A rugged example of the beauty of Big Sur you can hike to
Driving through Big Sur there are near infinite pullouts you can stop at and enjoy the views. However, not many of them allow you to go all the way down to the ocean itself. Partington Cove is a tiny inlet that you can access down a long gravel road enjoying the changing views of it as you descend. The cove itself is all large rocks, no beach at all. It is a rugged up-close view of the Pacific Ocean that was a combination of fog and ocean mist when I visited it. I found as cozy of a spot as there is there wedged between some boulders and listened to, looked at, and felt the incoming swells roll on shore.
Sanderlings a fast running shore bird that fascinate me
I have always been very curious about these funny little birds running along the shore at Asilomar Beach in Pacific Grove, California. They search along the water’s edge for food, but seem quite adverse to the water washing over their feet, so they run at an incredible fast pace, their little legs moving like a blur, to avoid getting wet! I finally learned their name, sanderlings, and had a chance to photograph them at their eye level thanks to an unusually high sand dune.
Sea Lions and pups entertain in Monterey, California
The sea lions have had their pups, and they are all over a popular section of the recreational trail in Monterey, California. People stop and enjoy their antics. I wonder though, how many who are in that area all the time enjoy this? Sea lions bark constantly, and are stinky. After an hour of photographing them, I was good! They certainly are entertaining though whether they know they are being so or not.
Catching a kind of rare sunset at Asilomar Beach in Pacific Grove
For a town on a peninsula surrounded by water, some of which faces west, Pacific Grove does not often have direct, to the horizon, sunsets. Various points make seeing west impossible over the water, and then of course there is the fog, especially in summer into early fall. So when the sun was shining an hour before actual sunset still, I grabbed my camera and headed to Asilomar Beach and was able to capture this rare to the horizon sunset! You never know when the next chance might come.
Red Rock Mesas of McKinley County New Mexico Drone Video
Back out in the New Mexico desert for the first time in a while for rural land real estate photography. This time I was in McKinley County New Mexico somewhere west of Grants and east of Thoreau. The obvious highlight of this area were the many red rock mesas creating a dramatic view and landscape. I sent the drone up and over the mesas showing the view from atop, ground level, and in between. If you want to own these views, contact Hemingway Land Company.
Wanting to try out my new Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG DN Art lens on my new Sony a7R V camera, I went to the Bosque at sunset time to see what kind of shots I could create with a long lens, albeit it one with a large aperture capable of very shallow DoF. By the time I got there the light was indeed fading fast. I chose to focus on foreground objects and leave the sunset itself out of focus. This results in a kind of melting effect to how the sunset looks. I actually liked shooting at f/1.4 at 85mm and getting most of what was in the photo out of focus. This is most easily seen in the above photo of the very fine grass sticking out toward the sunset. This grass was so hard to see even with the a7R V’s AI based autofocus, I had to manually focus the lens!
On the drive to Alamogordo, New Mexico, a stop at the Valley of Fires is always a must for me, even if just for a few minutes. Any chance to behold lava as far as the eye can see is special. On this particular visit, for the first time, I walked the entire paved loop into the main lava field. What I saw from that view that I could not from high above, are all the fissures in the lava surface that conceal small lava caves below. Fascinating in another regard is how plants of all kinds grow in each crack, groove, and rupture in the lava surface. What an amazing place. Check out the map below to plan your trip to the Valley of Fires.
