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Silence & Movement

Monday, March 3rd, 2014

“Silence. We are seldom conscious when silence begins—it is only afterward that we realize what we have been a part of. In the night journeys of Canada geese, it is the silence that propels them. Thomas Merton writes, ‘Silence is the strength of our interior life.… If we fill our lives with silence, then we will live in hope.'” — Terry Tempest Williams

It might not seem surprising that silence has been on my mind lately, given my lack of posts this year. The truth is that 2014 has been very busy, and I’ve spent a lot of time in quiet contemplation. There is peace to be found in silence: sometimes we are afraid the moment will be ruined with words that can’t do it justice; sometimes we find forgotten spaces within ourselves–spaces that have long since been buried. We tend to not wander into these open and unprotected expanses, but rather build against them, filling them with things that obscure our view.

Normally by this time of year, I’ve taken several trips. By contrast, I’ve been content to focus on local landscapes this year. One of my favorite images so far was made in a little grove of trees in the riverbed along my normal Saturday morning running route. I’ve been eyeing it for weeks, and the weather finally cooperated on a morning I was able to get down there.

I’ve also taken advantage of clearing storms in the mountains, and an invitation from a friend for an early morning hike on the beach. There’s been a certain joy in creating images close to home this year. Normally my trips are planned out on a limited itinerary and involve tiring travel. I’m not saying I don’t enjoy visiting far-off places (not even close), however by removing the stress of an abbreviated schedule and unfamiliar landscapes from the equation, I have the flexibility to let the light rather than the calendar dictate the situation, allowing me to relax and be more creative.

Movement seems to be an unintended theme in my images so far this year, but perhaps it’s fitting; we’re always quietly in motion, always changing. When the clutter and fillers are cleared away, our own evolution becomes unmistakable and unmissable in the image-making process. It’s these discrete, silent moments of self-reflection that propel us in making inspired art. So it is that the open spaces we have unearthed no longer represent dullness, but vision and hope.

Posted in california, creativity, locations, technique | 6 Responses »
Tags: introspection, landscape photography, southern california

Happy Thanksgiving

Thursday, November 28th, 2013

I’ve never thought of myself as a sentimental person, but over the years the meaning of Thankgiving has become more important to me. Simply put, it’s a time to give thanks. It’s the beginning of a season in which we celebrate the notion that giving is more satisfying than receiving, that being kind and generous can be an everyday thing, and that hope can be found in unexpected places.

I have been to the mountains a few times this autumn, but haven’t made very many images. These are from an outing to one of my favorite canyons a few weeks ago. I was a bit late for the peak of fall colors, as many of the sycamore trees had already dropped their leaves en masse, leaving bare trunks prepped for winter and piles of leaves on the ground. Perhaps not the most photogenic situation, but it didn’t matter. It was an opportunity for me to give an early thanks and get ready for the season ahead, filling me with reminders why Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.

Here’s wishing you a very Happy Thanksgiving–I hope you have a wonderful holiday season.

Posted in california, Personal, Wilderness | 7 Responses »
Tags: Cucamonga Wilderness, san gabriel mountains, Thanksgiving

A dew-covered world

Monday, September 9th, 2013

This last weekend, my family and I visited the eastern Sierra for an event I was attending. We had a few extra hours on Saturday afternoon and decided to drive up to Tuolumne Meadows. On our way up Tioga Pass, I wondered if we would see any evidence of the Rim Fire. Highway 120, which connects Yosemite’s high country to the Valley is currently closed, so it was very quiet in Tuolumne Meadows, and as I expected, a very large smoke plume was evident across the western and northern skies. As evening arrived, the wind shifted and heavy smoke moved into Lee Vining Canyon, filling the Mono Basin.

Negit Island and smoke from the Rim Fire

Although it’s now 80% contained, the Rim fire has been burning since mid-August, and has charred over a quarter of a million acres, making it one of the most destructive fires in California’s history. Fire is becoming more and more a way of life in the West, but in the face of a blaze this size, outdoor enthusiasts, photographers, hikers, and simply the general public have stood in awe and horror as fire crews scrambled to get the upper hand in hot and dry conditions.

