All images © 2007-2013 Aaron Meyers
Every year thousands of photographers flock down to Pfeiffer Beach in Big Sur to photograph light beams through the Pfeiffer Arch (some people call it Keyhole Arch?). During December, January, and a bit into Februray the sun sets at just the right angle that its rays will streak through the hole in the rock. As the sun nears the horizon the light takes an orange hue and water droplets in the air will reflect the lights orange color. My buddy Andy moved up here a couple months ago and has used his new proximity to me as an excuse to get more into photography. He had seen my photo "Spotlight" from last year and demanded that we go down to Pfeiffer this year. Between busy schedules and poor weather/tide conditions it took us until late January to get down. We played hooky with a work, left around 1pm and made our way down the Big Sur coast. It was a beautiful afternoon and we were pretty excited! When we arrived at Pfeiffer we quickly noted how calm the water was. The tide was fairly high, about 3.2ft before sunset, and was supposed to only drop to 3ft by sunset. It seemed a bit high. Without the huge surf there wasn't much splash or spray and the light beam never materialized like it did for me last year. None-the-less I took a number of photos and left feeling somewhat disappointed. It wasn't until I got home that I realized I had captured a few nice shots! I especially liked this one because wispy strands of water picked up the setting sun, making it look like it was almost molten! Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S: 70mm, f/16, 0.6 sec, ISO 64
Hopefully as each year passes by, we, as photographers, learn from our past mistakes and in turn become better photographers. A year ago I left things up to chance. Today, most of my photography is planned: I've learned to check weather forecasts, watch the "WunderMap" to follow cloud patterns, and even tried to understand what makes the low marine fog that we want so badly. I learned to check the SF webcams before I go to sleep and made a great new friend who could check the fog from his bedroom window and tell me if I should go back to bed or not (thanks Alan!). The night before this particular morning I had checked both the weather and the webcams and text messages about the following mornings fog started rolling in. I was so excited that I actually woke up *before* my 4:15am alarm! Alan almost instantly messaged me to tell me: "get up here, it's going to be amazing! EVERYONE is coming!" I arrived early, ran into Yan and began taking photos. Alan and Wilson arrived shortly after and we started trekking up to Hawk Hill. I also ran into Jim Patterson, Joe Azure, David Yu, and Della Huff, who are all great local photographers! The fog on this morning was pretty much a dream come true! The fog was just above the bridge deck when I arrived and throughout the sunrise I watched the fog move lower and lower. By 8am the fog was completely gone! I photographed the bridge from several locations on the road to Hawk Hill and had so many great photos that I had trouble deciding which was my favorite. Ultimately I chose a photo from the blue hour of sunrise (which is really only about 10 minutes), when the sun was still somewhat low and the sky had purple tones to match the fog. A couple minutes later and the sky started to turn light blue, orange, and red, washing out the lights of the city in the background. I experimented with different aspect ratios of either 2:1 or 3:1, and found that a slower shutter smoothed out the fog while a faster shutter left more texture and bumps. Ultimately I chose quicker shutter speed of 10 seconds and a 2:1 crop so that I could include as much of the amazingly textured fog as I could. Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S: 29mm, f/11, 10 sec, ISO 64 No Filters
Waking up at 5am on a Saturday morning is never fun. Instead of staying all warm and cozy in my nice bed I was up and out the door to meet Willie and Alan to photograph sunrise. On the drive to San Francisco we noticed some really nice thin clouds in the sky and we had a feeling it would be worth the early wake-up! There was a slight debate about where to photograph the sunrise. The clouds were located to the north east of the city and we decided to plant ourselves west … that meant crossing the Golden Gate Bridge and heading over to Hawk Hill. Although we had arrived early, we got out of the car and saw that clouds already had a beautiful purple glow caused by the lights from San Francisco. Racing to find a spot we setup our tripods and started clicking away. Boy were we in for a treat! Photographing while the sun was below the horizon enabled us to capture this scene with the combination of the city lights, the beautiful red glow of the bridge, and the warm colorful tones in the sky. As the sun rose closer to the horizon, the lights in the city faded, the bridge turned dark, and the clouds lost their purple glow. And then they lit up! First slight oranges and yellows were visible, then brilliant pinks and reds. As the sun peaked itself over the horizon the color faded and tule fog began to roll in. Our early morning wake-up was worth the beautiful morning! Despite the explosion of color towards the latter part of the sunrise, I decided I liked my earliest photographs the best. Here the city lights are visible, the bridge has its wonderful golden hue, and the water reflects the light. I also chose a 2x1 panoramic crop because it limited the amount of noise above and below the photo (empty sky above and trees below). I named this photo "City's Embrace" because I like the way that the bridge hugs the city. Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S: 24mm, f/9, 1/3 sec, ISO 250 HiTech 0.9 Reverse ND Grad
