Shooting the Big Sur Coast

Pre-Dawn Light on McWay Falls, originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan.

If you're ever shooting on the Big Sur Coast, it helps to chat with the officers of the California Highway Patrol there. Aside fromresponding to accidents caused by the ocasional tourist who causes a truck to jackknife due to leaving her bicycle laying down on the road (true story), a lot of their time is spent interfacing with the public. They know every turnout and access point (and have participated in rescues people making their way to inaccessible spots), so they can help you spend your time there efficiently and safely

This waterfall, McWay Falls, is apparently one of two waterfalls dropping into the ocean in the continental United States, the other being Alamere Falls on Point Reyes.

This waterfall is accessed via the parking lot for Julia Pfeiffer State Park, but the park doesn't open until 8am, so I took this from a turnout up on Hwy 1, a few dozen yards higher than the standard path. The park also asks for a $10 fee for entry and parking!

There are some seriously quirkly rules and restrictions for accessing much of the coast, so I'll try to add notes as I add photos. For example, I blew off Pfeiffer Beach, a Forest Service access (due to all of those trees on the beach?), but unfortunately they've allowed a concessionaire to profit from Federal Recreation Passholders who bought the annual pass under the understanding that it would gain them entry to USDA Forest Service sites. They also close at sunset, not 30-40 minutes later when the sunset color is over, so it's virtually worthless to photographers who prefer to shoot in the best light(at least the ones who choose not to risk getting a ticket). I'll be sending the confused USDA bureaucrats some correspondence on that one... and I'll share the names with concerned photographers as well so your voices can be heard and your interests represented. Bureaucrats don't like risk, so I suspect they may show some flexibility if their users start raising a stink about counterproductive policies. Point Lobos State Park just up the road allows photographers to stay until 30 minutes after sunset, stilla bit tight but a far more reasonable compromise.

By The Rockets Red Glare, The Bombs Bursting In Air

By The Rockets Red Glare, The Bombs Bursting In Air, originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan (Oregon Coast today).

Given that our itinerary ended up getting reversed due to clouds on the Oregon Coast towards the beginning of the trip, that put us heading towards the coast around Independence Day.

We learned of Depoe Bay's July 3 disply as we sat in a coffee shop in Hood River, so we hopped in the car and made the trek.

That display over the rocky coast was great, but the following night at Seaside was a much bigger spectacle.




In addition to the official display at Seaside, people had brought a significant quantity of their own fireworks to shoot off on the spacious beach. We had purchased a pack of fountains in Montana knowing that Oregon didn't allow rockets and mortars, but we found that many people had purchased the disallowed varieties across the border in Washington.

One of our favorite things to do was to take long exposure shots while we "painted" with the 3' long sparklers we had brought. Fortuantely they lasted several minutes, so we could take several shots with each one!
We stayed on the beach until about 11:30pm, which was good since the traffic getting out of town was a challenge until well past midnight.

Sunset Bay Oregon

Sunset Bay Oregon, originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan.

As its name implies, Sunset Bay can be a nice place to catch a sunset, but it gets even better when low tide is close to sunset.

Hyperfocal Landscape Photography: Maximize Your DOF!

Cannon Beach, originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan.

To get a photo sharp from way close to infinity, just focus on the hyperfocal point for your camera, f stop, and degree of zoom (focal length). You can see from the charts here that at f/22 you can reasonably expect to have a photo sharp from least 2 feet to infinity!:
http://www.naturephotographers.net/articles0307/rb0307-1.html

For a link to an Excel spreadsheet you can print showing DOF range for a given camera with various settings:
http://ronbigelow.com/articles/depth-of-field-1/depth-of-field-1.htm

You can fake it by simply pointing your camera at something in the foreground with autofocus on, then after it focuses, switch off the autofocus. Then reframe on what you want to shoot, and let the camera re-acquire a reasonable exposure for that image you want to capture (but it shouldn't destroy the focus you just set).

I've been doing this with DSLRs like Canon XT/XTi/40D, and after I reframe the shot I often hold a graduated neutral density filter in front of the lens and have the camera set on self timer to take 3 exposures (Auto Exposure Bracketing). I simply have to avoid bumping the lens focus manual ring (or I could use masking tape to temporarily keep it set in one place, as I do for night shots once I achieve a good distant focus for star trails).

With a point and shoot camera that doesn't have manual focus, you might have to hold shutter button halfway while you reframe so it holds the close focus point, and you may need to exposure compensate to darken the photo a stop or two so it doesn't emphasize the foreground and overexpose the sky (or just do it on a tripod and take 3 bracketed exposures, which can be averaged in the free trial version of Photomatix).

It's a lot easier than it probably sounds... just focus close, reframe, shoot!

The effect is most dramatic when you use your widest lens setting, since you can see what's at your feet plus all the way out to the distant horizon. It's even better if you put the camera low to the ground (tripod on its lowest setting) since that emphasizes what's right there at your feet, while including as much as possible out on the horizon and in the distant sky.

