Click the image for a larger version to see all the neat detail in the clouds and water
Boy, I must be a glutton for punishment for tonight I shot at Hole in the Wall Beach at high tide. The last time I did that, I had a serious accident. So how the heck did I find myself there again under similar conditions? Well . . .
A passing storm brought the promise of drama to our sunny shores here in Santa Cruz for the first time in about a week. The clear skies, along with the fact the my car has been in the shop, kept me from shooting for the longest time in a while: going on 9 days. NINE!! Yikes!
Anyway, got my car back from the shop and saw a whole world of intriguing clouds out over the ocean; nothing was going to keep me inside tonight. I checked the tide levels and saw that they were fairly high, which more or less ruled out Hole in the Wall Beach, aka my favorite place in the whole area. But somehow I still found myself pulling into the parking lot if only to “check it out.”
I tromped on down to the beach and saw that there was quite a lot of sand piled up since my last visit, which made the arch much easier to pass through. It was still a race against the waves back up around the side of the cliffs but a fair bit of sprinting, hooting, and hollering kept me ahead of the salt water.
I wasn’t sure where the best conditions for sunset would be so I clambered up onto the rocks at the south end of the beach where there are a million and one things to shoot. And boy did I have a frikkin’ field day out there.
The lighting conditions were constantly changing and I shot composition after composition. I almost filled up my memory card, which is something I never do any more. Towards the end of the evening I was shooting a massive storm cell ruddily illuminated by the sun’s last rays when a sneaker wave ricocheted off of a rock 40 feet in front of me and somehow flew backwards through the air to land entirely on my chest.
Ahh, sigh. It isn’t a night at Hole in the Wall if you don’t come home soaking wet.
Should be lots of sweet shots to share here over the next few days. Thanks for looking!
~Josh
posted by Josh at 11:05 am
Elephant seals are funny animals. And I mean funny in a haha kind of way.
A happy little weaner
Had a fantastic opportunity on Saturday to go out with some researchers who were putting satellite transmitters on young elephant seals, or “weaners.”
These guys are some of the noisiest critters I’ve ever been around and it was a fairly hilarious afternoon listening to them honk, spit, hiss, burp, gurgle, yelp, squeak, and fart continuously for the entire five hours we spent with them.
Soon these 90-100 kg “little babies” will be headed out to sea to make their way in a scary world filled with hungry white sharks. Sadly only about 40% of them will survive to adulthood, but the ones who do make it will be big bad monsters who you don’t want to mess with.
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posted by Josh at 9:21 am
God, if there is a God, is surely a practical joker.
It’s easy to come to this conclusion when you are a photographer because there is never any shortage of funny, annoying, and exasperating things that happen to you when in pursuit of an image.
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posted by Josh at 11:48 am
Spent the afternoon as usual: peering out the window to check on conditions down out the coast. Since I had missed the fantastic sunset on Friday, I was especially antsy to get some shooting in, so when I saw some clouds building on the horizon, I hopped in the car and zoomed away down to the beach!
After some close calls at Four Mile and Laguna Creek where I almost stopped to shoot, I ended up at my old standby: Panther / Hole in the Wall Beach
Down at the shore I was immediately impressed by the massive waves, which were bigger than I’d ever seen them at this beach. (And if that doesn’t foreshadow the events to come this evening, I don’t know what would.)
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posted by Josh at 1:03 pm
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So you’re sitting at home, looking out on a 100%, completely overcast day, and thinking:
“Great, I’m glad it’s cloudy because I need to get some work done. Got my first art show of the year coming up in a couple of weeks and there’s a huge amount of prep to be done.”
And then a little voice in your head says: “Hey, want to go out shooting at Four Mile Beach?”
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posted by Josh at 4:50 pm
Did something today I almost never do at home: woke up early to shoot the sunrise. Not sure what got into me exactly other than I have a somewhat obsessive personality and when I get into something, I really get into it. The ‘it’ in this case is Four Mile Beach in Santa Cruz. I went there yesterday evening for sunset and while there ended up being no color, I had a great time anyway because I was captivated by Four Mile’s beauty. I don’t what the difference is exactly between Four Mile and the other nearby beaches I’ve been shooting lately, but this place really struck me as being just that much more wonderful.
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posted by Josh at 12:47 pm
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On the last leg of my recent southwest road trip, I had the choice of either heading north out of Zion National Park to head for Great Basin National Park, or heading south into Death Valley. A brief weather check on the morning of my departure let me know that it was extremely cold in Great Basin, and since I’d been slogging through snow, ice, and freezing water for the previous week, I opted for the more temperature climes of DV. This turned out to be a great decision: no crowds, beautiful weather, and some choice photography opportunities ensued. Full details and video after the jump.
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posted by Josh at 5:21 pm
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I arrived in Page, Arizona in a late January evening just as the clouds were beginning to roll in. I had little idea of what to do in town so I just found a cheap motel in which to spend the night. While checking in I perused the ubiquitous motel-bookstand-full-of-fliers-of-what-to-do-around-here and discovered to my delight that Antelope Canyon was right in town on the Navajo Reservation. “Well holy jeez,” I thought to myself, “I shall have to pay a visit.”
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posted by Josh at 11:06 am
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Horseshoe Bend on the Colorado River – one of THE classic southwest photo locations. And in my ignorance, I didn’t even know I was there until I practically fell into it.
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posted by Josh at 1:11 pm
As 2009 winds its way down, I’ve caught myself reflecting on the successes and failures, and the adventures and mishaps of the past year. For me 2009 was a year of great change, growth, and opportunity. I got to visit places I can hardly believe exist, and I got to do things I never imagined I would. But out of all the memorable moments of the last 12 months, a few things burn most brightly in my memory. I couldn’t keep the list to just ten, so without further ado, here are my Top 12 Experiences of 2009:
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posted by Josh at 11:30 pm