camera: nikon d3000
aperture: f7.1
exposure: 183sec
date: 01-21-2011
time: 11:06PM pst
location: shark fin beach, near bonny doon off highway 1 just out of santa cruz, ca usa
software edits: only resizing

quick story on the shot:  
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I was reading gizmodo.com's weekly shooting challenge: "You'll take a picture at night, but you'll make it look like day."

I'd been wanting to take this type of a shot for awhile now but kept putting it off because I was actually a little scared to be running around at night trying to find the right location and wasn't even sure what settings I needed to have.

silly boy.

pretty simple to set up the camera and was much (much!) easier to find the spot and get into position.  

beautiful night considering it is mid-january.  almost warm.  if you look close in the sky near the top of the pic, you can see some star trails.

this was the last in a small set of images that I took.  why a small set?  my goal had been to take 25-30 pix across a variety of f-stops and shutter release times to find the best combo so my submission to the challenge was as good as I could make it.  I had just bragged to a friend that "I feel like I'm starting to get better at being prepared for pretty much any shot I want to do — I know there are still tons of things that I need to learn and equipment I could use but I'm feeling more confident...."

15 minutes later my camera told me I needed to replace my battery.  no problem, right?  a confident photographer always has a spare battery handy, right?  umm, yah.  sitting in the charger at home.
-Bob Zimway