If you use a compact point-and-shoot camera, it probably doesn't have an aperture setting as small as f/22. Don't worry... just use your camera's smallest lens aperture setting, even if it's f/8 or larger. It turns out that due to physics and geometry, smaller cameras with smaller sensors have much more depth of field for a given aperture setting, so you're probably getting the equivalent of f/22 on a 35mm camera from your camera's setting of f/8. Check the hyperfocal distance charts for similar compact cameras, or just set your camera to its smallest aperture and try a few shots out to see how much DOF it can deliver.

One last note: since small apertures let in less light, you may want to have your camera on a tripod in case it uses a long exposure to compensate for the small aperture (especially at sunset or sunrise when light is lower anyway). I also bump up my ISO setting to at least ISO 200 to keep exposure time reasonable.

Try it out. You may be pleasantly surprised at the enlargement quality results that your camera can produce with just a little attention paid to where in the scene you allow it to focus.

Second Beach is #1 in my Book

Dinner on Second Beach, originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan.

Second beach may be my new favorite shooting location! It's smaller than Yosemite, but the potential for stunning shots is very high under the right weather conditions. Unfortunately the weather and lighting conditions weren't all that good when I visited, but that just means that I have to return soon! I can't complain though... it wasn't raining.

Knowing I'd light a fire on the beach for photos anyway, I stopped by the grocery store in Forks and picked up hot dogs and buns on the way to the beach. It's hard to beat food cooked directly over coals. Next time I'll bring steaks & s'mores!

My reaction to this beach can best be summed up as, "Second to what?"

Sea stack reflection on Second Beach

Rialto Beach

Rialto Beach, originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan.

for sunset I decided to try Rialto Beach. This site requires only a 20 minute walk, but it's an interesting scramble across a rock breakwater topped with storm debris logs, especially on the way back as it's getting dark!

Preface to California's Wildfires

The storm arrived on the California Coast last Friday evening with a few puffy white clouds punctuated by occasional flashes of lightning and cracks of thunder. Overall it seemed like a very small scale event, with a few light showers that lasted mo more than a few minutes. I even captured a brief rainbow projected onto one of the clouds as sunset approached.

The clouds seemed to grow a little taller as they climbed the Coast Range, with intermittent thunder rolling in the distance. It was an interesting novelty to have rain at all in June, all the more noteworthy with the rare accompaniment of lightning.

By the following morning, the storm had passed from the coast, although thunder could still be heard to the East. What I didn't know at the time was that the lightning has struck over 8000 times, and over 840 fires were burning in the state, at least 90 in Mendocino County alone.

Return to Bowling Ball Beach

I have an obsession. With a beach. I think it's a healthy obsession, but I've never thought of myself as a "beach person". Don't get me wrong, I love the sea, but I'd rather be playing in it or on it than walking or lying beside it.





So this interest in beaches, is it something I've learned, or do I have a "beach gene" that I've somehow overlooked until now? Or is this particular beach attractive specifically for its un-beachly character? What kind of beach is filled with, even named after, a collection of giant rocks? Whatever the case, I returned yet again to Bowling Ball Beach on California's North Coast.

Perhaps I'm just captivated by my own conviction that there are great images to be created at Bowling Ball Beach, while being frustrated by not having caught one yet that fully lives up to my lofty expectations.

So much of photography is the journey... visualizing the concept, preparing, anticipation, enveloping the subject with different angles, perspectives, exposures and filters, then gently teasing out a halfway decent result in postprocessing that might stand some faint chance at fairly representing a unique moment... in time, in place, in your life. The destination, the image itself, typically pales in comparison to the pursuit, but it's all we can offer to those who missed the adventure that led to its creation.

So I'll continue to visit this stretch of coast until the sun, the moon and the planets line up just right and I get the shot that I know will come from there... perhaps with a rising sun with a setting moon, at low tide. In the meantime my exploratory trips there serve as preparation for when I will eventually encounter those few precious moments of precious light that I will have to make the most of.

Back to the Mendocino Coast

With some of my favorite lakes in the High Sierras still under snow, I decided to take my kids up the coast to show them some of my favorite places and to introduce them to abalone diving. First we stopped at Kruse Rhododendron State Park so see if the the flowers were still around. No luck on that count, but the redwoods are always nice, and we found some cute little newts in the creek.

We secured a campsite near the beach at Manchester State Park near Point Arena, and on two evenings we headed down to the beach for sunset. We spent the next couple of days exploring the Point Arena area including Bowling Ball Beach, where we could explore tide pools and interesting rock formations.

Later in the week we moved north to the Mendocino area and camped at Van Damme State Park. We used the fire rings on the beach each night to make s'mores and to toast dinner roll dough over the fire on our marshmallow sticks (great right off the fire, especially if you roll the hot bread on butter).

