I often keep gear in my car or with me at the studio because you never know when the sky is going to be perfect for some new landscape work. This night, I wasn't planning on heading out to the beach, but the sky was setting up to be amazing as i was leaving work. It was a total rush to the beach but I got there with about 20 minutes to spare before the sunset and took this image. Awesome night to be outside!

In thinking through what I wanted as I was walking out to this lifeguard shack, I knew there were several things I was most interested in. Color was the biggest thing, but I also wanted to find a dynamic composition using the shape and color of the lifeguard shack. I really don't like filling the frame with things like the shack and decided it would need to be a rule of thirds type thing. Composition wise, I needed something to strengthen the image. The lifeguard shack by itself even with a colorful sky wouldn't necessarily be enough of what I was looking for. Luckily, the wind was really carrying the clouds across the sky and based on their direction, I knew I could drag my shutter to create motion. If I could find the right place to stand, I could almost use the clouds and sky as leading lines into the lifeguard shack. THAT was my image. 

This was a 20 second exposure shot at F8 and 17m on a Nikon D800 with a Nikon 17-35m F2.8 lens. The sun hadn't set yet, so I used a B+W 6-stop ND filter to allow the longer exposure without having to stop down outside of where I wanted to be! With the wide lens and the upward looking image, there was some distortion on the shack some of which I corrected for in Lightroom 4. I finished the photo in photoshop with Nik Software's Color Efex Pro, Viveza and Sharpener Pro. 

By the way, I took this photo on the beach at Sand Key Park which is just south of Clearwater Beach in Florida. It's an absolutely gorgeous beach / park! Definitely one of my favorites.