The Southern California CoastThe northern and central coasts of California boast of miles of isolated beaches and rocky headlands with tide pools below ancient forests largely untouched by development. The Southern California Coast cannot provide these same images. While it has been touched by development in many places, photographers with a little patience and a sense of humor can discover landscapes (and seascapes) unlike the rest of California. Warm summer weather brings millions of visitors to south coast beaches that can be empty in midwinter when temperatures can drop to the low 60s. Visit southern California during the winter and you can find famous surfing beaches, wildlife refuges, state parks, county parks, city parks, and lighthouses without the crowds. Enjoy a winter exploration of many small shoreline parks and scenic overlooks above white sand beaches where a few hardy surfers can be found, even on the coldest days in January.

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121January 2012

Where, when, and howto discover the best

photography in America

Published since 1989

I’ve driven the Pacific Coast Highway many times and have chosen some of my favorite locations for this newsletter. I recently returned to explore more locations along the southern California Coast and do more photography under different lighting conditions in mid winter. Driving southward, down the Pacific Coast, makes pulling off the road easier. You don’t have to cut in front of oncoming traffic.You can find guidebooks that describe mile-by-mile, in detail, every feature on this coast. Buy a good road map or a Delormé Atlas. A GPS navigation system in your vehicle will help you locate restaurants and lodgings and get you back on the correct route when you make a wrong turn. Start in San Francisco and follow Coast Highway 1 all the way to San Diego allowing ten days to two weeks to see and photograph the highlights. To return, follow Interstate 5 from San Diego back to San Francisco (in one long day).Southern California starts at the Santa Maria River, the boundary line between San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara Counties, and continues south to the Mexican border, a distance of three hundred miles.

Guadalupe DunesThe San Luis Obispo/Santa Barbara County line follows the Santa Maria River along the official northern edge of the Southern California Coast. The Rancho Guadalupe Dunes County Park is located on the South side of the Santa Maria River. These great dunes are at the edge of a very long and sandy beach. A paved road almost reaches the beach. A little walking is necessary. This warm-up will prepare you for a mile-long walk south, down the beach to Mussel Rock where you will see the highest sand dunes on the western coastline of the United States. The 500-foot climb to the top through soft sand is not necessary. You will find better locations for photography around the base of the dunes. In mid-December, I drove out to Guadalupe Dunes Park just after the gate opened at 7:00 am. The sky was partly cloudy after a light overnight rain. The damp sand was quite firm, making walking easy.

The Guadalupe Dunes are a major nesting site for western snowy plovers. The dunes are off-limits to hikers from March through September, although the beach is open year-round to visitors. A super-wide lens in the 10-20 mm range is perfect for low angle images of windblown ripples across the dunes, especially if you are fortunate to find a sky filled with interesting cloud patterns to include in your compositions.A telephoto lens is needed here for bird photography on the Santa Maria River marshes and for compressing the undulating curves of distant sand dunes patterns and

Imperial Beach

Guadalupe Dunes

Santa Barbara

Jalama BeachRefugio Beach

MalibuSanta Monica

Venice

Palos Verde Lighthouses

San DiegoHuntington Beach

Bolsa Chica Refuge

Crystal CoveTorrey Pines

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breaking waves. Morning light on heavy surf gives you a different effect from the usual late afternoon and backlit sunset exposures out here on the left coast. In the morning, you’ll find a subtlety of light that’s missing when you are shooting directly into a setting afternoon sun. This park closes at 5:00 pm. Cecil B. DeMille’s epic film “The Ten Commandments” was filmed here is 1923. The set, one of the largest ever built, is still buried here in the dunes. Recent films, including “Hidalgo” and “Pirates of the Caribbean,” have been filmed here.Take the Main Street exit off Highway 101 and drive west through the towns of Santa Maria and Guadalupe to the entry gate at the park. There is a large selection of lodgings and restaurants in Santa Maria, fewer in Guadalupe.After leaving the Guadalupe Dunes, drive east to the town of Guadalupe and turn south on Highway 1, which skirts the east side of Vandenberg Air Force Base where America’s polar orbiting satellites are launched. There is no public access to the coastline here.

