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A landscape photographer's tour
Keith's travels in California and the Pacific Northwest - April-May 2007
Three years ago, Keith took his then fairly new Canon 1Ds on a driving tour round the Rockies in the USA. This photo-diary covers a driving trip up the coast from San Francisco in April/May 2007.
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Now I'm back I'll have a check through the pages and include links to any pictures I put in the Gallery, along with info that may be of help to people who come across these pages as part of their planning for driving tours of the California and Oregon coasts, looking for places to stay or sites to visit.
It's a great place for a vacation, or just a road trip up the Pacific coast to photograph some of the scenery. If you've any questions about the hotels/inns/motels where I stayed, then please do feel free to drop me a line.
There are other photo travel diaries covering trips to:
Washington and Oregon in September/October 2007 and Colorado in April/May 2006
The morning started off a bit cool and damp.
My car is the one to the left - not quite the barge I had in Colorado, but sporty -not-
Note the palms :-)
The car has a GPS navigation system, which turned out to be rather useful when I decided to drive into San Francisco and took a couple of wrong turns.
Anyway, heading up towards the Golden Gate bridge, there's lots of small houses. Quite distinctive and not like any other US city I've visited.
Eventually the bridge is sighted, along with a sign pointing out there is no toll to leave the city :-)
And another shot from the car (use a very wide lens -16mm- and crop heavily)
On the other side of the bridge, there's a visitor area, so this next picture must be in a lot of people's holiday albums :-)
Time to pull out the very wide angle (15mm) and crop to get another nice view of San Francisco from a distance
Here's Alcatraz
And SF
Then it's off up Highway 1, the coast road - with the Pacific in view
Interesting trees - don't know what they are, but they have lots of peeling bark
Enough of this - time for a Latte in Point Reyes Station.
See that luminous green shape in the background - sorry madam, lime green is not your colour... :-)
Then a quick visit to Marty Knapp (right) and his excellent black and white landscape prints (from film)
Off up highway 1
Feeling a bit hot I think of a swim, however...
and add to that, this warning
So, reluctantly, I decided -not- to go for a swim
And yet another shot of the Pacific - this time with roadworks
Here's a very wide angle shot of a great beach.
- The Canon EF 15mm lens I've used is probably one of the most resistant to flare that I've got. My 16-35 would have some lovely coloured patches diagonally opposite to the sun.
And for those at home wanting a picture of me by the Pacific...
Here's yet another great beach -- I was stopped on one and asked (by the lifeguard) if I was a professional photographer? It seems you need a permit to take pictures to sell.
So if anyone ever wants a picture I took in this area, then I'm afraid they are not for sale in California for 'legal' reasons ;-)
Meanwhile here's a starfish and anemone on a rock, waiting for the tide to come back in.
More beaches - are you getting a feel for today's journey? :-)
The following three shots are from a sequence I took of three pelicans that flew in to a beach, then along the crest of a breaking wave.
As the wave started to break the wheeled off and back out to sea
Next is where I almost managed to get my feet wet...
The shot is with a 15mm fisheye lens - if you are using one and don't want the fisheye effect to leap out (such as the pictures of my feet earlier) then make sure the horizon is exactly along the midline of the picture. This is not normally the place you want to have the horizon, so a bit more care with composition may be needed...
This evening I'm staying in Jenner at the Jenner Inn
...in fact I'm staying at a house just up the road (here it is from across the Russian River)
Flowers in the garden...
and a hot tub in the front...
and a very nice view from my room...
and a rather nice restaurant to boot...
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