Feb 10th Newsletter - Big Sur; Highway 1 is Open!

G’day,

Last weekend I was out camping in Big Sur - right along Highway 1, sections of which have been closed off due to landslides for years. Very recently the section south of Big Sur reopened, and we took the opportunity to set up a base at the Big Sur Campground and explore the area. There are two images from the trip I’m really excited to share (McWay Falls & Point Sur), along with some other tidbits from the weekend. Read on to the end for a small offering exclusive to you guys, my early supporters / readers.

Rocking up to the Big Sur Campground, we knew we were in for a treat. The campground is nestled within big redwood trees and is right near bunch of the local hikes, cafes, and galleries. The tent/RV sites are a little pricey as far as camping goes (~$75/night), but it comes with complimentary firewood and hot showers. I’m not opposed to glamping now and then. The staff at the check-in booth were great, recommending we take site 8 which is right by a creek with foot access and some rocks to jump off if you’re brave in the winter.

We took a plunge, and spent a while warming up by a campfire.

Heading down the highway a bit, this was taken just past ‘Regent’s Slide’ - repaired and reopened on January 14th (ahead of the estimated March 30th). You can see the brown section of hillside that completely washed away, and all the loose sediment still swirling around the coastline.

A bit more context via dot.ca.gov

One spot I stopped during the day was Garrapta State Beach / Calla Lilly Valley, one of those neats areas you ‘might as well’ check out while driving through. The waves were hectic, crashing close to the shoreline right onto rocks. No surfers to be found out here, just one brave local running in and very quickly back out.

105mm | ISO 160 | f/9 | 1/6s | 6 stop ND filter. Shooting a 1/6s shutter speed allowed me to capture the explosive motion of the water, while avoid it being so slow that it becomes a silky smooth effect. I wanted to capture the booming spray as the waves hit the rocks submerged in the middle of frame.

At the other end of the beach was the Calla Lily Valley. Gorgeous little spot, and while the midday sun didn’t lend itself to a nice wider picture I got a couple closer frames before walking back:

Bonus frame of Ya’el on the bottom right.

McWay Falls

For one of our sunsets, I was super keen on going to McWay falls where I captured my favourite image from the trip. The trail access down to the water is currently closed for safety, but there is a car pulloff / viewpoint that gives a great view of the waterfall + sunset. I decided to make my image after the sun had dipped below the horizon, where it painted a little bit more colour on the clouds. This scene felt very tranquil with a soft colour palette, so to compliment that I opted for a very long exposure (30sec) to smooth the water texture.

There is practically zero colour processing on this image. The colour was soft and magical, and it spoke for itself.

20mm | ISO 200 | f/13 | 30s | ND 6 stop

I used 3 frames to make this image; 2 images focus stacked for foreground and background (making all details sharp), and one darker sky exposure to pull back lost detail in the brightest area of the sky (right where the sun has set).

Below are some close crops of this image showing the closer details (we lose a lot in these compressed newsletter images), as well as something really cool - there were 3 hummingbirds flitting around the orange flowers right in front of me. I was shooting very long exposures so I unfortunately couldn’t get them in my final shot, but i did crank my ISO very high for one image to show where they were:

Point Sur

50mm | ISO 100 | f/13 | 1/320s

For the second day’s sunset, I was eager to check out the Keyhole Arch at Pfeiffer Beach - unfortunately, many others had the same idea and the ranger at the state’s parking area was turning everybody away. We could have done a 1hr hike in, but would miss the sunset anyway. I recalled on the initial drive in to Big Sur that there were some very photogenic cows in a field, so I figured I’d keep driving back north and see what they were up to. Lo and behold the heifers had decided to graze right in front of Point Sur, a retired Naval base with a killer sunset to boot.

There was a nice layer of haze right along the water, and a hummocky field of grass being backlit by the deep sun. I figured this was an ideal situation to pull out a little aperture trick; when you use a small aperture, eg. f/13, the aperture blades interact with the direct sun to splinter into those beautiful rays of light, rather than becoming a big ball of white.

Left: Secondary Point Sur composition Right: Keyhole Arch that I missed at sunset (bottom right of frame)

FOR YOU

I am really excited about the McWay Falls and Point Sur images, and they are the newest additions to my print store as of today. As a thank you for being an early supporter & reader, you can get one of these as an archival print, canvas, or metal piece, 20% off the listed price. In addition, you can get a gallery frame reduced to production cost.

I’ll keep this lil deal going till the end of Feb. If there’s a different image you like, always happy to have a chat.

Cheers guys,

Murph