On June 25 and 26, I spent two days on the coast in the Point Reyes area. I drove up on the 25th and spent the rest of the day in Point Reyes, then decided to head further north, as far as Salt Point, on the 26th. I went to Point Reyes with my mother and little brother, and my father joined us for our drive on the 26th. The only camera equipment I travelled with was a Canon t2i, tripod, a 18-55mm lens, a 70-300mm lens, and of course the essentials like an SD card and charger.
Day 1- Point Reyes
I had our trip to Point Reyes well planned out. I didn't get to some of the destinations I wanted to, simply because there wouldn't have been enough time to go to some other destinations. I really wanted to go see Alamere Falls, however its long hike would have made it difficult to go anywhere else, plus my brother didn't seem interested. Ultimately, not doing the hike allowed us to see a number of places we wouldn't have had time to go see otherwise.
Our first stop was Sculptured Beach. The beach itself is pretty plain, an average Northern California beach. It is a little more interesting because of the towering cliffs opposite the ocean. I would have loved to be there at sunrise or sunset, since the orange sandstone cliffs would have looked great in the softer, warmer light. However, I was there around midday, leaving me with much harsher light. Harsher midday light usually yields less vibrant and less interesting colors, and tends to make the colors a bit bland. Serge Ramelli, a mentor of mine for photography, says that if he thinks the color in a photo is poor, he'll go black and white. For the most part, I agree with and follow that idea. This led me to do most of my retouching in black and white.
Canon t2i | 18-55mm @ 21mm | f22 | 1/40 sec | ISO 100
Walking along the beach, I noticed some rocks, and with the bright sky and sand, I thought that they could be interesting subjects in some high key (meaning most of the photo is white, except for the subject or one specific area, which is almost black) photos.
On these two photos, I also used a trick to obtain what looks like a long exposure shot without using any filters. Since a long exposure shot is really just an average of all the light that the sensor receives, multiple images can be averaged to achieve the same result. Therefore, a single five second exposure is equivalent to five one second exposures, or ten half second exposures, and so on.
Canon t2i | 18-55mm @ 24mm | f5.6 | 1/640 sec | ISO 100
Each of these final images used anywhere from 50 to 80 photos. The second image, which I personally think is much better than my first composition, was shot with 70 images, each at 1 / 640th of a second. However, since I took 70 images over a period of just under 4 minutes, I was able to capture a good average of what the water looked like, giving my that smooth, fog-like water that comes with a long exposure shot. While this process is more tedious, and takes a while to process in Photoshop (the second photo took about 30 minutes), I think it brought out some interesting results and was also a good way to deal with the less than perfect lighting conditions.
I was disappointed that I wasn't able to capture Sculptured Beach in its full glory, but I figured that it would be better not to try to force an image I wasn't happy with, plus it gives me another reason to go back to Point Reyes in the near future (I am planning to make another trip this summer with some friends).
Canon t2i | 18-55mm @ 55mm | f5.6 | 1/800 sec | ISO 100
On the way back from the beach, a group of seagulls were picking crabs out of the water. I switched to my longer lens and began to shoot, but I made the basic mistake of not checking my settings before I began shooting. I had been attempting to shoot around a tide pool, and the sun had gone behind a cloud. I was shooting the tide pools at 1 / 40th of a second, and anyone who has done any kind of photography with a subject in motion knows that 1 / 40th of a second is too slow of a shutter speed. All the photos I had take with the birds and crabs were blurred and overexposed. I managed to get a few shots of the birds over the water a bit later with by 18-55mm lens, but the birds were done looking for crabs. Hopefully I learned my lesson.
The next place we stopped was in the small town of Inverness on the eastern side of the national park. Point Reyes has a huge number of shipwrecks (click here for a map of them all), but the most interesting one is the fishing boat called the Point Reyes, or sometimes the S.S. Point Reyes. It's on private property, but photos are allowed, so I thought I should go. I got there around 5:15, and since it was summer, there was still a lot of harsh light. Again, I decided to go black and white.
Canon t2i | 18-55mm @ 32mm | f6.3 | 1/500 sec | ISO 100
I really like this image. I think it's interesting and has a nice look and feel to it. However, I thought that one of the boats features that gave it the most character was the bright orange rust covering its hull. With black and white, I lose that bit of character. So I decided to try selective black and white.
Canon t2i | 18-55mm @ 32mm | f6.3 | 1/500 sec | ISO 100
While I'm not sure which image I prefer, I do think that leaving the rust in color adds something. As much as I do like these photos, as always, I know it would look better at sunrise or sunset. Sunrise is almost right behind the boat shooting from this angle, and on a partially cloudy morning, I think that some pink and orange hues in the sky, as well as some softer light, would add a lot to the scene. While hard light does add some age, I would really like some more colorful light. Since this was an easy stop, and is on the way to almost everything else in the park, it would be an easy first or last stop on my next trip out to Point Reyes.
