Cooped Up? Get Uncooped.

Let's face it: most beach pics are boring.

It seems counterintuitive. Beach photos typically have everything going for them: spectacular colors, scantily clad people having fun, bodies of water that never look the same twice, shall I go on? Yet the majority of beach pics, even the ones featuring Hawaiian sunsets and lithe, sun-kissed surfers, call to mind a quote I once heard. The quote is attributed to a photographer whose name I forget; I'm probably paraphrasing the quote too. But anyway. Said the cantankerous photographer:

"The dullest thing in the world is a beautiful girl on a beautiful beach."

Here are five quick tips to avoid taking boring beach photos.

-Try a different color scheme. Black and white? Sepia? Infrared? 

-Look for patterns.

-Zoom in when you normally zoom out and vice versa. Are you the type who snaps dozens of infinitesimally differing versions of the same panoramic landscape shot? Try zooming way, way in, capturing one particular clump of seaweed or the curling, froth-whipping sneering-Elvis lip of one particular wave. 

-Capture the unusual, the imperfect. Photograph the looming storm cloud, the crooked-beaked gull, the huge, gnarled tree stump stranded on an otherwise empty plane of sand. The exception is always far more interesting than the rule.

-Put the camera away altogether. Capture your day in watercolors or acrylics or, hell, crayons. Focus on creating memories rather than recording them.

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