The Magic of Point Reyes National Seashore

During the two years that I let the blog go dormant in 2016-2017 I actually had a couple of really nice photographic outings. I was even able to return to California for about a week in the summer of 2016, which included a couple of days spent in Point Reyes National Seashore. It wasn't the most productive trip photographically, but it felt so great to be back in my old footsteps on those well-trodden trails. For those of you that have followed my work, you already know that Point Reyes National Seashore holds a special place in my heart -- and in some ways I can't believe it's taken me this long to share some some images from the trip.

July isn't necessary the best time to be in the park for photography, I personally think that the fall is ideal with the shorebird migrations and tule elk rut, but I was treated to some spectacular fog-less summer sunsets on this trip. While living in California, I most often visited the park for sunrise, which usually involved a heavy cover the marine layer fog, so it was a treat to have the warm colors of sunset on multiple evenings (although I almost didn't know what to do with the light!).

While driving out Sir Francis Drake Boulevard on so many prior trips to the park, my eye had often been drawn to the gorgeous rolling agricultural valleys. On many occasions I pulled the car over, swapped on my landscape lens and attempted to capture some of what had caught my eye. I was never really able to do the scene justice though, especially since so many of my trips were under the coastal fog. I love overcast light for wildlife, but it really left the landscapes feeling flat and far less interesting than then actually were. I was driving around the park on this summer evening while the light was absolutely spectacular, and hoping to find something to photograph before it was gone. I struck out on sighting any wildlife in the golden glow, but as I passed this valley, I was completely drawn in. The last rays were fading fast, and I knew I wouldn't have time to set up my tripod before it was gone. So I rolled the window down, leaned across the passenger seat and fired off a few frames. I love that the low hanging sun left a tiny sliver of "alpenglow" across the top of the coastal hillside. That's part of the magic of Point Reyes National Seashore -- it's given me fleeting moments that are so special and unexpected on so many visits.

While I was taking the photograph above, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that I could see myself in the passenger-side mirror. Being a solo trip into the park, I didn't have any other photographs of myself there, so I took advantage of the opportunity to make an unorthodox selfie from this unexpected scene in one of my favorite places.

After spending the night in Inverness Park, I set out for a sunrise hike at Abbotts Lagoon. Just like old times, I began the day as the first car in the parking lot as the daylight was just beginning to break. It was wonderful to breathe in the cool coastal air, and to be invigorated by the feeling of the warm rising sun under clear skies. This is a wonderful place to look for quail and not too far from the parking lot I found a handsome male keeping an eye on his covey from an old scrag of coyote brush (which I posted yesterday for my 500th blog post). I slowly worked my way closer, trying to get clean shot of the quail who was glowing in the warm sunrise light. In the meantime a second car arrived at the trailhead and another photographer set off down the trail behind me. As he approached, he politely waited to pass until the quail had decided to hop from its perch and head into the brush. Further down the trail, at the bridge between the freshwater and brackish lagoons, I encountered the photographer again. We chatted briefly, and he shared his new found love for the park. It seemed that this amazing landscape had recently cast a spell on him, the same as it had on me nearly a decade ago. He was now regularly driving up from the East Bay on the weekends to search for wildlife -- which sounded awfully familiar to my ears! We chatted briefly about the gravitational pull of the park, and neither of us could easily express a specific reason for why it captured our creative imagination so strongly over all of the other great places in the Bay Area. But perhaps the vague mystery of that deep-felt love for that beautiful peninsula is part of the magic all the same.