One of the reasons I love landscape & nature photography so much is the peace and serenity it brings to my mind and life. There is something about being out in nature watching the clouds float through the sky or the waves crashing on the shore that brings a sense of calm.

So I’m very honored to join a talented and kind group of women for a Serenity Project blog circle.

When it comes to serenity, the island of Kauai pretty much epitomizes the idea of ‘serenity’. Imagine the clouds just floating over the mountains as the oceans waves lap along the shore. Whenever I shoot the ocean, I love to experiment with the shutter speed to capture the movement of the water in different ways. Sometimes I like to freeze the motion but often I love to shoot long exposures. Sometimes in the 1/4 of a second to 3 second range and sometimes really long exposures like a minute or more to capture movement in the clouds as well.

Another thing I love to do is use a slow shutter speed and use a panning effect to create a dreamy abstract image of the water and sky.

And I love when a shutter speed around .6 seconds really creates a streaking of the water.

Head on over to the blog of my talented friend Nancy Armstrong and continue the circle from there! Hope you have a wonderful holiday season!