Be like the promontory and stand firm against the turmoil

 Be like the promontory against which the waves continually break, but stands firm and tames the fury of the water around it.  Marcus Aurelius.  Meditations.  Book 4.


Image: One of my digital "paintings" of a Pacific wave crashing against the sandstone bluffs of Shore Acres near Coos Bay, Oregon was a photograph I took transformed with Topaz Impression using the Van Gogh II preset with customized adjustments.  To create the flecks of foam I shortened the stroke width.  I also adjusted the orange, yellow and green channels and decreased the contrast significantly to make the shape of the wave more visible.  I added a slight vignette, then in Photoshop removed some of the flecks around the edges using a healing brush.

Although I was positioned dozens of feet from the ocean below, shortly after this photograph was taken I was almost swept away by a towering rogue wave that crested the rock I was on.  Another photographer friend grabbed my arm and we braced ourselves hunching over to protect our camera gear, a very close call!

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