Unlike most people, when I think of Yosemite, I don’t think of the Valley. I think of Tuolumne Meadows and the granite domes, Mts. Dana and Gibbs and the Cathedral Range (one of my favorite mountain chains anywhere). This is the Yosemite I know. Standing there on Saturday, looking at the smoke, something didn’t feel right. I know I’m not alone in this feeling.

In the face of such destruction, whether it’s a forest fire or something more personal and human, we experience a visceral suffering. Pico Iyer had a wonderful op-ed piece in this Sunday’s New York Times, “The Value of Suffering,” in which he concludes that with love and trust, maybe we can be strong enough to witness suffering, and freely admit that we will never get the upper hand over it.

To put it another way, consider the interesting Japanese word nen. Nen is the smallest unit of time any human being can experience, and in any nen one can return to something, anything…whether it’s a breath, partner, path, or choice. This decision to return is the foundation of Zen practice.

In any nen–whether watching the Rim Fire from a distant Tuolumne Meadows or thinking about a loved one, we have the choice to return. I don’t want to distract from the mess that the Rim Fire has caused and allude to any single benefit, but we are an angry enough world as it is; it’s time to return to a more compassionate path and be thankful for the dew that covers the meadow each morning.

Black Point Fissures and smoke from the Rim Fire

Posted in california, Introspection, locations, national park, sierra nevada | 7 Responses »
Tags: mono basin, mono lake, rim fire, yosemite, zen practice

The Preservation of Us

Monday, July 15th, 2013

“Dammit!”

I never thought I’d roll an ankle so badly that it would bring me off my feet, but as I hit the ground after slipping from the curb, I let out a cry of both frustration and pain, certain I’d broken a bone. Suddenly my typical Saturday morning run had become anything but, as I sat there trying to figure out if I could move myself or not. In an instant, visions of every single hike and backpacking trip I had been planning for the summer ahead flashed through my mind, and suddenly vanished.

“Maybe it isn’t that bad,” I thought to myself as I got to my feet and started to limp towards home. “Maybe I can get it to loosen up if I walk for a while.” It sort of worked–in my stubbornness, I ended up running nearly 5 miles home, but as soon as I took my shoe off, my ankle swelled to the size of a softball. “That’s no good…I really should go to the emergency room.”

Fortunately there was no break, just a sprained ankle. As I left the emergency room, I wanted to ask, “So, how long until I can go backpacking?” I decided that this wasn’t the most intelligent question a person on crutches should be asking, so I kept it to myself.

I’ve been rereading Jack Turner’s The Abstract Wild over the last few weeks; I read it for the first time right after high school and it is one of the few books I have revisited more than once. Everywhere you look today there is literature about why this wilderness and that wilderness should be protected and preserved. Turner’s book focuses on the experience of the wilderness rather than the wilderness itself. How do we interact with wild places? He asks, and answers, in very clear terms why we need wilderness, and what it comes down to has nothing to do with the place itself. It’s the experience. We need wild places for our own well being. I think this is the wildness that Thoreau referred to in his now famous quote, “In wildness is the preservation of the world.”

In many ways, I find myself living a life I did not always intend on having. It’s not that I don’t want my family or my home or my job, or that I am trying to run from adult responsibilities. However, I am a worrier by nature, and in the rush, rush, RUSH of everyday life, I find it increasingly absurd that I worry about things which I have no control over.

In wildness is the preservation of the world. Those words echo through my head because I realize that while some people may feel anxiety over going into the backcountry (you know…survival and all that), my worried mind becomes calm. The longer I am away and the further from roads I go, the more quieted I become. Wilderness makes me kinder, gentler, sweeter. This must be a coveted quality: no other place I can think of, and only a select handful of special people in my life have ever had that affect on me.

