Fisterra, the End of the World ~ Spain

Finisterra (or Fisterra in Galician) is the furthest western tip of Spain, before the Atlantic Ocean. It comes from Fin (end) and Terra (Earth) and was actually thought to be the end of the world (the world used to be flat, remember?).

Finisterra is also the end of the Camino de Santiago (St. James way) and the Camino Pagano (Pagan way, older than the Camino de Santiago itself). It's such an emotional moment to reach the last milestone with "0.00 km" written on it, after walking more than 900km from France.

The ritual and traditions say that, upon reaching the Fisterra, you should watch the sunset, pray and burn all your belongings to symbolize purification and a new start. The sunset over the ocean was dramatically amazing and I was lucky to have such a beautiful weather in a region known for being rainy.

Stillness

"In the stillness of the quiet, if we listen, we can hear the whisper of the Heart giving strength to weakness, courage to fear, hope to despair"

Howard Thurman

Sitting alone on the cold sand, listening to the sound of the waves crashing on the shore, I was contemplating the Moon ruling the nightsky before leaving its place to the Sun's splendor. All was so quiet, so peaceful. And, for a moment, as I closed my eyes, all seemed so .... still.

I felt like capturing that feeling, like a piece of frozen time. A very relaxing moment for the soul.
Can that be possible through a picture? I tried.

Thanks to my handy tripod, I placed my camera right in front of the shore, included the moon in the composition and took a looooong stare with my camera.
I shot this at f/8, a 32 second exposure and ISO 400. I chose a higher ISO than normal because I wanted to have time to experiment many shots and the waves were getting closer and closer.. Also originally, I was thinking of converting my photo to black & white, so noise would give it an original old touch (like grain).

The long exposure was to smooth the Ocean and give it a still "creamy" flat look. Also it was quite dark so I needed to capture the light/colors of the sky.

I processed slightly to shot in PS to add some contrast and saturation and crop the final shot to make it more "square-ish".

The final result was better in color than in monochrome as the blend of colors really mix well together. I think I kind of succeeded to reflect the feeling I had during that moment, a frozen piece of time. Staring at this photo really relaxes me.

Hope you share that feeling with me.