Tag: photograhy

Photographing the California Central Coast – Day 3

Tag a long on a scouting expedition of the California Central Coast.

I’m on a three-day scouting trip to photograph the central coast of California from the Sonoma Coast north of San Francisco down to Santa Cruz to the south.  I am preparing for the 2018 Central Coast and Napa photography workshop.  The first two days covered the coast north of Frisco. Today would continue south, picking up the coast at Half Moon Bay.  You can read about the first to days here:

Unlike the prior day where I didn’t roll out of my sleeping bag until 8:00, this day the alarm was set for 5:00.  That’s more consistent with what I’m used to when photographing.  I arose in the dark, took a quick hot shower and broke camp as silently as possible.  When I left the campground it was still dark.

Gleason Beach, which I had photographed the day before, grabbed my attention in the morning light and I had to stop for it again.

Gleason Beach Morning

These two sea stacks that hadn’t impressed me in the afternoon stood out in the soft morning light.  As with the first two days, there were occasional splashes of large waves.  But, from this distance what impressed the eye didn’t impress the camera.  So I was more intent on photographing the patterns made by the surf after the waves broke.

Continue reading “Photographing the California Central Coast – Day 3”

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Photographing the California Central Coast – Day 2

Tag a long on a scouting expedition of the California Central Coast.

I’m continuing a three-day photography scouting trip along California’s Central Coast.  I’m preparing to lead a group here in November for the 2018 Central Coast and Napa Valley workshop.  In the previous post (Photographing the California Central Coast – Day 1), I was joined by a friend and we covered the north end of the Sonoma Coast.

Today is the second day and I’m on my own.  I enjoyed the company yesterday but today will be a more typical experience.

I started out by sleeping in.  It was almost 8:00 when I finally rolled out of my sleeping bag and emerged from my tent to a blue sky.   After yesterday’s overcast and foggy start, this was good news.   A quick breakfast and a hot shower and I was ready to go.  This day was going to cover more mileage than the day before but with fewer stops.

Gleason Beach was the first.

Gleason Beach

There were some sea stacks at this stop but they didn’t stand out.  The severe gash in the cliff that led down to the cluster of sea stacks just off shore, however, was far more interesting. I timed the shot to get two concentric rings of surf which added the grace of curved lines to an overall rugged composition.

Continue reading “Photographing the California Central Coast – Day 2”

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Making a Photograph – Fort Point

Not long ago I was in San Francisco for some photography. I was interested in photographing Fort Point because it would be a good opportunity to emphasize design elements and abstractions. Fort Point is part of the National Park system and situated at the mouth of the San Francisco Bay. Its intent was to protect the bay from attack. Construction was completed in 1861. It never fired a shot.

If you’re interested in learning more about the fort, here are a couple of interesting links.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Point,_San_Francisco

https://www.nps.gov/fopo/learn/historyculture/index.htm

These “Making a Photograph” articles generally take a single, successful photograph and walk through the process of its creation from the moment of inspiration in the field to the finished product. What that doesn’t show is the scores of rejects that ended up in my memory card, what I was trying to do with them and how and why it didn’t work. I think there’s as much to be learned from the rejects as there is from the keepers.

So in this post I want to ‘air my dirty laundry’ so to speak and share with you not only the keepers but the rejects. I also want to take you through the process of looking deeper into the rejects in an effort to learn from my mistakes.

So come along with me as I share my flubs and successes at Fort Point. Continue reading “Making a Photograph – Fort Point”

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