Dramatic Sunset Photography in Santa Monica Beach with Sigma Prime Lenses
I recently took an impromptu trip to the Santa Monica Pier for some simple beach photography during golden hour. Santa Monica is one of the most common cities that I visit in Los Angeles to do photography.
In this blog post, I’d like to share my selection of best photos from the quick beach photography session in Downtown Santa Monica. The photos featured in this blog post were taken on my Sony a7R III and with the Sigma 35mm and 85mm f/1.4 DG DN ART prime lenses.
BEGINNING THE PHOTOSHOOT
I walked through 3rd Street Promenade and made my way toward the beach. Just as a starting point, I took some photos from the Palisades Park area to get a nice wide angle view of the beach. I love the dramatic clouds that were slowly passing over the ocean. I still had about an hour before sunset, but the sun was setting further to the right of where I was standing, causing a nice side light on the right side of the clouds.
There were a few people near where I photographed this spot, but I wish I had tried for another angle where the tree on the right wouldn’t be in the frame, as it looks a bit distracting.
Aside from that, I’m happy with the composition of the photo and I think that the 35mm lens was a good choice for this shot.
MOVING TOWARDS THE BEACH
As I made my way down towards the sand, I captured a photo of the rocky bluffs near the highway of the Santa Monica State Beach. Again, I chose the 35mm lens to capture as much of the scene as possible. I wish there were more cars zooming by just to capture some motion in the photo, but I’m still happy with the results.
I like the contrast of the brown rocky texture with the greenery from the grass. I was able to get some of the dramatic clouds in the background with a few cars slowly approaching the camera. Looking back at the photo, I would have photographed from a lower angle, as I think that would have made the photo a bit more dramatic. I also possibly would have waited for a car to have gotten close by.
As I moved toward the beach, I captured a quick photo of a biker moving along the bike path that separates the parking lot and the beach. I like the sun directly behind the biker, which causes their shadow coming towards the camera. Once again, the Sigma 35mm lens was a perfect choice to get both the subject in focus, but also capture the environment.
I wanted to get the subject in the center of the small pillars, but since I was in a rush to get photos of the beach before the sun set over the clouds and because there were only a few bikers moving by, I had to settle on the composition I got.
The clouds and mountains in the background also act as a nice background for the image.
ARRIVING AT SANTA MONICA BEACH FOR SUNSET PHOTOGRAPHY
Once I arrived on the beach, I didn’t have very long to capture the sunset so I quickly took some photos with the 35mm lens and the 85mm lens. The first photo (taken on the 35mm lens) is a simple composition of the ocean and beautiful clouds that were in the first photo.
You can tell by the side light of the clouds that the sun still hadn’t fully set, so I was able to get some nice photos of the beach and ocean in time. However, as the sun did set further, I switched over to my 85mm lens to get some more dramatic images that were slightly more compressed.
With slight modifications in Adobe Lightroom Classic (warming the temperature and using the Calibration tool), I wanted to emphasize the orange glow of the sunset and darken the clouds to bring contrast to the photo and make the final image look very dramatic.
VOLCANIC SUNSET BEACH PHOTOGRAPHY
One of my favorite things about capturing Santa Monica at the beach around this time of year is that when the sun sets over the mountains and dark clouds, you can get a view of a sunset like the photo I took below. There are beautiful sun rays that burst between the clouds but the sun itself has already set over the mountains. I also like the small detail of the red light outlining the left side of one of the clouds on the right side of the photo.
This results in what looks almost like a volcanic burst of light coming from the mountains. For this photo, the Sigma 85mm lens was the best choice I had since it was the longest focal length I had with me in my camera bag.
My Ulanzi travel tripod was having issues holding my camera so I couldn’t capture a long exposure shot, but I actually prefer seeing the waves starting to crash onto the shore in the midst of the sunset.
BLUE HOUR BEACH PHOTOGRAPHY AT SANTA MONICA
Near the end of this photoshoot, I decided to take some last minute photos of the Lifeguard Toyota car and of the pier itself. With the sun gone, I wanted to capture these last few images to be much moodier than the rest of the other photos. For the most part, I was able to keep the colors pretty true to the original raw photo - but I added some more saturation and contrast just to make the car stand out.
The contrast between the red car and the blue ocean and sky makes the car stand out that much more (compared to if it was sunset and the sky was more golden).
Overall, I’m pretty happy with the composition of these two photos and how the final images turned out.
FINAL WORDS
If you have never been to Los Angeles, I think Santa Monica can be a great travel spot to visit if you want to get a nice view of the ocean. The pier itself can get really busy (especially on a weekend), so if you’re looking for a more relaxing spot, I would walk a few minutes away from the Pier to where there aren’t as many attractions and tourists walking around.
While street photography is still my favorite genre of photography, I think it’s always nice to take a step away from what you commonly photograph and try something different. I visit Santa Monica a lot, but this was the first time in a while that I spent some time taking photos and just relaxing at this beach.
I hope you enjoyed the photos and let me know what you think in the comments.
