Washed ashore

There is just something about wandering around on a beach that people seem to like, including me.  I think we all have some distant hope that we will discover something valuable, or amazing, or historical, or at least interesting.  (Spanish Galleons would be cool!  Plus I could sell them to a museum and buy a lot of new camera gear!!  Ok, back to reality.)  

Sadly, in most cases I think we just find junk.  In this case, I was wandering at China Cove in Point Lobos State Reserve (just outside of Carmel, CA) and didn't have to look very hard to find this large clump of kelp.  I am not sure how things this large get dislodged from their grove out at sea, but sure enough there it was, waiting to be photographed.  

La Jolla Cove

Ahh, La Jolla.  That place just totally rocks!  Do people that live in SoCal just love it or what?  The beach is gorgeous, the weather is fabulous - pure bliss!  I caught this shot while wandering around on the beach there, waiting on the light to change.  You know, as photographers we spend some time waiting...and waiting...and waiting.  But, it's always worth it!

La Jolla portal

La Jolla, CA is just a fabulous place and I love the beach there.  That's about all I can say about that.  I was there on the beach, camera in hand, stepping on rocks, talking to seals (or are they sea lions??), and listening to waves crash around me.  It was pure heaven.  I took some pictures too.

Beachcombing

I took this shot while standing in the water on St. Joseph Island, just off the Texas coast.  We were staying in Corpus Christi, and took the ferry boat over to Port Aransas, and from there took a little jetty boat out to St. Joseph Island.  We have been once before, and as a state preserve (or something like that) it offers some incredible unspoiled beaches.  We have found many sand dollars while walking along this beach - it's that pristine.  I was drawn in to those wonderful clouds and the deep blue of the summer sky.

Toying with a Carmel sunset

Sunset is such a great time to go shoot, especially for the clouds.  Doesn't it seem like there are better clouds at sunset than at sunrise?  It does to me, but I am not sure why.  There is probably some easy explanation for it, so if anyone knows feel free to share in the comments.

Anyways, this was an incredible sunset that I witnessed (and photographed!) while in Carmel, CA.  We had a little family picnic on the beach and watched the waves crash, and watched the surfers crash, and saw the moon rise behind us.  But, the best part was this incredible sunset.  The light was fabulous, but the clouds were the real star of the show.

I adjusted this one only with Aperture, using one of their presets called "Toy Camera".  I thought it created an interesting look to the photo.  Hope you like it, and thanks for stopping by!

Carmel Beach

Here's a quick snap I took while in Carmel, down at their public beach.  I'm not one for beaches, being more of a mountain guy (no, not a "mountain man" like Grizzly Adams) but it is hard to not enjoy a beach as beautiful as the one in Carmel.  During our visit there, we went down to this beach several times, since it is just a short walk from town.  Speaking of beaches, if you are into golf, that is Pebble Beach that is off to the right in the distance, beyond the tree.

Clouds over La Jolla

La Jolla is a little town situated on a beautiful stretch of Southern California coastline, just north of San Diego.  I was in San Diego on business and after work one day was able to squeeze in a drive up there, hoping for some cool beach or sunset shots.  Lucky me, I got both.  In fact I came home with a whole lot of shots from that trip, but for some reason I have not processed that many of them.  I should correct that!  This was just after I arrived.  The beach there is popular with tourists and sea lions, but luckily no tourists got in my way (I was happy to have the sea lions around).  It was a cloudy afternoon, which gave way to a cloudy sunset, which made me happy.

I am wrapping up a quick trip to Montreal, Canada today and got out last night for some photo time in Old Montreal.  It was great, and it's a beautiful area.  I posted an iPhone shot on my Facebook page, which I often do while traveling.  If you are interested in following me, you can "Like" my page here: http://www.facebook.com/NomadicPursuits

Thanks for stopping by!

Somewhere along the 17 Mile Drive

When we were in Carmel recently, we made sure and left ourselves some time to make our way along the 17 Mile Drive.  It's the famous drive that meanders along the coast, next to Pebble Beach, the Lone Cypress, and the Inn at Spanish Bay (among other things).  There is a fairly long stretch that runs right next to the ocean, and at every turn there is one amazing view after another!  It's really beautiful out there, and the beaches are just the style I like best - rocky and interesting.  We would drive along, stop so I could jump out and shoot, drive another little bit, shoot some more - we did this for a while.  It's tough sometimes being the photographer when the rest of the family is ready to move on.  "But wait, there is so much more for me to shoot!"  Anyways, this is from one of those many stops.  I was walking along the beach, trying to frame cool shots and avoid getting my shoes full of salt water - I mostly succeeded, at least with that first part!

Impressions of China Cove

Ok, one more photo of Carmel and then I will give you a break!  In this case, it’s more like an artistic rendering of a photo. I tried to turn it into a painting.  I snapped this photo (the one at the very bottom) while at China Cove in Point Lobos State Reserve, just outside of Carmel, CA.  That version you see is straight out of the camera.  It’s not bad but wasn’t exactly exciting to me.  Certainly I could do some things to improve it, but instead I thought it would be fun to get a little creative and mix it up a bit.  I have seen a lot of photos turned into these Impressionistic images, and figured I would try it myself.  So, here you go!  I had never done this before, and frankly I am not much of a Photoshop guy.  I do most of my work in Aperture and the Nik Software suite.  However, I do have Photoshop Elements for things like this.  So I just did a little Google search along with some trial and error, and here’s how it turned out!  Kinda fun right?

