![Edge of the Light](https://i0.wp.com/gdanmitchell.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/EdgeOfTheLightPacificCoastFog20120813.jpg?resize=1124%2C868&ssl=1)
Edge of the Light. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
Light at the edge of a Pacific Coast fog bank on a summer evening.
By this point I am quite familiar with this coastline below California’s Monterey Peninsula — I’ve been visiting almost continuously since I was a child and my parents took the family down there for day trips and rare overnights in Monterey. We went to Point Lobos all the time, where I spent days investigating tide pools and hiking trails along the shoreline.
All of this may partially be my way of explaining why I might make a photograph like this —not a typical “tourist shot” of the rugged Big Sur coast, but something much quieter. The fog is a near-constant presence here, often coming onshore and muting colors and light and condensing the visual world. When it isn’t over the land it is often just off shore — perhaps far enough out that you have to look for it or, as here, right along the shoreline. The edge of the fog bank can be a place of amazing light — dark in distance beneath the clouds and surprisingly bright along the edges and where beams of light reflect off the water.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.
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