Another take on the subject.
These were taken looking down on the break from the Malibu Fishing Pier. The Tamron zoom is racked out all the way.
One of the tricks here is using FocalPoint to create blur that makes it look like the perspective is closer, like using a tilt shift lens to create images that look miniature.
This is one of the fundamentals of Vincent Versace’s “cinematic” approach. Capture the image knowing what you can do in post processing, but preserve everything in the capture that you’ll need for the further manipulations. On film, you needed the tilt shift lens. In the digital realm, one can easily simulate the effect.
Another principle is to add these effects enough to get the brain to look, but not beyond believability. This is really a cinematic principle. We want suspension of disbelief, not disbelief itself.