Sunday

Eternity begins and ends with the ocean’s tides.

by Debra

Friday brings a certain freedom as the clock strikes 4:30.  The work week is ended and the weekend has begun!  Today was another cold and blustery day in NJ, but I had it in my mind all day to head home, tend to Kenzie then head to the beach.  I gathered my equipment, grabbed a heavy coat, put on my Uggs and headed south on the Parkway. Ocean City is approximately 20 minutes from my home.  I’m not sure if I was truly prepared for the amount of wind at the beach, praying for warmer days to arrive soon, but there I was, on the beach, camera on tripod, ready to shoot.

I haven’t been doing much landscape photography lately, and the fact that Carolyn and I share a scenery photo each Sunday has reignited the landscape spark in me. I wanted to do a long exposure, not realizing how cold my hands would be, even with gloves on.  I was a lone soul on the beach today, there were people walking on the boardwalk, but I was the only crazy person on the beach taking photographs.  Even though it was extremely cold, I enjoyed myself immensely.  This photograph was taken with a 10 stop neutral density filter, which is a filter that is completely black, reducing light transmitted by 1000x.  This photograph is a 45 second exposure taken at 24mm; ISO 100; and f/16.  The idea behind long exposures is to keep the sensor open for a long period of time allowing light in and anything moving will blur.  So, with the sensor open for 45 seconds, the rushing ocean waves were blurred creating a silky, almost satin effect.  The top of the water looks almost like fog or smoke, creating a very serene and peaceful image.  The sun enhanced the color of the water adding a beautiful pink and purplish tone to the sky and silky water below. After about 30 minutes and frozen hands, I decided to head home.

For anyone who lives near Ocean City, NJ they know Manco and Manco pizza.  It is very well known in Southern NJ and most times you can’t leave the boardwalk without getting a slice of this yummy pizza.  I arrived at my car, loaded my equipment and headed to 12th Street to bring home a pizza pie for dinner.  As I walked up the stairs towards the boardwalk, I could smell the familiar aroma of their famous pizza.  Needless to say, the weekend is off to a good start.

I hope you enjoyed my Friday adventure and a bit about how my weekend began. Have a great weekend and I hope you find a fun spot this weekend to enjoy before Monday arrives. Until next time .. Debra

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As you leave Morro Bay, heading north, there’s a small opening in the fence that leads you to Estero Bluffs State Park. There isn’t an actual park, but a gorgeous almost untouched and unused part of the coastline. As I walked out on the narrow wildflower-lined path and got further from the highway, I could hear the waves crashing and soon got a glimpse of the almost empty beach.

The beauty of this place is just glorious. The recent rains have caused streams of water to flow from the landscape down into the ocean. The sand is almost perfect with very few footprints in it. The mountains rising up to the north surrounding the little town of Cayucos do nothing but add beauty to this enchanting scene.

Once I got my shots down on the water’s edge, I decided to follow the path right along the cliff’s edge. Because it’s March and we’ve just had so much rain here, the yellow wildflowers were blanketing the landscape. This short little walk with the bees buzzing and waves crashing gave me just enough time to relax and quiet my soul.

It’s pretty incredible that I’ve lived on this part of California for pretty much my whole life and this was my first stop at this section of the coast. I’m pretty certain that I’m not the only one who hadn’t discovered this little gem yet.

Camera Settings: 75mm, 1/1000, f/11, ISO 400

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Carolyn

Sunday Landscapes

February is most definitely here!  I find this to be the most difficult winter month for me.  By now, I am very desperately longing for some spring weather and sun! This winter we have not had nearly as much snow as last year (2.5 inches vs. 27 inches last year), but it’s been one of the most dismal, gray winters I can remember in quite a long time.

While thinking of what landscape to share for our Sunday photo, I did not have the desire to share another gray sky with everyone.   So, I looked through my unedited photographs and came upon this beautiful summer photograph.  It was taken August 20, 2016, in Brigantine during the early morning hours.  Not only is summer my favorite time of year, Brigantine is my favorite beach.  Although my husband and I love Ocean City, Brigantine is the beach we normally frequent to relax and just have some down time.  This beach is much quieter than Ocean City.  It does not have a boardwalk, the beach is much wider, there no jetties and it seems to be a more quiet and peaceful place for a Sunday morning. We love it so much, we have often looked at houses to move onto the island. During this Sunday we arrived around 9:00 A.M., just in time to find the lifeguards setting up for the day.  I find it fun to watch as they set up the lifeguard station, situate the boats and put the flags in the sand indicating where people are allowed to swim and not swim.

When I look at Carolyn’s photographs of the West Coast beaches I am often struck by the contrast in the terrain between the East Coast and the West Coast. I think our two photographs today demonstrate those exact differences.  The texture of the sand is quite different, the West Coast beach looks so much more rocky, the water seems to be a bit less calm and the sky is such a different shade of blue with many more clouds.  Her photographs often remind me of Maine, which has a completely different type of beach than NJ does.  This particular Sunday, the water was very calm, probably low tide, the clouds hung low in the sky just giving the pale blue sky a pop of color and the water was a beautiful pale shade of blue.  I don’t think there could be a better way to describe Sunday morning than this photograph.

Whether you are on the East Coast or the West Coast, just being fortunate enough to live near a beach is a piece of heaven here on earth.

Have a great week ahead everyone and I hope you visit me here.  Until next time … Debra

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California Coast

On the right day, the coast is just gorgeous this time of year. During low tide you can walk the distance from Morro Rock to the Cayucos Pier. It’s about 6 miles. Morro Bay and Cayucos are just tiny little beach towns. Cayucos has a population of less than 3000. The Cayucos Pier is just to my right and you can see the Rock in the distance near the center of this photograph. Every summer there is a ‘Rock to Pier Fun Run’. This will be the 48th year. I’ve never participated in this, but maybe one day I will.

This January day, everything was perfect! The sky was filled with wispy clouds and bits of blue peeking through. The sun was shining and the tide was low. We were easily able to take a nice walk down the beach. On this crisp day, we found beautiful shiny rocks just splashed with the ocean’s waves, stepped on seaweed pods and listened to them pop under our feet and just gazed out at the water with a seemingly endless view. Ah … to just be able to be here for days on end with nothing more to do … maybe one day …

If you’d like to see more images of California, you can click here to see my gallery.

Camera Settings: 28mm, 1/2000, f/5.6, ISO 250

Carolyn