Canon t2i | 18-55mm @ 30mm | f6.3 | 1/500 sec | ISO 100
Before we left Point Reyes, we decided to drive up to the far northern tip of the peninsula, where there is an elk preserve. The elk were not cooperating, and were off hiding on one of the further hills from the road. Even at 300mm, I couldn't get a good shot. There were some nice trails out on one of the bluffs, so I think it would another good place to return to at any time for a hike and maybe some nice views of the elk. While there, I got a shot of some yellow flowers I thought looked okay. I opened up the aperture to f / 6.3 to get a nice blur in the background. Looking back, I probably could have gone wider, but I did want to keep some detail in the flowers in the background. While it wasn't the best day of shooting I had ever had, I found some good locations that I'd like to return to, and got some solid first drafts of some photos.
Day 2- Fort Ross and Salt Point
This day turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. No plans were made for this day, and while looking up place to go along the coast, I found Salt Point. It looked interesting, and I came in with expectations that were a little too high. Long story short: I thought Salt Point was either better than actually is, or I looked in the wrong place for my compositions.
On the way to Salt Point is Fort Ross, an old fort that was used for fur hunting by the Russians. Normally, I think the fort and its surrounding grounds (the fort itself is relatively small, however the state maintains a lot of land around it) would be a good place for some interesting compositions. The fort sits near the edge of a cliff, which drops off maybe 100-150 feet before reaching a cove. Apparently, sea lions like to rest on the beach, however there were none at the time. In addition, visibility was limited to due the fog bank which managed to sit only over the fort. I attempted a few shots with the fort and ocean, but even in post processing, not much detail could be recovered beyond about 50 feet.
Canon t2i | 18-55mm @ 24mm | f6.3 | 1/1000 sec | ISO 100
While I was in the main house, I got one photo that I think could be useful for an exposure blend. I took this photo using one exposure for the inside, at 1/ 25th of a second, and another of the outside, at 1 / 1000th of a second. The two exposures were far too different to capture in a single image, so I had to mask out the overexposed windows in the exposure for the inside. I think the outside is a little dull in this photo, plus the old glass distorts the image, however, I think a number of other scenes could be put in the background. While I haven't found one I'm happy with yet, I'll keep the exposure for the inside handy, in case I find something that would fit nicely in the background.
Canon t2i | 18-55mm @ 21mm | f6.3 | 1/500 sec | ISO 100
Just outside the visitor center for the fort, there is a windmill. I have no idea whether or not it is original, although it looked like it was built recently. There was almost no color in this image to begin with, since the weather was foggy and dull, so I just went black and white with it. I've found myself coming back to this image several times to make tiny tweaks to it, and I think I'll continue to do so if I have any other ideas, but I think photo has some character and relatively few distractions. I do dislike the path and rope fence around it; I wish the windmill stood a little more solitary. Still, this is probably my best photo from the day, and it isn't awful, but it isn't a shot I'm terribly proud of either.
Overall, Fort Ross has a small amount of promise, but I was a little unlucky , and I don't think I'll be looking to go back anytime soon.
Canon t2i | 18-55mm @ 18mm | f22 | 1/30 sec | ISO 100
At Salt Point, there are a number of turnoffs to go out the beach, or to one of the cliffs. I went to two of them, and had intended to go to a third, but after the first two didn't deliver what they promised, and since I wanted to be home in time to see the World Cup match that was on, we left Salt Point early. The photo from the cliff here is probably my best shot of what Salt Point had promised. The cliffs were supposed to be full of those little holes that can barely be seen around the middle of the frame. I don't know if I just wasn't looking hard enough, or if the tide had already washed over them, but I didn't see the interring patterns that were supposedly all over the sandstone cliffs. I have one other photo that I took from a beach in Salt Point, which I think could turn out to be interesting, but the exposure blending and post processing is turning out to be a pain. If I get something that I'm proud of out of the shot, I'll add it on to the end of this post.
Otherwise, I'll have to call Salt Point a bust. I don't know if I'll go back, but there are some other stops I want to make in the area, like Bowling Ball Beach in Point Arena, so I might give it a second chance. Ultimately, I had a good time, even if the photos didn't turn out the best. I definitely intend to go back to Point Reyes to shoot at sunrise and sunset, but I think I was able to pull some decent images out of some more difficult light. It was also interesting to play around with faking long exposure by using multiple shorter exposures. I tried to shoot everything I could using this technique, and I'm glad everything turned out as I hoped it would. This is also the first time I've gone shooting knowing that I'm most likely going to have to use black and white. Until recently, I didn't like black and white photos. I looked through a number of black and white photos from professionals, including pictures from older, but famous, photographers like Ansel Adams. I've found an appreciation for it, and I think I'll probably try to go black and white with my photos more often if I don't like how they look in color. Overall, I didn't get everything I wanted from the trip, but I did achieve a few images I thought were alright, and now I have another place I'm going to have to go back to.
What I'm working on now and in the near future
- In the middle of July, I'll be heading out to Lake Tahoe with some friends. I'm going to try to shoot along the Nevada side of the lake. My intentions are to shoot around some of the beaches there and try to capture some star trails, which I've never done before. Hopefully it's not as much of a bust for the drive as Salt Point....
- In soccer news, I'm also continuing to work on my first full complication of saves. Its proving to be more tedious and time consuming than I thought, so hopefully in with be out within a month or so. In addition, I'm going to start filming some individual goalkeeper trainings. These will become 3 minute or less videos with a few clips of the drills plus agility and strength work that I;m doing. I'm hoping to get at least two, maybe three of these videos out by the end of the summer.