Last Saturday, I was teaching a photo workshop in Point Reyes National Seashore through the Point Reyes Field Institute. I've taught 2-4 workshops a year over the past 13 years, and wrote an article in Outdoor Photographer a couple of years ago about photographers past and present capturing images along this beautiful coastal region north of San Francisco - it's a joy and a privilege to be part of the group of past and present image-makers.
So on July 28th I headed out from my home in the East Bay and drove an hour and a half to lecture at the Red Barn classroom near the Bear Valley Visitor Center - great place to teach. We started at 1pm, I lectured about photographic exposure 'til about 5pm, and then after a break we drove up to Pierce Point Ranch, parked at the lower lot and hiked down to McClure Beach. My hopes for nice sunset were a bit dashed as we drove through the park since waves of fog and wind were battering the coast (it was fairly sunny back at the Red Barn). After a couple of hours talking shop on the beautiful storm beach we hiked down to, I thanked my students and we all headed on our respective ways.
Driving back to the Red Barn classroom to pick up some of gear, I passed back through Inverness- a small quaint little town along Tomales Bay. The light dimmed, cabin and home lights began to glow, and my photographic mind began to turn. I love the time between dusk and dark - twilight - that ethereal deep blue light that casts across the land - add the artificial lights of a cabin, a building, a tent and the combo makes for a nice moody image. So I parked my car just off the road, grabbed my DSLR, tripod and a 12-24mm f/4 lens and hiked down a few feet into the bushes near the shore. As I metered, I waited for the artificial light to balance with the ambient light, then shot a number of compositions. The scene felt mysterious and magical, and after a long day it was like a little gift.
Wish the web offered more colors, but it's limited - especially for tones like this deep blue- so the original looks better (as probably the case with most images on the web).
The caption reads: USA: California: Marin County: Inverness: Lights shine on a pier, “Launch for Hire”, Brock Schreiber's boathouse at dusk along the shores of Tomales Bay, as seen from Sir Francis Drake Boulevard (preserved as prominent local landmark)
Exposed for 30 seconds at f/10 using ISO 200, at 24mm, spot metering with my trusty new Nikon D800E DSLR - my 36MP beast of beauty as I call it. Processing the RAW in ACR, I recovered very little of the bright lights of the boathouse - that was about it. You can see a larger copyrighted version here: http://twitpic.com/afi2b5/full
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Melissa Jo Peltier
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Salon.com
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