“Monterey Cypress Trees, Cliffs and Surf” — Pacifc surf crashes against the base of cliffs with Monterey cypress trees.
Point Lobos and I go back a long ways. Shortly after my parents moved to the San Francisco Bay Area — I was four years old then — they began to take us on interesting day trips. A favorite was going to Monterey, which was a much smaller and quieter place then. A highlight of those visits was traveling a few miles south to Point Lobos, where we explored tide pools, walked the trails, and watched sea lions. This was one of the first places where I began to make photographs, likely with a simple Brownie camera and some black and white film.
“Early Light, Mono Craters” — First morning sunlight on the slopes of Mono Craters.
Mono Basin is a fine place to contemplate geology and immense spans of time. Mono Lake itself is an ancient body of water, and one that has not always looked like it does today. The lake is probably 3/4 of a million years old, and its ancestor lake was, at times, much deeper and larger than it is today. At times its waters rose high enough to overcome its current landlocked state and drain either north or south. (To really bend your mind, its waters may have drained to ancient Lake Manly in Death Valley.) Today, as large as the lake is, it is greatly diminished in size and depth by comparison.
“Gruinard Beach” — Surf rolls in at Gruinard Beach, Scotland.
We passed this large beach on our way from Ullapool to Applecross, Scotland this past May. We were on a long day trip loop drive out there. I don’t think I really had a good idea of what we’d see or what kinds of country we would pass through, and I was surprised by the many places where our route took us along the ocean coast. This beautiful beach seems to be shallow, with the tides uncovering a wide swath of sand. And, as is so common in this part of Scotland, we could see both the ocean waters and distant high peaks.
“Mountains and Cascade” — A stream cascades down from a mountain valley in far northern Scotland.
Most of our May visit to Scotland consisted of a big loop from Inverness out to the Isle of Skye, north (often on the NC500 route), eastward along the North Sea coast, and then down the eastern coast to return to Inverness. This took us through lots of highlands country, but on this day, as we drove across the north towards John O’Groats, the mountains were receding more and more into the distance. Driving east and looking south (the North Sea was to our left) we saw this spectacular ridge.
Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.
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