Following several days of wind and waves, a great deal of which were overcast, the sun peeked out through a break in the clouds near the horizon, just before sunset. The low angle of the sun washed the lake and lighthouses with an intense amber light - it was, in fact, the golden hour. Generally perfect for photography, but in this case, I was not taking advantage of the light in the normal sense. When I turned my back to the sun, the shore was brilliantly lighted by the golden hour. The colors were in perfect contrast to the dark sky, but I focused on the lighthouse and the lake, photographing into the golden light.
This has many disadvantages including lens flare, silhouetting the subject, and overexposure of the sky -all of which I dealt with as I metered the scene. However, the main advantage of this direction was the illumination of the sprays of water cast up by the waves. The water captured the golden light as it was cast into the air, even the small sprays on top of the breaking waves were golden.
The low, amber light may have softened the scene, but it intensified the power of the waves.
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