So it was that as I sat there that morning with my ankle throbbing in pain that I saw my precious trips to the wilderness slipping away. The nearest trip was only 15 days away–a much anticipated backpacking trip into the High Sierra with an old friend.

Over the next few days, I was largely immobile. My crutches frustrated me, my foot bruised worse, and I just did not see how a backpacking trip would happen. I spoke on the phone with my friend who, understandably, had reservations about heading into the backcountry with someone who could get reinjured very easily. We decided to go on a “test hike” four days before our scheduled departure. In the days leading up to that test hike, I rested as much as possible (despite what my overactive brain was telling me to do), and I began to heal noticeably each day. While I still had to be very careful where I placed my feet, I managed to get through a 6 mile test hike with no problems. We cautiously agreed that the Sierra trip was on.

Four days and 45 miles later, with the help of an amazingly solid ankle brace, hiking poles, and the patience of my friend, I finished our trip with zero pain or discomfort. I joked with another friend before leaving that the backcountry always seems to “heal” me, and while I am pretty sure the backcountry had nothing directly to do with this, I was active, careful, and in a positive state of mind–all of which are ingredients for a properly functioning immune system.

I’ve said before that the wilderness is where I go to heal, both figuratively, and now literally as well. However, what strikes me more than anything was my state of mind on my drive home. With so much weighing me down before leaving, I felt remarkably free of burdens, worries, or fears. I think this happens somewhat naturally when we boil life down to its essentials:

wake up,

make food,

walk,

make food,

go to sleep,

repeat.

Yes, we need wilderness, but we must interact with it as if our lives depend on it. Because they do. Talk about putting things into perspective.

In wildness is the preservation of us.

Posted in california, national park, Wilderness | 11 Responses »
Tags: John Muir Trail, John Muir Wilderness, kings canyon, sense of place, sierra nevada

A trip to the San Jacinto Mountains

Tuesday, May 28th, 2013

Not to have known–as most men have not–either the mountain or the desert is not to have known one’s self. Not to have known one’s self is to have known no one. — Joseph Wood Krutch

This year for Memorial Day, we decided to stay local and go camping in the San Jacinto Mountains, one of the major peninsular mountain ranges in southern California. For those traveling through the Banning Pass on I-10, the imposing north face of San Jacinto Peak–the range’s high point–is really hard to miss, and that’s about the only taste most people get of San Jacintos.

The more time I spend there, the more I really like this mountain range. Although not as glaciated as parts of the Sierra (think Yosemite), the granitic formations in the San Jacintos are spectacular. Similarly, because the range is a sky island surrounded by desert, it hosts an interesting variety of plants and animals.

Because of the dramatically steep slopes of the San Jacintos, there are many opportunities for interesting landscape compositions, including the granitic formations I mentioned above, as well as the ability to look out on most of southern California. This time of year, when the lowlands of southern California are receiving a fairly heavy marine layer, the atmospherics viewed from above can be interesting.

Like a lot of people I know, I spend time daydreaming about places I would love to visit and photograph, often forgetting almost completely about the places that are practically in my backyard. Getting to know these places can be valuable, because one realizes–as I am often reminded–that they can be just as beautiful as the faraway locations we invest so much time and money in getting to. Similarly, depending on exactly where your “backyard” is, these locations can be gloriously under-photographed, allowing for freedom of expression and creativity. If you have nothing to compare your image to, it is much less constraining to the creative process.

Perhaps instead of challenging ourselves to produce a new take on an “icon,” we should challenge ourselves to discover a totally new place, unphotographed and unknown. It might end up being a bust, but at least you’ll know.