If you are curious, here’s how you do this:

• Open the image in Photoshop and select Layer > Duplicate Layer
• Select the top/duplicate layer and set the blending mode to Overlay
• On the top layer, select Filter > Artistic > Sponge
  • Here I just moved the sliders until I liked the look of it
  • Then, hit OK
• Select the bottom layer and select Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur
  • I used a radius around 4 pixels
  • Then, hit OK

You are done!  Afterwards, I messed with it a little in Color Efex Pro, using the Glamour Glow filter to soften it up a little more and give it that little something extra.  All told, about 5 minutes work.  Pretty fun!  Thanks for visiting!

Here's the original, straight-out-of-camera shot, for comparison purposes:

China Cove, Point Lobos

Ah...China Cove.  This was an amazing place.  It is located in Point Lobos State Reserve, which is a beautiful area just a few miles south of Carmel, CA.  We arrived mid-afternoon and immediately started hiking around (and I started with the camera, of course!).  It was sunny and nice, as you can see in the photo, and the waves were doing their thing.  This was taken last Saturday - the day after the waves from the tsunami reached the CA coast.  There was no damage in the Carmel area but I heard Santa Cruz got hit pretty hard.  Anyways, we spent a good deal of time in Point Lobos, and would liked to have spent even more time as the Reserve is pretty large and covers some incredible coastline.  There’s just so much to take in that even a whole afternoon is just scratching the surface.  After a while, we came to China Cove and a set of rickety old stairs that led down into what amounts to a private beach area, surrounded on all sides by rock.  We climbed down and it was like being in a cathedral - totally serene and quiet except for the water rushing in.  What a great spot!

Here is a “straight out of camera” shot of it from a distance.  You can see the edge of the beach way off to the right hand side there...

As I mentioned yesterday, I have over 1000 photos from this trip and a lot of them are coastal scenes like this one.  So, I hope you don’t mind but I like them so much I will be posting a bunch over the coming days and weeks.  Like a lot of photographers (I am guessing here of course), I get addicted to my recent photos and forget about all the other stuff I haven’t gotten to yet.  So this California coastal thing will last a few days, basking in the glow of newness like a child’s newest toy, but I will try and keep it interesting for anyone that may have stumbled across my blog by mixing in shots from all my other trips.  It’s more fun for me that way, too.  Variety is the spice of life, and all that.  I still have plenty to share from lots of places.  Plus, I have another interesting trip on the horizon which will hopefully allow me to capture some cool shots.  More on that later, so for now, enjoy the California coastal views!

Farewell, Carmel

Well, we are back in Austin after our trip out West and suffice it to say that it is with mixed emotions.  It is always nice to return home, but man is it tough to say goodbye to some place like Carmel, CA.  Our trip included two stops in Carmel, separated by a stop in San Francisco (another great place!).  In between we made a quick stop in Palo Alto, which I would like to explore some day, but it was a quick stop and didn't allow for any sights (like Stanford University, which I hope to shoot one day).  We stopped in a coffee shop there in Palo Alto, and I half expected to see Mark Zuckerberg sitting there working on his laptop, making some updates to Facebook!  I was planning to ask him to friend me, or at least to  "Like" my photo page.  :)

Oh yeah - gentle reminder.  If you are on Facebook, please click on the link to the right of this post and "Like" my photo page.  Please?  I promise all I will post is pretty pictures - well, pretty to me at least!

Anyways, so I came home with over 1000 photos and am really looking forward to processing them and posting them.  So I figured, why not start now?  I have not had a chance to go through them all - in fact they are not all even downloaded to my computer yet - but it seemed fitting to start with a sunset in Carmel, since the sun just set on our trip out there.  We are already talking about a return trip.  It's just such a great little town - like a real-life fairy tale English village sort of thing - and it is so relaxing to be there.  Which reminds me, I have some shots that illustrate the fairy tale feel of the place.  Well, I better get to my photos - they await me!  Thanks for stopping by!

Fog at the jetty

I was walking around the beach in Orange County, somewhere south of Huntington Beach - though I cannot remember where exactly.  It was a sunny day, as I suspect it is most of the time in Southern California.  There was some cool fog hanging around, even with the sun overhead, and I just thought it made for an interesting shot. 

A day at the beach

Here's a shot from last summer, when we went down to Corpus Christi and spent some time on the Texas beach.  Much to my surprise, I found it to be clean, free of oil, and rather fun!  Thought I would post something warm and sunny today, for all those out there enjoying the depths of winter!

Laguna impressions

This is Laguna Beach, CA which is an awesome place and should you ever find yourself in Southern California - find a way to get here.  I just love this place.  It's beautiful.  Now I know this shot pushes the bounds of reality a bit, but sometimes I find that I just like it that way.  This was a single exposure that I was just messing around with, and after a while this was the result.  It seemed somewhat Impressionist to me, and the puffy clouds I thought were pretty cool.  As an FYI, I did not add anything to the image, just was able to accentuate that which was already there.  I did all this in Topaz Adjust, in case anyone is curious.  It's a powerful product and is definitely high on my list of fun and useful tools to have at your disposal!  Anyways, thought I would share it and hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!  Thanks for visiting my photo!

Of wind and waves

This is Laguna Beach, a place I love.  It totally rocks, and I have barely seen only a small part of it.  That part is what you are looking at - the beach itself.  It is my kind of beach.  Yes, there is sand on it, but there are nice big rocks that you can climb over and around and have a great time out there doing so.  On this day, it was stormy and windy and there were lots of waves.  It was awesome, despite slipping on rocks and nearly getting doused by the salt water several times.  It is a perfect place to take a camera, if anybody out there is into that sort of thing.  I have been there a couple of times while in Orange County on business, and hope to return someday.  Until then, I just have my photos.