The cove there is sheltered, so it's a great place to play in the water. We went to a dive shop in nearby Fort Bragg and rented wetsuits so the kids could snorkel around while I looked for abalone. Although we had minus low tides and I did get some abalone when I went out alone, it turned out that the kelp had grown significantly since I had visited in May and it was so thick at low tide that it wasn't practical or safe to bring the kids into the thick floating mats of it in the cove. We had fun swimming around though.

Return to the North Coast

Greenwood State Beach
Point Arena Lighthouse

Schooner Gulch State Beach
Russian Gulch State Park
Van Damme State Park

Kruse Rhododendron State Park

Big Sur

McWay Falls
Pfeiffer Beach

California Coast

Point Dume State Beach
Montana De Oro State Park
Morro Rock
Ant on a cactus blossom

Bowling Ball Beach and the Mendocino Coast

I've been visiting California's North Coast for decades to go abalone diving, fishing, and for weddings, but I recently decided to try a dedicated photography trip to the area. My main objective was Bowling Ball Beach, where a minus tide is recommended to reach and photograph some unique round rocks that are covered at high tide. The minus tides tend to be in Winter and Spring, so I targeted dome of thelowest tides of the year in Early April when the low tide would coincide with sunrise.

I arrived early enough the day before to scout the area and catch a few nice sunset and dusk shots.

This is a 30 second exposure, which is long enough to abstract the motion of the waves into a misty flat surface. This version of the shot also boosts the saturation of the blue in the ocean and the sunset colors in the sky (Adobe Lightroom allows saturation adjustment of individual colors). Using 30 second exposures, each scene takes over 3 minutes: 30 seconds for the exposure, 30 seconds for the camera's noise reduction, then two more minutes for bracketed exposures. Then add any time for repositioning your tripod and framing the new shot. Sunset passes quickly at this rate, so pick your shots carefully but quickly. This sort of continuous use also drains batteries quickly, so have a spare on hand and consider how you're going to recharge before you go back out at dawn (I use an in-car charger).

The next morning I woke at 5am, well before my alarm, which would have allowed me to sleep in until 5:30. I often sleep in the back of my vehicle so there's no dew-soaked tent to pack. I pulled on some warm clothes and threw enough gear out of the driver's seat to enable me to drive off. I was staying at Manchester State Beach, one of the 48 parks that the State of California plans on closing this Summer due to poor fiscal management, so I only had an 8 mile, 15 minute drive to reach the beach.

When I arrived temperatures were chilly in the 40s with a light wind already blowing, so I bundled up in layers plus a windbreaker, a warm hat and fingerless gloves that convert to mittens so I can operate my camera and stay warm. To handle any shooting angle along the shore, including on slippery wet rocks or partway into the surf, I wore my fishing waders with high traction felt sole boots with steel-cleats. I made the short hike to the beach before sunrise, but there was no sunrise color to speak of, and the light remained uninteresting until sunlight started filtering through the blufftop trees.

There were some nice shots to be found among the rocks, as long as you avoided full sunlight.

Unfortunately one of the best shots showing the "bowling balls" on the leading lines in the bedrock happened to be in full sun, so it was a bit washed out at this tie of day. It will be worthwhile to return some day in the late afternoon to get better lighting.

I'll also want to return to try some very long exposures during a moonlit low tide, when the waves can be even more completely abstracted and star trails can add detail to the sky.

For more examples of images from this area, check out shots like this one and this. See also Jughandle State Park, Kibasilla Creek, Caspar Point / Jackass Creek, and so on.

Natural Bridges State Beach, California

Oregon Photography Tour: Wine Country to the Oregon Coast

Waking up in Roseburg, I was at a loss as to what to go photograph at dawn. I decided to sleep in and go wine tasting instead. I found a number of interesting wines, particularly at Abacela Winery. Eventually my focus returned to photography and I headed for the coast.

I reached the Oregon Coast near Bandon, in time to check a few viewpoints to find a good spot for sunset. The Face Rock Wayside provided a stirway for beach access, scenic rock offshore, and plenty of flat, wet sand on which to catch the sky's reflection.
This was my first sunset on the Oregon Coast, and it looked like there would be too much cloud cover and nothing happening. Then suddenly a hole started appearing, and I loaded up my gear, grabbed the tripod, and rushed down the stairway and onto the sand.

I caught some nice shots of the hole opening up in the clouds. I believe the rock to the left is referred to as "wizard hat."


However before coming down to the beach I had moved things around between a backpack and my fanny pack. I was in such a hurry that somehow I ended up on the beach with no filters. I should have used a graduated neutral density filter for most of my shots, but using a tripod and brackeint exposures I was able to use HDR processing and have the results turn out OK. That was fortunate, because it ended up being one of my favorite sunsets of the trip!

Here are a few of my other shots from the Bandon area.