Posted in california, creativity, environment, locations | 10 Responses »
Tags: new location, san jacinto and santa rosa mountains national monument, san jacinto mountains, sky island

In the struggle lies beauty

Tuesday, April 30th, 2013

One time I saw a tiny Joshua tree sapling growing not too far from the old tree. I wanted to dig it up and replant it near our house. I told Mom that I would protect it from the wind and water it every day so that it could grow nice and tall and straight. Mom frowned at me. “You’d be destroying what makes it special,” she said. “It’s the Joshua tree’s struggle that gives it its beauty.” — Jeannette Walls

I am about a mile away from my car in the Lost Horse Valley in Joshua Tree National Park. Joshua trees are scattered around me, each one seeming as if it’s pointing in a different direction. Are they trying to confuse me? Perhaps it’s their cruel joke. As the sun gets closer to setting, I hear a group of cactus wrens start to raise a commotion about one hundred yards to my right. What has them riled up? Ah, a coyote is trotting along the base of the hill. I wonder if it sees me? Surely it does–they don’t miss much. I can hear cars driving by at the head of the valley, their passengers unaware of the story unfolding out here in the valley.

Over the last week or so I’ve spent quite a bit of time out in the Mojave Desert. During a spring following a wet winter, the flowers in the Mojave can be quite spectacular, however this year things are depauperate to say the least; in southern California we’ve gotten less than twenty percent of our normal rainfall totals this season.

Despite the bleak wildflower viewing, the Joshua tree bloom this year was reported to be the best in recorded history, with trees blooming across their entire range; whether you were in the Mojave National Preserve, the New York Mountains, the Chocolate Mountains, or Joshua Tree National Park itself, the trees were adorned with beautiful white blooms. Mojave yucca were blooming in profusion in places as well, and of course cacti dotted the hillsides with lovely splashes red, pink, purple, and yellow.

Unless something major like a Joshua tree bloom or the once-in-a-decade wildflower bloom is happening, the desert doesn’t get much press. Still, life here persists. Understanding the beauty implicit in the struggle of not only the Joshua trees but of all the plants and animals who live here gives a greater appreciation for the display they put on for the quiet observer. Is there a metaphor here for our own lives I wonder?

After the sun goes down I shoulder my backpack and start walking back to my car. Despite the hot April day, darkness will quickly drain the heat from the dry air, and before I get back to my car I am ready for a sweatshirt. I don’t see the coyote any longer. If it did see me, it certainly didn’t pay me any mind. Crickets are starting to chirp, bats are flitting over my head, hawk moths are visiting the opening evening primrose, and the calls of the cactus wren have been replaced by a poor will in the distance.

Life here persists.

Posted in california, Introspection, locations | 10 Responses »
Tags: Joshua Tree National Park, national parks, sense of place

Potsherds

Monday, March 11th, 2013

I am writing this sitting at a desk that my dad made for my eleventh birthday. In the second drawer is an old pipe tobacco can–Captain Black–filled with Native American potsherds.

My family moved to the Four Corners region in northwestern New Mexico when I was six years old. Many of my earliest memories of New Mexico involve the typical sight-seeing outings families do; I remember going to Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde. At that age, the significance of these world-class archaeological sites did not really mean much to me. However, I started to draw connections to the ancient residents of this area one September day while deer hunting with my dad; we walked through an area filled with potsherds. I was probably a little bored after several hours of hiking through the seemingly endless piñon-juniper pygmy forest, and the potsherds made for an exciting treasure hunt. We picked up some of the nicer ones and brought them home. Since then, they’ve largely lived inside of the pipe tobacco can inside my desk drawer.

I am not sure how old they are. Some are really lovely bowl rims, with simple triangular black-on-white patterns painted on them. Others are pieces of corrugated bowls. Many of the archaeological sites in that area of New Mexico are Navajo–about 400-500 years old. However, the areas we used to visit do not lie far from Salmon Ruins and the Great North Road. So, it is entirely possible–probable even–that these pieces are much older Ancestral Puebloan potsherds.

Archaeologists say that we learn best about ancient cultures by leaving artifacts in their place, admired but untouched. After all, they tell the stories of the peoples who came before us. Indeed, much science is lost by looking at these pieces of pottery ex situ. However, when I look at them, I think of the people who made them. What were they thinking when they left them? Did they walk away unflinchingly from their home, or did they take a longing look back, thinking they may someday return?

