I’ve always admired those lifeguard stations on South Beach. Last summer, my family went to Florida and I got to take my Leica X1 there for the first time.  I have many photos from there that I looked forward to writing about. Here are two shots that I took late at night while still walking on the beach. The moon was out and almost full that night helping get that extra light I needed. I was looking for one really cool lifeguard station to photograph before heading back up to Ocean Blvd. Then this came in my view. I looked up in the sky and saw that the clouds were moving quickly so I had to hurry and run to the lifeguard station, set up my tripod, and compose my shot. I was barely able to get those clouds at the top before the blew away. This was a 30 second exposure and the only one I could get since the clouds were gone at the top when my camera finished.

In my post processing, I had a lot of fun. I did my basic edits in Lightroom but the real magic happened in DXO FilmPack. I applied a retro color scheme to the image since the lifeguard station had an old sci-fi look to it. The pinks and yellows were intensified while the sky got a nice deep space blue hue to it. I really like color version of this photo because of the retro color scheme and it makes me think of those old sci-fi shows back in the 70s. The black and white version however is probably my personal favorite. The dark tones complement the highlights while not adding a dark distracting elements to the photo.  The light tones draw your focus to the lifeguard station and then pull you in even more to see the details of the wispy clouds, the shining stars in the sky and the glistening waves in the ocean.