An idea at the beach

A lamp on the yellow sand of a beach in Vietnam

This picture was shot in Vietnam during our holiday there around Christmas 2013. 2 months before our visit, the tropical typhoon Haiyan had made landfal at that spot. The damage it left on the beach was quite extensive. When I made a walk along the coastline, a lot of wood and other debris was laying there. I also encountered a dog that was already dead for quite some time. So the circumstances were not great.

Suddenly I saw this lightbulb laying on the beach. It was still in good shape and I was grabbed by it. Somehow, this lightbulb had ended up there on the beach, fully in-tact. Considering the thickness of the glass, it was quite astonishing. I was also thinking where it came from. How could a lightbulb end up on a beach and not being fitted in some lamp or something.
The yellow sand contrasted in a nice way with the lightbulb and I crouched down to make the shot. First I wanted to have the sea on the background, but due to all the other debris on the beach, this was almost not possible.

I had my great 50mm lens on the camera (which is a very great lens!) and put the F-value all the way to 1.4. In that way, only the lamp would be sharp and not all the sand around it. With an ISO of 100, this lead to an exposure of 1/4000th of a second. It was pretty bright that day 🙂
In post I did not do that much. I only cropped the image a little bit. It turned out to be a great impulsive photo!

Camera settings:

Location