Hidden Beach

Mark and I hiked out to Arch Rock. It was a crap shoot whether we’d be fogged out, but emerging from the four-mile tunnel of forest the sunset was clear.

Last time I’d hiked out to Arch Rock, by the time I got out to the ocean it was too dark to see more than the general contours of the landscape. This time we were earlier and the sky was bright with moon. By the light of the setting sun and almost-full moon I was able to make my way down a little path towards a hidden beach.

The path switch-backed down a small slot canyon to the banks of a creek. Making my way across a couple of fairly easy rock faces I made my way down beside the creek to where the splash of water met the ocean.

On this small, sandy spot I set up my tripod. In one direction, the high tide created a whirlpool beneath the arch in Arch Rock (photo below, captured at 2.5 seconds exposure, see my O’Reilly blog post for some technical discussion of the exposure and post-processing technique).

In the other direction (photo above, captured at 1/50 of a second), the moon shown through the end of the canyon and on the small hidden beach, also lit by the setting sun.

Through the Arch

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Posted in Landscape, Photography, Point Reyes

Sunflower from Summer

Sometimes immediately after I take a photo, I fall in love with it. But after a while it’s no longer so great, in my opinion. Other times the opposite happens: I archive a photo, forget about it, then come back to it and see it as grand. It’s like falling in love again with your spouse!

Seriously, there are a number of reasons for this phenomenon in both directions. What they boil down to is that with a little distance and space I’m more likely to be objective about one of my photos. And I probably don’t even remember what seemed so great to me when I looked through the lens. So my photo editor’s objective cool is not biased by my intense photographer’s passion. A good marriage of photographer and photo editor (even when they are married in one and the same person) requires both the passion and the coolness.

My screen saver randomly plays through my photographs. This is one mechanism I use to salvage photos from the archives. If I glance at the screen saver and really like what I see, I have another look at the photo. The screen saved is the Windows XP Slide Show, which also dispalys the file name and path for every photo it shows.

I shot this sunflower in the summer time, and when it appeared on my monitor just now, I decided it was worth another look. Looking at it, I decided to publish it in my blog. It kind of goes with the African Daisy, anyhow.

How many photos are there in my archives waiting to be rediscovered?

Posted in Bemusements, Flowers, Photography