of the water at the bottom center pulls my attention away from the clouds and the horizon line. Did you consider removing the “quicksilver”?

    And did you know that the original sense of quick was ‘living’? The archaic phrase “the quick and the dead” meant “the living and the dead.”

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    • Michael Scandling says

      Thanks. The purpose of posting this was to show exactly what it looked like with no alteration. I rarely leave a shot alone — shocking — but for today I simply wanted to document a scene.

      I did know that. Back in the ‘60s music scene, we shortened the Quicksilver Messenger Service to “The Quick” and of course the Grateful Dead were always “The Dead” so when they shared a bill, they were The Quick and The Dead.

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  3. paula graham says

    Yes, how lovely…in my mind so much to be preferred above all these glorious sunsets most folk cannot get enough off! The sound of the sea, her smell…better than any perfume!! The world is a stunningly beautiful place, the older I get the more I see beauty EVERYWHERE also in the quicksilver!

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    • Michael Scandling says

      Thanks very much, Paula. When we did a one-day workshop with Rachael Talibart last summer, she commented, “Sunsets are so last year.” I mostly agree, with occasional exceptions.

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  4. shoreacres says

    Your title’s perfect. My first thought when I saw the image was of the mercury we played with as kids: coating dimes, rolling it around, watching its permutations. (Yes, I know. It was a different time.) Some of the old folks called mercury quicksilver: a name rooted in Old English cwicseolfor, or ‘living silver.’ The liveliness of your photo’s as compelling as quicksilver.

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