JalamaTen miles south of Lompoc on Highway 1, watch for a sign marking a side road that winds through the coastal hills for 14 miles to the most remote surfing beach on the California Coast. Jalama is a small seaside

county beach with a campground and a small store and snack shop. There are 112 campsites for tents and RVs. No advance reservations are taken. Jalama sits on the beach between the ocean and the Union Pacific railroad

tracks stretching northwest along the edge of Vandenberg Air Force Base. The road to Jalama alone is worth the effort to get here. Small farms with red barns line the flat valley for a few miles and then the road gets steep and winding for a few more miles before reaching the Santa Ynez Mountain summit where morning light casts long shadows across the valley below. To the west of the summit, hillsides are thick with California live oaks–all the way to the Pacific. Spend a night at Jalama in a campsite on the edge of the beach and you can be ready for a fantastic sunset and sunriseA good variety of lodgings and restaurants can be found in Lompoc, near La Purisima Mission, one of twenty-one historic missions along California’s El Camino Real, a worthwhile photo stop.

Refugio BeachBack on Highway 1, head 13 miles south to the junction of Highway 101 and follow the signs to Santa Barbara. Watch for the sign marking an exit to Refugio Beach, where tall palm trees reflect in pools in Refugio Creek as it flows into the sea.Pay the day-use parking free at the gate; it’s worth every penny for a few hours at this great location. Refugio Creek splits the campground from the day-use parking area where you should park. The beach is lined with tall palm trees and a few very tall palm trees. If there is no wind blowing, first check out the reflections on the pond near the beach. Then walk

to the far end of the beach to see how the light is affecting the palms. This stretch of the California coastline bends eastward and Refugio Beach faces south. The sun sets along the length of this coastline when it drops over

Sunrise over Jalama

Palms on Refugio Beach

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Point Concepcion to the West and not out over the Pacific. Point Concepcion alters Pacific coastal currents and causes a warming of the waters off southern California. This is where surfing is a year-round sport with beaches that can be crowded during the summer. Arrive here mid-week in mid-winter and you may have a beach all to yourself.

Santa BarbaraTwenty miles farther down the coast, Santa Barbara is an excellent place to spend a few days for some beach photography. There are many small and inexpensive chain motels a block from the beach. Hop on an electric shuttle bus or follow the hiking and biking trails that will take you almost everywhere. Many bike rental shops are on Chapala

Street near the beach. Walk the length of State Street to find a wonderful selection of all kinds of shops and unusual restaurants. The side streets are lined with Victorian cottages. Sterns Wharf, located at the foot of State Street, has a large selection of seafood restaurants.The hiking and biking trail that follows Cabrillo Boulevard for miles along the full length of the Santa Barbara Beach circles the East side of Andree Clark Lagoon. Along the trail are a great variety of exotic plants and trees. Some very large agaves were in bloom during my mid-December visit. The trail ends at a bird sanctuary on Los Patos Way where you will find parking. Large flocks of waterfowl, including coots and ruddy ducks, are easy to photograph from the wooden platforms along the trail through the refuge.

Across Andree Clark Lake is the backside of the Santa Barbara Zoo. A few blocks south of here is the site of the colorful Friday Farmer’s Market at Montecito, on the southern edge of Santa Barbara.