These fragmented pieces of pottery tell the story of a people who eeked a living off of the land, who knew the landscape and probably felt a deep sense of place here.

“I looked down upon hillside after hillside of slopes clear-cut for their timber. Traversed back and forth by logging roads, the hills were deeply scarred and patterened. All I could think of were pottery designs. Beginning there, the entire flight was an aerial Anasazi visual feast of basket weaves made of farmland plowing, river ways drawn out like rock art, and cloud patterns resembling rock forms.” — Bruce Hucko, Cave to Cave–Canyon to Canyon

Flying from my home in southern California to Colorado at 30,000′, I can relate to Hucko’s evocative impressions of the Western landscape (Bruce Hucko was the photographer for the Wetherill-Grand Gulch Research Project). I see landscapes–monoliths, cliffs, and mesas–that are part of who I am, so much so that I can recognize them without having seen them on a map, or even visiting them, in years. A floodplain in the Mojave desert, the Grand Canyon, the Vermillion Cliffs, Navajo Mountain, Cedar Mesa, Mesa Verde, the San Juans, the Sawatch, and finally we touch down in Denver. Terra firma.

Two hours in the air filled with fragments of landscapes that conjure memories–in the same way those broken pieces of pottery tell the story of a people, these landscapes are my potsherds of the American Southwest. This is where I have spent my life and I’ve had adventures with friends and family; these stories would fill a hundred books.

It has been over 25 years since my first visit to Chaco Canyon, but it feels like many more. It’s a sunny and warm December afternoon, and many of the other tourists have left, leaving the halls of Chetro Ketl and Pueblo Bonito quiet and a little lonely and the moon is rising over Fajada Butte. I sit for a while, watching the reflected winter light bounce through the rooms, which are now open to the sky. For what feels like the hundredth time, I find myself thinking about the journey of the people who lived here, and of their great road north toward my childhood home, near Salmon and Aztec ruins. Potsherds lie across the high desert for nearly 100 miles; the stories of these travelers are being told in fragments.

So it is that we tell our own stories in broken, scattered pieces. Our own beautiful stories are being shared and discovered by the people in our lives, just as we discover our own pieces of others. If we are lucky we find an entire, unbroken, pot now and then.

Posted in california, Colorado, ethics, New Mexico, Personal, southwest, utah | 11 Responses »
Tags: black and white, introspection, sense of place

January Trips

Wednesday, January 30th, 2013

Straight as an arrow, or very nearly so, the road crests the mountain range, beginning its descent into the valley. After what feels like only a few minutes, it will start up the next rise, repeating this pattern again and again.

Basin and range. Ascent and descent. This topography–narrow, steep mountain ranges separated by deep valleys–very nearly defines the West. John Muir’s Sierra Nevada is the westernmost “range;” the province then extends eastward, one towering mountain range after another, and would reach all the way to eastern Colorado if the Colorado Plateau didn’t get in its way.

Four years ago, my Dad and I began the somewhat informal tradition of making a January photography trip somewhere together. I think it started mostly as an excuse to be outside and hike around together, hopefully making a few images along the way. Last week, I found myself in his truck with him cresting the Amargosa Range thus beginning the descent into Death Valley.

Death Valley National Park typifies the Basin and Range Province; the Inyo, Panamint, and Amargosa mountain ranges rise like the vertebral columns of colossal ancient dinosaurs, and the valleys between them (Death Valley included) cut through the earth separating them. The changes in elevation are dramatic and impressive, even to someone not well-versed in geology. As the park brochure will tell you, it is indeed a land of extremes.

We spent the next few days hiking around some places I had been to before, and some I had not. As one must sometimes do in a national park the size of Connecticut, we also drove a lot. The arrival of a winter storm gave a unique patina to the desert: landscapes we normally associate with hot lifelessness were transformed–beautifully–by clouds and fog.

