My son Erik and I spent a day together at the Pebble Beach State Park near Pescadero, located about sixty miles south of Fan Francisco on HWY 1. It was his offering for my birthday and how could I refuse.
After a short walk on the beach, we came upon this patch of washed out sandstones that were exposed by the low tide. I just could not believe my eyes what I was seeing, everywhere I looked there were these randomly resolved sand stone that were just almost haunting, but definitely captivating.
It was a cloudy late afternoon and everything looked drabby and grayish at first look, but the patterns were unmistakably screaming at me even thought they were really dull looking.
I went back to the car, grabbed my Nikon 16-35mm f/4.0 lens mounted on D850 body and ran back to the beach before the dark clouds got any worst. I carefully navigated down through the slippery rocks with jagged edges, where the sandstone layer was. And magically I found myself surrounded by these haunting patterns, some literally staring at me.
I had to find and balance myself on a small patch of sand between the rocks, and took the first round of shots that were immediately around me with the 16-35mm lens, as you might guess,
But to reach the shots that I could not get any closer, I used my caddie for the day, Erik, to fetch my 70-200mm f/2.8 lens on a second D850 body for those shots. All of these five photos were taken with the 16-35mm lens, I will publish some of the photos with the 70-200mm lens in near future.
Balancing myself on sharp edges of the rocks or tiny flat spots filled with sand in between the rocks, with two cameras loaded with heavy lenses while twisting, crouching, and bending sideways to frame a shot, was a kinda hair raising experience,
It was getting very windy, misty and cold. I gave both cameras to Erik and managed to climb out of the sandstone shooting area, so to speak. By the time I got to the car, Erik had already magically had put the gear in the trunk and had started the car with heater on, It felt so good once I got in the car.
On the way back, we stopped at a roadside restaurant in Miramar and had a great meal with crispy hot French Fries that hit the spot. It was indeed a memorable day and I’ve been planning to go back on a better day, but it has not happened yet. But it will happen more than once or twice. I’ve found my playground so to speak.