At the far western end of Cabrillo Boulevard is the Santa Barbara Marina. A great variety of pleasure and working fishing boots are moored to long rows of piers. There are many things to photograph from the visitor walkway that leads out to a long breakwater. No matter what time of day you arrive here, you will find a good spot for your tripod somewhere. Beware of the surf that breaks over the outer jetty. If the paved sidewalk is wet, be prepared for an unexpected saltwater shower.In the late afternoon, as the sun was dropping in the west, I walked Cabrillo Boulevard with my 10 mm wide-angle lens, looking for a way to capture the long rows of extremely tall palm trees that lined the beach. Facing the setting sun, I blocked the sun behind palms and other trees. My most successful image was made 15 minutes after the sun dropped over the marina. The foreground was filled with red taillights on Cabrillo Boulevard.

The MissionThe Santa Barbara Mission is 2.5 miles inland from the beach, at the east end of Los Olivos Street. Built in 1786 by Spanish Franciscans and local Chumash Indians, this is the largest of all the California missions.The mission is not a morning shot. Arrive in the afternoon to photograph direct sunlight striking the front of the mission flanked by two bell towers. You can frame this mission between spreading pepper trees or include some large agave plants in the foreground.

Palms at sunset on Cabrillo Blvd

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My favorite photo includes a large fountain in a reflecting pool with the mission in the distance. To the west of the mission is a long row of arches supporting the mission’s roof. A small entry fee is charged for the self-guided tour of the gardens in a central courtyard. April is the best time to visit California missions because most are surrounded by blooming California Poppies. Santa Barbara mission is surrounded by lawn and pavement.Thirty miles south of Santa Barbara, at a point just south of Ventura, Highway 1 leaves Highway 101 and continues south to follow the coast. Check your map because it is easy to get lost at this point on the western end of several Los Angeles freeways. You will want to follow the coast road on your trip south. The whole Los Angeles metropolitan area is home to 15.4 million people and 24-hour traffic jams.Sometimes it is marked Pacific Coast Highway or just PCH. Sometimes the signs call it HWY 1, and, when it passes through smaller communities, it may become Ocean Avenue, Main Street, or Pacific Avenue. Follow the signs, or the main traffic flow, or use your GPS navigation system.Three miles southeast of the big rock at Point Mugu, on the east side of the Pacific Coast Highway, is the entrance to Sycamore Canyon Campground, where large flocks of wild green parrots with black hoods have been a unique attraction for years. They are curious and friendly and will sometimes follow hikers for miles along trails through the sycamore groves at the western edge of the Santa Monica Mountains. Listen for their shrill cries. The black-hooded parrots are native to South America.

MalibuCut off by the Santa Monica Mountains from the densely populated western end of Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley, Malibu was once a small and isolated beach community. Beach cottages are slowly being replaced by palatial cliffhanging fantasy homes.Today, you can hardly see the ocean while driving through Malibu. If you know where to look, signs mark public access trails that lead down onto Malibu Beach. Like all California beaches, Malibu beaches are legally open to public access below the mean high tide line.

Many large Malibu public beaches (Zuma Beach, Surfrider Beach) have large parking lots and are easy to access. Access is sometimes limited at some of the smaller and private beaches, such as Paradise Cove, which charges an entrance fee. Malibu Lagoon is a rest stop for migrating shorebirds.Since the Beach Boys made the place popular in the 1950s, beaches at Malibu have been the place to watch the surfers. One of the original surf shops still operates on the the Pacific Coast Highway, across from the Malibu Pier.

Santa Barbara Mission

Malibu Pier

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The upper level of the end of the pier is a good location for photos of surfers riding the waves below.

Santa Monica PierSix miles southeast of Malibu, the Pacific Coast Highway bends south, past Topanga Canyon and approaches Santa Monica. When you can see the tall Ferris wheel near the end of the Santa Monica Pier, it’s time to start looking for a public parking lot where you may be charged a fee. Curbside parking meters are cheaper and they accept credit cards. On a

busy weekend, you may have to circle a few blocks to find an empty parking spot.With a merry-go-round, Ferris wheel, roller coaster and many more fun rides, this is a family destination. All these rides are tightly packed onto one corner of the south side of the pier. With a very wide-angle lens, you can capture several rides operating at the same time. Hop on California’s only

solar-powered Ferris wheel and ride to the top to shoot images of beaches stretching north and south and capture afternoon sunlight on the palisades below Santa Monica. Pack a wide-angle for the wide beach scenes and a telephoto to pick out individual surfers below.

