In the beach shot that is a deliberate messing about with a tilt/shift to create the 'miniature' effect to avoid the usual everything in focus landscape shot.
This is only relevant because I was interested in how this shot was created. At first I thought it was done with a tilt/shift as well. But the EXIF is for a Nikon 50 mm f/1.8 lens @ f/5. So I imagine the effect was accomplished in post.