Taken from Muir Beach toward the southeast — a bit of San Francisco’s in there somewhere…
On our “spring break” trip to the bay area, we wound up having gray and rainy weather most of our stay (surprise!). So photographically, there was little to do but make the best of the situation.
Since we had time to linger a bit at Muir Beach, it managed to put my Blue & Gold polarizer to use in this shot — helps give things a suitably noir feel.
It’s tough coming up with a “different” way of photographing a landmark like the Golden Gate Bridge. Making life more challenging for me was the fact that on our recent trip to the bay area, it was overcast and wet most of the time.
But as luck would have it, we were headed north from San Francisco during one brief window of time in which we had actual blue skies and sunshine. I’d found some roads on the north end of the bridge via Google Earth, so wound up at an old artillery site called “Battery Spencer” in the Marin headlands. It was windy as can be, but I managed to hold my gear still for long enough to get off a few good shots like this one.
There are other spots further west along the road that will give you good views of the bridge, but Battery Spencer is the best one I could find to capture both the bridge and the city in one frame.
Looking north along the shoreline at the ancient Maya ruins of Tulúm in Quintana Roo, Mexico:
Tulúm may not have the best architecture compared to other Maya sites, but you’ve got to admit that its location can’t be beat for photography! And if you’re lucky enough to show up at low tide, the beach in this picture is open to swimmers and sunbathers.
At the ruins of Tulúm in Quintana Roo, Mexico:
You can’t actually walk on this beach (it’s reserved for nesting sea turtles), but a trail through the site runs right past it — and it makes a great foreground for shots like this! The only real problem is that trash tends to wash up after storms, so you need to clone it out of your shot (since, obviously, you can’t walk out and get it off the beach).
A shot from our Alaska cruise a few years back:
This came from our near-miss with visiting Victoria, British Columbia. While waiting at sea for the winds to calm (they never did), some were entertained with movies, while the rest of us were entertained by the local gull population.
An old-school boat at Seattle’s Center for Wooden Boats:
This was my attempt at a conceptual shot for travel, exploration, and the like. What do you think?
An amazing spot to see the power of the ocean — in Acadia National Park, Maine:
You have to be careful, though — some folks have gotten too close to the water and been swept out…
I saw this weathered old boat at Seattle’s Center for Wooden Boats, and since the water was still at the time (early morning), I just had to get this reflection shot:
I’m still a bit puzzled at how the weathering on the paint (looks like vertical streaks on the boat’s hull) is so much more prominent in the reflection than in the direct view itself.
The last time I visited Seattle’s Center for Wooden Boats, I managed to get there pretty early in the morning — before Lake Union had time to get choppy from the day’s breezes.
Lucky me — it made for some nice reflections!
In a post over on the old blog, I talked a bit about (and shared some video from) the green sand beach near South Point, on the big island of Hawaii. If you find yourself “in the neighborhood” but can’t (or don’t want to) hike to the beach, you do have alternatives.
This isn’t “the” green sand beach, this is a little tide pool about a mile away — but it’s managed to collect some of its neighbor’s sand just the same. It only covers about 200 square feet (so 20″ish” square meters), but it’s considerably closer to the trailhead.