Bird Island from Weston Beach. Point Lobos State Reserve, California. January 16, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Photograph from Weston Beach of wild winter seas near Bird Island and surrounding rocks along the California coastline at Point Lobos State Reserve as high clouds from an approaching winter storm begin to spread across the sky.

Since I decided to make this short mid-January visit to Point Lobos on the spur of the moment (after discovering that predicted rain was going to arrive later than expected) I had no idea what the tide conditions would be like. It turned out that the tide was in when I arrived and familiar locations like Weston Beach, the location from which I made this photograph, were fairly inundated by the tide and the high surf from the approaching weather front. So rather than trying to shoot the smaller details of the beach/cove – I saved that for later in the day – I decided to see what I could do with the longer views of the huge surf and the backlit haze and light fog that emphasized the rocks and bluffs receding into the distance. The light was very changeable, and the sky in this image explain why – for the most part there was a thin layer of high clouds, but there were also scattered thicker clouds that cast moving shadows across the water.

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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