Cliff House, Winter Surf. San Francisco, California. January 31, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell.
Black and white photograph of Pacific Ocean winter surf at the Cliff House, San Francisco, California.
This was not what I was supposed to photograph on the final day of January. I went to San Francisco to visit my son and then do some street/urban photograph while walking around the city. I expected that we might start in the Mission where he lives – and we actually sort of did, beginning with breakfast at Tartine Bakery. After finishing up we were deciding whether to head toward downtown on foot or catch BART, and I mentioned that since I had my car he might want to go to someplace farther away. He suggest Sutro Baths over in the Cliff House and Ocean Beach area, so off we went.
Although I’ve seen lots of interesting photography from this location – especially some interesting night photography work – I had not photographed there before. The baths are the ruins of what were once apparently some large facilities right next to the rugged shoreline here, but today little remains besides foundations, some low walls, and some remaining pools. I was a bit surprised to find the surf raging; I hadn’t thought it would be an especially high surf day since this was during a lull between storms.
Before long I spotted some of my favorite seascape conditions, bright reflections on the the wild Pacific Ocean winter surf, backlit by sun shining through fog and haze. Although I had no tripod I went ahead and shot some hand held seascapes. I’ve previously mentioned that I don’t always know while shooting whether or not photographs will end up in black and white, but with these I was pretty certain from the beginning. The building in the upper left is the Cliff House, the most recent iteration of a facility that has stood here for a long time.
This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.
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Spent my youth there often, body surfing and
body boarding. Lots of memories. This is a great
photo that captures the rugged mood of the
rip tides and undertow, let alone the jagged rocks.
Very good photography!
Thanks, Jim. It was a very special day when I made the photograph – surprisingly wild surf along with wind but with surprisingly bright sky.
Dan