Stay late in the day, until lights are being turned on, to catch more dramatic images. I found some of my favorite angles of the pier a

half-mile south, looking across the wide sandy beach, through small groves of palms toward the Ferris wheel. Bicyclists and skaters add a nice touch to these static shots. I returned several times on cloud-free afternoons to catch sharper light from the setting sun illuminating the beach and the pier.

Venice BeachFour miles south of Santa Monica, Venice Beach is a great place to photograph everything from beach bums to costumed drag queens dancing through a carnival sideshow atmosphere. One-and-a-half miles of beachside shops offer T-shirts, tattoos, bike rentals, surf shops, food, fortune-tellers, jugglers, plenty of bizarre art, and head shop wares. Rastafarian musicians skate along the beach past conga drum bands and wild-haired performers pounding on old pianos sitting in the sand. Muscle Beach is part of this ocean front walk.My 10 mm lens set on “auto” was all I needed to capture everything I saw in sharp focus on an overcast day. For two days, I couldn’t stop shooting and now have hundreds more digital images to sort and edit. This is a great location for video and sound recording gear.

View of Santa Monica from the top of the Ferris wheel

Venice Beach boardwalk

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On-street parking is difficult to find in the Venice area. A very large public parking lot is located at Pacific and South Venice Blvd. A bridge in the middle of this lot offers a view, looking south, of one of the canals that gave this town its name. When you tire of shooting the beachfront carnival, walk a few blocks inland to photograph the cottage-lined canals of Venice.

The Canals of VeniceDeveloper Abbott Kinney built a large crisscross system of waterways on the western edge of Los Angeles in 1905. Canals with gondoliers and arched footbridges attracted newcomers to California and helped sell property to

the public. As the automobile became more popular, the canals were viewed as outdated, and most of the waterways were filled in by 1929 to create more roads.By 1940, the remaining canals had fallen into disrepair, and the sidewalks were condemned by the city. The canal district remained in poor

condition for more than 50 years before being renovated in 1992 with all new sidewalks. The canals reopened in 1993 and have become a very fashionable and expensive residential

neighborhood and one of Los Angeles’ hidden treasures. There are now four east-west canals and two north-south canals located south of Venice Boulevard and east of Pacific Avenue. For a quick look at the center of the canal area, drive north or south on Dell Avenue and cross a narrow bridge over every canal.A wonderful variety of architectural styles line both sides of each canal. Many palm trees stand high above manicured jungles representing every homeowner’s dream garden, from cactus to roses to bamboo forests. Most cottages have a canoe or a rowboat tied to their tiny piers. Ducks are seen everywhere with an occasional swan, pelican, or heron enjoying the water.

Arched bridges, colorful watercraft, gingerbread cottages, and birds are the obvious subjects for your camera here. Pick the right camera angle and almost anything along these canals can be photographed along with its reflection. Watch for whimsical paint jobs on tiny two-million-dollar cottages sitting next to ultra-modern glass boxes. Allow half a day to explore both sides of all the canals, just a short walk from Venice Beach.Four miles south of Venice Beach, Highway 1 circles the eastern end of Los Angeles International Airport. Just south of Marina del Rey, head west on Jefferson Boulevard toward Playa del Rey to follow Vista del Mar southward for miles along the wide ocean beach sitting at the western end of the airport’s long runways. Drive through the communities of Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, and Redondo Beach. Bear right onto

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Palos Verde Drive and follow the shoreline to Point Vicente. Watch for the palatial beachside estates lining the drive.

