A flock of pelicans turns toward Waddell Creek Beach along the Pacific coast of California.
This group was photographed a few seconds before I photographed the single overhead pelican that I posted a couple of days ago. Here the flock had turned back towards the land in preparation for rising to the edge of a much higher bluff just to the north.
Since I so recently described the circumstances of this shoot, I’ll keep this text short!
A low flying pelican passes overhead against clearing coastal fog and blue sky.
This pelican was part of a very large group that flew directly over my position along the Pacific Ocean coast north of Santa Cruz, California. One of the main tricks to photographing these wonderful bird – though not the only trick – is figuring out where to photograph them. They are very common along the coastline of “my” part of California, the area from just north of San Francisco south to the Big Sur area below Monterey and Carmel. But in many places you’ll watch them fly past too far out over the water, or below you such that they don’t make easy photographic targets. But by spending a bit of time along the coast, I’ve begun to understand their patterns a bit, and I now know a few places where I’m fairly likely to find them flying very close or even directly overhead.
We had spotted this group along the top of a bluff where they often fly by as they coast along on the updrafts from the onshore winds. (One thing I’ve never been able to figure out is that the almost always are flying from south to north. Are they taking the train back south so that they can repeat the trip? Do they just keep going? Do they only make on flight? It is a mystery to me!) We had just missed photographing this large flock as they came by, but I had a hunch that they might come down close to the water at a location just north where the road drops to a beach where a creek enters the ocean. So we headed there, parked the car, and a few minutes later we saw the flock appear around the cliffs to the south and descend toward the beach. As they came to our position they began to turn inland and climb towards the next bluff, and as this happened the birds flew directly over my position.
Afternoon light reflects on the surface of the Pacific Ocean beyond the Point Reyes lighthouse.
(Some of the following is repeated from a previous post of the same photograph in a color version.) Although our trip to Point Reyes was not primarily to do photography, somehow I ended up bringing back quite a few photographs! This photograph was made from the iconic overlook at “the point” and right above the long stairway down to the historic lighthouse. On this afternoon high clouds were streaming in from the Pacific and casting a mottled pattern of light and shadows on the surface of the Pacific Ocean.
This spot is often completely socked in by clouds and/or extremely windy and cold. However, this was perhaps the most benign afternoon I’ve experienced there. The temperatures were very comfortable – we were a bit too warm on the walk to the point. The sun was out, and the wind was nearly still at times.
I wasn’t certain when I made the exposure of whether it would end up being a black and white or a color photograph. I’m still not sure! I’m sharing the color version first, but a black and white rendition will follow shortly.
Afternoon light reflects on the surface of the Pacific Ocean beyond the Point Reyes lighthouse.
Although our trip to Point Reyes was not primarily to do photography, somehow I ended up bringing back quite a few photographs! This photograph was made from the iconic overlook at “the point” and right above the long stairway down to the historic lighthouse. On this afternoon high clouds were streaming in from the Pacific and casting a mottled pattern of light and shadows on the surface of the Pacific Ocean.
This spot is often completely socked in by clouds and/or extremely windy and cold. However, this was perhaps the most benign afternoon I’ve experienced there. The temperatures were very comfortable – we were a bit too warm on the walk to the point. The sun was out, and the wind was nearly still at times.
I wasn’t certain when I made the exposure of whether it would end up being a black and white or a color photograph. I’m still not sure! I’m sharing the color version first, but a black and white rendition will follow in tomorrow’s post.
Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.
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