Point Sur Lighthouse. Pacific Coast Highway, California. January 31, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
The lighthouse at Point Sur, Big Sur Coast
We are now very close to summer, the time of year when, frankly, the Pacific Coast can be somewhat less exciting from a photographic perspective. From my point of view, winter is the time to visit and the time to photograph. In a typical year (and this was not a typical year) a pattern repeats for several month. Big Pacific storms roll through, building giant surf, bringing rain, and then clearing. In the wake of the storms there may be a series of sunny days—sometimes warmer than summer here!—that are broken by beautiful clouds. The light is often spectacular, ranging from the brilliant light of clear weather to the moody light when the atmosphere is filled with moisture.
Near the end of this past January we travelled down this coast, on one of those “typical winter days” when there was plenty of bright sun, but also mist and spray thrown up by the ocean. This location is iconic along this section of the Pacific Coast Highway. Near the outlet of the Little Sur River, this “almost island” of Point Sur stands at the end of a strand of beach extending out into the ocean, and a historic lighthouse stands on top of the hill. Descending toward this point from the north, the view extends right along the rugged shoreline and beach just north of the Point.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.