I don’t normally get to photograph über-dramatic light, and honestly I am okay with that. My eye naturally tends to find compositions in subtle light and delicate form, which is exactly what this storm gave us. This year I celebrated my birthday on our trip, and the light was a perfect birthday gift. So, not only was it a time to enjoy being outside, it was also a time of celebration.

The last four Januarys with my Dad have given me milestones by which to watch him get older as well. He is not in failing health, but with each passing year I see him–both of my parents–getting older. My rational brain is accepting of that, but the little boy in me isn’t quite ready for the aging process to begin–in them, or in myself. Over the last couple of days, I’ve been thinking a lot about aging, mortality, our ability to experience a place, and the creative process; I think a common thread runs between all of these things.

As photographers, and particularly as landscape photographers, our ability to create art is rooted in how we perceive the world: our ability to see light and distinguish shapes, and to integrate that sensory experience with the smells and sounds around us is the cornerstone of our craft. The most evocative landscape photography I have seen is that which is sensed, not only with my eyes, but inside of the nucleus of every cell in my body.

Our senses are rooted in our biology, which changes as we age. If our senses are changing, it is no surprise that our artistic vision would change as well. Ideally, it would mature along with everything else! I wrote in my last blog post about my own journey back in time, exploring my favorite images from the last half decade. My artistic vision has changed, certainly. Matured, perhaps. Practice, study, and introspection have no doubt played a part in this, but perception–the way my senses tell me about the world–is a huge part of that.

Do we perceive the world with more clarity as we age? Do my aging parents somehow see things more clearly than I do? In some ways, I’d like to think they do. It is somewhat macabre, but looking all the way to the end may help answer that. Turning to my “other” field of comparative physiology for a moment, the great Canadian physiologist Peter Hochachka wrote only days before his own death in 2002, “I have noticed how the mind seems to clear when one’s time is up and current life is near an end…instead of anger, bitterness or even sadness, there can be interest and increased clarity.”

Basin and range. On my birthday this year, this landscape gave me not only light, but hope as well. Hope that in 30 years, I will see this landscape differently, and with more clarity, as perhaps my Dad did standing next to me on this trip. Hope that I will still be creating images then, images that are personal, unique, intimate.

Posted in california, creativity, Personal | 16 Responses »
Tags: basin and range, death valley, introspection, landscape photography, mountain light, sunrise photo, sunset photo

On being busy and the creative life

Saturday, November 17th, 2012

It is funny how life can get away from you sometimes. For the past few weeks I’ve been so busy I have not have much time to write and even less time to pick up my camera to make new images. Over the last few nights, we’ve had some amazing sunsets here in southern California, as well as some very welcome winter weather; combined, this has all made me miss my camera and the outdoors so much more. So, a few days ago, when I realized I had an entire day for a hike, I took advantage of it.

A recent storm had given the mountains and foothills a slight dusting of snow; I liked the juxtaposition between the desert ecosystem (one we usually consider to be ‘hot’) and the coldness of the snow. The canyon I chose to hike up felt frigid, with several hours remaining before the sun would find its granite walls. It was nice to feel the cold air on my skin as I moved up the canyon; after what felt like a scorching summer, I welcomed the chill.

Winter in the desert, November 2012

As the day progressed, the long light of fall gave a lovely feeling to the day: autumnal perfection. Although the snow is sure to melt without another storm, it hung gracefully in the shadows while the sun warmed my bones. I couldn’t have written a more perfect day if I had tried; it was exactly what my soul and mind needed.

| |, November 2012

During my hike, my thought process centered on art, photography, and creativity. I had brought my camera with me, and I tried making some images; some succeeded. I went hiking with the intent of getting a good workout and enjoying some time outside, photography was admittedly secondary. I can’t help but feel, however, that natural pattern, light, and beauty are all around us–art is all around us. There is a lot of discussion over exactly what art is. . As landscape photographers, we spend a lot of time (and money) traveling to the “best” locations at the best times of year to make beautiful images…then we try sticking a label on it (and worry about what others think). I wonder if, we are limited only by our ability to see the art that is all around us?