Point Vicente LighthouseOn the southwestern tip of Palos Verde at Point Vicente is a tall light tower on the edge of a hundred-foot tall cliff. This is a great spot for whale watching in the autumn, when the whales are heading down to Baja, and in the spring when mother whales with their young are heading north. The large island that’s visible from here on a clear day is Santa Catalina, twenty-two miles west of the mainland.

Point Fermin LighthouseEight miles farther around this peninsula, on the southeastern tip of Palos Verde, is one of the most ornate Victorian lighthouses I’ve ever seen, sitting on the edge of a hundred-foot cliff above the entrance to San Pedro Bay. This spot is at the southern end of Gaffey Street, two miles south of the town of San Pedro.

A railing on the edge of the precipice keeps photographers from backing up too far. I needed my 10-20 mm zoom lens to capture the full height of the beacon and include the garden still blooming in mid-January. A huge magnolia tree grows nearby. In this neighborhood are a marine mammal center, the Korean Peace Bell, and the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium, definitely worth a visit.On the east side of Long Beach Harbor is the Queen Mary. You can move in close with a wide-angle lens. The best viewpoint for a good photo of the Queen Mary is from the edge of the bay next to the Long Beach Convention Center directly across from the bay from the Queen Mary. Morning light is best here.

Five miles southeast of Long Beach, after crossing a bridge over the San Gabriel River, and reaching the edge of Orange County, most of the visible Los Angeles development seems to thin out. Highway 1 follows the edge of more long beaches. Watch for a sign, on the east side of the Highway 1, pointing out the parking area for the Bolsa Chica Refuge.

Bolsa Chica RefugePark your car in the marked Bolsa Chica trailhead parking lot across the road from the beach. Cross a large lagoon on a long wooden bridge to shoot egrets, coots, sandpipers, and some rare red herons.You’ll find the most feeding activity here in the morning. Photographers using longer telephotos were having trouble because the birds were too close. My 300 mm lens was perfect for framing birds wading near the bridge. Sandpipers were working the shallows around the edge of the lagoon. Sandpipers

Russian sub Scorpion moored next to Queen Mary

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are fearless on their nesting grounds and on their migrations. In mid January, they were probably halfway on their journey from Alaska to South America.

This whole area is a reclaimed oil field. A few working oilrigs are still pumping around this refuge.

Huntington BeachStretching for miles, between Long Beach and Newport Beach, is a wide, white sand beach that’s worth a pause in your journey. Three miles southeast of Bolsa Chica is the community of Huntington Beach. A large parking lot sits at the edge of the Huntington Beach Pier. There’s a fee for parking. It can save you the long walk if you elect to park along the highway.

Even on a cool winter day, there may be a hundred surfers, in their black neoprene wet suits, out there paddling around, waiting for another big wave. Instead of shooting surfers

from the beach, move up to a higher camera angle to avoid including the sky in your photographs. Climb the stairs to the upper level of the pier and walk out to the point where the big waves are breaking. The peak of any surfing action will be happening right below you. A 300 mm telephoto lens is just right for shooting surfers riding the curls late in the afternoon when the low angle of the sun catches spray thrown up by their boards. A shutter speed of at least 1/2000 of a second is needed to freeze the action. You may have to increase your ISO setting. Shoot a few tests to fine-tune your exposures, set your shooting mode

to “S” for shutter priority, and set your exposure mode to “continuous.” This is the kind of sports action that digital cameras were made for. Make a hundred exposures, pick your best shots and delete the others.There is more action to capture at the beach volleyball courts. Shoot down from the pier or lie on the sand and shoot up to capture the action against the sky.Directly across the Pacific Coast Highway from Huntington Beach is a very long row of upscale condos, shops, restaurants and tall palm trees–the favorite beach community of many Los Angeles sun lovers.

