Playing Catchup

I was camping all weekend long with the family up at El Capitan State Beach.  What a great place to get away from the business of the city!  It’s just a couple hours away from Los Angeles, but it makes you forget that how close you actually are to a major city.

Here are a few photos that I took over the weekend to bring me current on my 365.  Bad news is that I’m headed to New York for a couple days and will not have time for any photos other than whatever I take with my iPhone.  So I’ll be dark two more days then I’ll have a couple days of my best iPhone images on my return.

Cheers!

Sunset at El Capitan, March 12

Rock Stacking at El Capitan, March 13

Rock Stacks at El Capitan, March 13

Nate's Rock Stack, March 13

Dawn at El Capitan State Beach, March 14

Sea urchin shell, March 15

Nate at Dockweiler

Yesterday, my wife and our son, Nate, walked around the tidal pools and collected a bunch of sea glass.  Nate was so excited about it that he wanted to find some more sea glass today.  We didn’t have time to make it back down to San Pedro, but we had a 0.5 ft low tide just after 5PM so he and I headed down to Dockweiler to see if we could find some sea glass.

We found a few pieces of glass, but they hadn’t been rolling around long enough to take all the sharp edges off so we just ended up throwing those pieces away.  Instead we collected some smooth stones of various colors, some sea shells, and a couple of nice sand dollars.  Afterward we climbed up a berm and I was able to get a shot of Nate against a colorful evening sky.

Nate at Dockweiler

San Pedro Sunset

We had a family trip down to the tidal pools in San Pedro this evening.  We were treated to a beautiful sunset as the waves broke over the rocks.  Hope you had a wonderful Presidents’ Day!

San Pedro Sunset

Santa Monica After the Rain

I’m finding that in order to shoot and upload at least one image per day takes a lot more planning and preparation that I anticipated.  On my commutes to and from work, I’ve been taking notes of where I might need to be at a certain time to get a decent picture of this or that.  Ideally, I’d like to get the photos in the morning which relieves me of the pressure of having to shoot, edit, and upload an image at the end of the day.  For the days when I might have to get a shot on my way home from work, I’ve been taking notes of places along my commute and what time might be ideal for those spots.

Well, today my schedule didn’t permit an early morning shoot so I had to wait until after work to start scrambling for my 365 photos.  I had an idea of what I was going to shoot, but with the weather we had today, I wasn’t really sure what I was going to get in terms of light.  When I pulled out of the parking lot from work, I saw the light and scrapped my earlier plans and headed for the Santa Monica Pier.  It’s close to work and I thought I’d have a chance at a decent sunset.

Although the sun got blocked by some clouds on the horizon, I was able to grab a couple shots with some interesting lighting.  In the shot of the parking lot, the wet pavement served as a nice reflector for the orange sky.

Entrance to the Santa Monica Pier

Parking lot at the Santa Monica Pier

Low Tide Sunset

While it wasn’t the mega low minus tide we had last Sunday, we did have a 0.06 ft low tide and it happened just after sundown which was a cool thing.  I took my son, Nate, down to the beach and saw all sorts of cool seashells and sand dollars.  I nabbed a shot of a sand dollar while Nate was busy hunting for sea shells.

There were too many clouds on the horizon for the entire sky to get lit up, but about 15 minutes after the sun went down, we did finally get a little color.

Sand Dollar

Nate at a zero tide

Tanker after sunset

Santa Monica Sunset

I wasn’t able to do a shoot this morning because I had to be at work early.  Not to worry, I figured.  Since I work at the Water Gardens, if I could get out of work at a decent hour, then I’d be able to head west a few blocks to shoot a nice sunset at the Santa Monica Pier.

Well, I was treated to one of those very vibrantly colored sunsets that just makes you feel so alive and happy to be outside.  The weather was warm and there was hardly a breeze in the air.  It really doesn’t get much better than this – at least not in Los Angeles.

I know the image is a bit cliché but given that I’m only 2 weeks into my 365 and I hadn’t shot anything else all day, I wasn’t about to let unoriginality stall what will be a yearlong project.  I figure I can be more original some other day.  So I plopped my tripod down not too far from a few other photographers who probably walked away with same images I got.

Santa Monica Pier, Perspective 1

Santa Monica Pier, Perspective 2

Roller Coaster and Ferris Wheel