The Making of a Lighthouse Photograph

This image was photographed at Folly Beach near Charleston, SC, Friday evening. I had taken several photos with a couple of filters and liked parts of each one.

I loved the waves at 1/25 of a second, the water at 8 seconds and the clouds with a polarizer. So.....I layered all three images and masked in the parts I wanted and masked out the parts I didn't like. So this image is three in one, the clouds with a Circular Polarizer, the waves and rocks at 1/25th and the water utilizing the Singh-Ray Variable Neutral Density filter. The Singh-Ray Vari-ND filter is expensive but can decrease the light by 8 stops, which is very good for smoothing out water movements, like creeks and waterfalls. My only concern now it that the horizon is too centered. It's not really centered, pretty close, but I don't want to lose the clouds by cropping the top or lose the sand by cropping the bottom. So I think it's finished.