A ponderosa pine tree standing in a fresh dusting of snow

Last rays, November 2012

We are all on a personal journey to create art. How do you go about that? How would you tell someone to embark on their own journey? Brooks Jensen recently gave some of the best advice for creating moving art here; this is the strongest statement I’ve seen on the subject:

Produce your work to the very best of your ability. Send it out into the world. Listen to feedback, but measure it against your instincts. Learn from the feedback, but don’t supplicate yourself to it. Produce more work to the best of your ability. Be honest with yourself. Strive for deeper understanding and expression with all you’ve got. Give your work and yourself time to mature. Finish things so you can let go and move on. As has been so often said, even a fool who persists may eventually become wise. Then produce more work and plunge deeper into the process of awareness and expression. Soon, you will no longer care about the terms used to describe your work — snapshot or “Fine Art.” Do not confuse the map with the territory.

I think, ultimately, the landscape photographer has a choice: to create images that simply are what they are, or to let the “reptilian scales” be peeled from their eyes and truly see what is around them, perhaps in the process creating images that truly move the viewer.

Posted in california, locations | 6 Responses »
Tags: california, fall color, landscape photography, sense of place, snowfall, winter

Returning to the sea

Monday, October 22nd, 2012

While I normally don’t think of myself as a desert rat per se, when I do some serious self-examination, that is where I find my imagination wandering. Deserts can be funny places; you can sit all day in the shade of juniper a tree without so much as seeing a lizard flit across the sand, yet you can observe the diversity and health of the ecosystem all around you. Most people–myself often included–don’t often have the patience to sit and wait for something (anything) to happen here. This is the wilderness after all, and action can be a bit hard to come by.

So it was that I recently found myself at Montaña de Oro State Park, on California’s central coast. Far away from my much-loved desert, I spent several hours exploring the rocky coastline, climbing on the rocks and looking for a spot to photograph sunset. Waves crushed the rocks along the beach relentlessly, finding their way into every cove, crack, and crevice, over and over again. As soon as one wave left, another would come, inflicting its wrath on the rocks. For millions of years this has been happening, shaping the shoreline into what it is today.

Waves rushing into a sea cave at Montaña de Oro

Carving out a cave, October 2012

There is something mesmerizing about being near the ocean. Maybe it’s the rhythmicity or the the ability of the waves to drown out the voices in my head, I don’t know. Whatever it is, I feel calmed and soothed, regardless of whether I walk along a calm beach or next to a violent shoreline being battered by relentless waves.

I often imagine what it would be like to be alone on a kayak far out at sea. The thought frightens me a little bit, the feeling of loneliness that would accompany that could easily be overwhelming. I suspect the hours would pass slowly, just waiting for something (anything) to happen, and it would feel like a million miles away from the seemingly busy shoreline. In this context, it should become obvious that the ocean is wilderness too, and should be celebrated as such. However, just like our terrestrial wildernesses, the ocean is being exploited, overfished, polluted.

“Fifty million buffalo once roamed the rolling green prairies of North America. Gunners reduced them to near extinction. Now, hunters are at work on the rolling blue prairies of the sea, and already, the big fish – including miracles like thousand-pound, warm-blooded bluefin tuna – are 90 percent gone. What we regret happening on land, may again happen in the sea. Those who care about wildlife should get to know about oceans.”

–Carl Safina, Comes a Turtle, Comes the World

Seascape, October 2012

From a photographic point of view, beaches have been called the easiest places to put together a compelling composition. I can’t argue, but I definitely don’t believe that oceans (or beaches for that matter) are simple places. They are beautifully complex, life-giving, and they need to be celebrated by everyone, whether they’ve set foot in an ocean or not. Sitting at Montaña de Oro, I am reminded that I need the sea as much as I need my beloved desert.

Posted in california, locations | 15 Responses »
Tags: big sur, california, california state parks, landscape photography, pacific ocean, sunset photo

Alpenglow Images

Landscape & Nature Photography by Greg Russell