Manhattan Dawn

I was up pretty late catching up on a few days worth of Olympics coverage on my DVR so I wasn’t able to get up quite as early as I had hoped.  So, I just drove to Manhattan Beach to grab a photo for today’s 365.

I was surprised to see a bunch of people down at the pier this morning.  Apparently, they were all there to work out as a group where some big dude was yelling at everybody to run harder.  Funny thing was that the guy doing all the yelling didn’t seem to be very fit himself.  But I guess if all you need is for somebody to scare you into working out harder, he would definitely do the trick!  As for me, I’ll stick with my virtual coach who lives inside my Wii.  (Did I mention that she has a crush on me?)

Manhattan Dawn

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

Water Shots from D&W

It took a few days for the conditions to clean up to the point where I could try another outing with the water camera.  The waves were glassy and the wind was slightly offshore holding up the waves a bit so I was able to capture a couple of hollow ones.  I still have yet to catch one that I’m completely happy with, but it sure is fun trying.

Special thanks again to Rick G. for letting me use his camera.  Cheers!

Hollow and Empty

Smooth Ramp

Dawn at El Porto

There wasn’t much in the way of waves this morning at El Porto.  At least not enough to try any water shots so I settled for snapping a few shots from the beach and then caught a few waves on my longboard.

Waves are supposed to pick up this evening and stay big over the weekend, but we’re also supposed to get some rain so who knows what the conditions will be like.  Hopefully, I’ll be able to try my hand at the water shots again tomorrow.

El Porto, looking south

El Porto, looking north