Crystal CoveLocated twenty miles south of Huntington Beach, on the edge of the Pacific, halfway between the towns of Newport Beach and Laguna Beach, is the Crystal Cove State Park Historic District. Started in the 1920s as a beachside campground with rental cabins along the new Pacific Coast Highway, Crystal Cove became popular as a rustic seaside resort. This land was added to the National Register of Historic Places and sold to the State of California in 1979. Sixteen Hollywood films have been shot here starting with “Treasure Island” in 1918 to Beth Midler’s “Beaches” made at Crystal Cove in 1988.

Sandpiper called lesser yellowlegs at Bolsa Chica

Shooting surfers from the Huntington Beach Pier

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Fifteen of the original cottages have been restored and are available for overnight or longer stays. Sixteen fenced-off and un-restored cottages, at the north end of the beach, are slowly weathering away. Plans are being made to restore and eventually offer these old cottages as rental units, too. Photographers should plan a visit soon before all the historic character is gone.

You can see the new rental cabins and get a good overview of the beach if you pull off the Pacific Coast Highway at the bright yellow Shake Shack at the top of the hill to the south of Crystal Cove. Customers get 30 minutes of free parking. If you want to explore and photograph the historic north cottages and a three-mile beach with great tidepools, park on the east side of the highway at a parking lot with a sign pointing to Crystal Cove/Los Trancos Entrance. You can walk across the highway or ask for directions to the pedestrian tunnel under the highway.

Morning shadows cover all the west-facing cottages at the base of tall bluffs. Winter sun reaches them by midday for the best cross lighting on textured and weathered details. Lighting conditions are best and most colorful near sunset. An overcast or rainy day will mute highlights and open shadows.Move in close to the buildings with a wide-angle lens to increase the relative size of the buildings and decrease the size of the cliffs in the background. Or move way back to the edge of the surf with a telephoto to frame the same scene and flatten the perspective so that a scene in your viewfinder appears to be almost two dimensional–a good way to eliminate the sky from your photos. Perspective is controlled by your camera position. Your choice of lens determines how your image is framed or cropped.Large circular stones are buried in the sand to the south of the Crystal Cove Historic Area, where you’ll find many tide pools. Three miles north are more stone formations and more tide pools.

Torrey Pines State ReserveTorrey Pines are one of the most rare pine trees in the world. The only mainland grove (7,000 trees) is located here on the coast, north of La Jolla and south of Del Mar. A smaller grove (2,000 trees) is offshore on Santa Rosa Island, 175 miles northwest of the mainland grove.

Three miles south of the beach community of Del Mar, enter the Torrey Pines State Reserve and drive up the hill to the end of Torrey Pines Road. Hike the Razor Point Trail to find some windblown examples. Park at the reserve

Striped awning on the Beachcomber Cafe at Crystal Cove

North Beach cottages to be restored at Crystal Cove

Torrey pine on the Razor Point Trail

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entance and walk out onto the four-mile long beach below tall yellow bluffs, a good place to photograph a sunset lighting up the cliffs below the Torrey Pines Reserve.

San DiegoCabrillo National Monument and a very photogenic lighthouse are at the southern tip of Point Loma, the long peninsula that forms the west side of San Diego Bay. Follow the signs from Interstate 5 to the western end of Highway 8 where it becomes Sunset Cliffs Drive, and continue 1.5 miles farther to Sunset Cliffs Park. There are several large and interesting round, dark stones sitting on the mossy sandstone bluffs. Arrive at low tide on an overcast day for the best photographs here.Follow Cabrillo Memorial Drive and continue driving south on Point Loma, through the open gates of Fort Rosecrans Military Reserve. Keep heading south. A National Park pass will get you into the Cabrillo National Monument to the parking area at the end of the road. If it’s a clear day, check out the panoramic view of San Diego from the visitor Center and then follow the short trail to the old lighthouse at the top of Point Loma.

One of the original eight New England-style lighthouses that were built on the West Coast still stands at the top of Point Loma, 462 feet above sea level. It was so high that it was often hidden in fog and low clouds. A new lighthouse had to be built nearby, down at the water’s edge. The new lighthouse is not accessible to the public.Follow the paved path that completely circles the old lighthouse to find the best lighting for the time of day you arrive. Morning light

strikes the front of the building. Afternoon light creates interesting shadows cast by the white picket fence.

San Diego BayThe Maritime Museum of San Diego is all outdoors on the east side of San Diego Bay. Moored on the edge of the public walkway along Harbor Drive is the Star of India, the world’s oldest ship still sailing. It has sailed around the world 21 times since 1863. Nearby are two Navy submarines and the Berkeley, one of few remaining San Francisco Bay ferry boats. Late in the day you’ll be shooting into the setting sun to capture these images. Spend the night nearby and get down to the water’s edge at sunrise to take advantage of the best light. There is a great choice of lodgings just a few blocks from the harbor.Several blocks south is the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Midway–too large to be missed. Buy a ticket and take a self-guided tour of the immense flight deck covered with restored examples of the many aircraft, fixed wing and helicopters, which flew from this aircraft carrier. A very large piece of public sculpture entitled “Unconditional Surrender” stands at the edge of the Tuna Harbor Park at the foot of G Street. Check out the pattern of spreading roots of nearby trees in Tuna Harbor Park.Continue driving south down Harbor Boulevard and cross the bay over the high bridge to Coronado. The marked road makes a left turn in the middle of Coronado and heads south down a long narrow strand with the Pacific on the west and San Diego Bay on the east. The San Diego Bay National Wildlife Refuge covers the southern end of San Diego Bay.

The old Point Loma lighthouse in afternoon light

The Star of India

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South of the wildlife refuge, Seacoast Drive follows the coastline through the small surfing community of Imperial Beach. At the foot of Evergreen Avenue is a public art piece entitled “Surfhenge,” four giant surfboard-shaped arches of brightly colored cast acrylic plastic. This is the entrance to the Imperial Beach pier, an 1,850-foot wooden pier that offers some dramatic viewpoints above breaking surf and the dudes that ride the breaks.At the southern end of Seacoast drive, just beyond the last beach house, is a 3/4-mile foot trail that leads farther south along the beach, to the mouth of the Tijuana River Estuary, a 2,500-acre wetland that originates in Mexico and ends just north of the border, visible to the south.These are sixteen of my favorite locations for photography along the southern California coast. If I was planning an extended trip, I would stay a few more days in Santa Barbara or San Diego. There’s plenty to do in either of these fascinating towns during a longer stay.

Have a great trip and send me an email !

“Surfhenge” at the entrance to the Imperial Beach pier

My life-long career in photography began at San Jose State University in 1957. After college, I enlisted in the U.S. Army Signal Corps, serving as a photographer and darkroom technician. In Germany, my skills and expe-rience with equipment and lab work were developed and polished. I took the opportunity to photograph the beauty of nature in the Black Forest. Returning to California in 1965, I produced industrial and military training films for Raytheon Electronics and began showing my color nature prints. From 1969 through 1981, my photography was exhibited and sold in West Coast galleries. During the early 1980’s, I taught color darkroom workshops, then expanded to include field trips. Former customers, who had purchased my framed photographs, wanted to learn photography. My Pacific Image Photography Workshops offered adventures to the Pacific Coast, the Southwest deserts, national parks, Hawaii, New England, Canada, En-gland, and the South Pacific. The workshops evolved into writing and sharing my adventures with others. Photograph America Newsletter provides information on where, when, and how to discover the best nature photography in North America.

Photograph America Newsletteris published quarterly (four issues/year)by Robert Hitchmanassisted by technical associate/wife, KatherinePost Office Box 86, Novato, CA 94948-00861-415-898-9677

www.photographamerica.com

All contents of this newslettercopyright © 1989-2016 Robert Hitchman

Please don’t make copies for your friends.This is a violation of Federal copyright laws.This newsletter survives on subscriptions.