From: bjs@uts.amdahl.com (Barry Sherman)
Newsgroups: rec.photo
Subject: Re: 1 day photo trips from San Jose, CA
Date: 4 Sep 92 20:06:03 GMT
Followup-To: rec.photo
Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA

Gary Snow writes (on behalf of a friend):

>I will be visiting the Bay area in mid Sept., and have Sat. free.  I
>would like to spend the day on nature photography, and would like
>suggestions or comments on where I can go for this.  I plan to get up
>*early* Sat. morning so that I drive in the dark and am on location at
>sunrise.  It may be a long time before I have such an opportunity again.
> 
>I have identified two potential locations to visit.  The first is to
>go north along the coast to Muir Woods and Point Reyes and whatever else is
>time permiting.  I have heard that Point Reyes is not as crowded as some
>other areas (?) and offers good natural scenes.

Everything I say is strictly IMHO.  Personally, I find Muir Woods to be quite
boring photographically.  You walk through the woods on a trail with "rails"
along the sides to keep the people herded in the right direction.  I suppose
that the tourist load is so heavy that they must do so to protect the 
environment, but it kind of puts me off.  When I was there it was mid-July
and very crowded.  It felt like an exhibit at Disneyland.  It might be
nicer though, in September as I expect that the crowds will be lighter.
The "railed path" and crowds made photography seem difficult.  I made
no exposures.

Point Reyes is a mixed bag for me.  To date I've not found a lot
of wonderful spots, photographically, except for McClure's Beach.  This is
near the northern tip of the peninsula and is "one of my favorite spots on
earth".  The beach is nice and the rocky headlands to the south are wonderful.
If you hit the tides right (Sorry, my tide table - absolutely essential for 
the ocean-oriented landscape photographer :-) - is at home.) you can walk 
through a gap in the headlands and find yourself looking at some of the most
wonderful jagged rocks sticking up out of the ocean.  I think that evening
is the best time to be here, especially if you're really lucky and there's
mist in the air.  Although I've not been at McClure's beach at dawn, if you 
could manage the two hour drive and 1/2 mile walk and get there at dawn, 
I suspect that it would be pretty magnificent.  If you were to arrive at
the Point Reyes visitor's center in the pre-dawn dark you could look at
the big map they have outside the ranger's office with a flashlight and
figure out how to get to McClure's beach that way.  Pretty rough - I believe
that sunrise is ~6:30 now.  So in order to arrive on the beach at 6:00 you'd
need to leave San Jose ~3:30 a.m.  (Shudder. ;-)

On the way to-from Point Reyes, turn off Highway1 at the turnoff for the
viewpoint at the north end of the Golden Gate Bridge, cross under the 
freeway and drive out the road to the Marin Headlands.  This is where
so many of the great views of the GG Bridge and San Francisco have been
taken.  With good fog/clouds it can be most beautiful.

One-two hours drive further north from Point Reyes is Salt Point state park.  
This features some really interesting rock formations at the beaches.  Great 
twisted, eroded sandstone that some have called a "lunarscape".  Be sure to 
check out Gerstle Cove.

Heading south is an option.  There's lots of wonderful landscape from Carmel
on south through Big Sur.  The best thing to do is to pull over at just about
every turnout and take a look.  Some will have paths that will let you get
down to the water.  Point Lobos has great forests (especially in the fog) and
tidepools.  Great rocky seascapes.  If you get there really early you might
bump into John Sexton!  I haven't but I do keep my eyes open. :-)  Point
Lobos is a wild life preserve and they have definite "open" and "close"ing
times.  I'm not sure what they'd do if you parked outside the park prior
to their opening it and walked in.  Probably nothing, but ...  And then
you'd be wandering around in the dark without a map.  Probably not a great
idea.

A few miles further south there's Sobranes Point.  There is no sign - you just 
have to keep trying the turnouts (although most maps do show it).  If you
walk down a trail and see a real tiny beach - 50 yards or so wide - made of 
round stones several inches in diameter and some truly extraordinary jagged 
rocks sticking out of the water then you're there.  A photo of this location 
was on the cover of Camera and Darkroom sometime springish this year - fogged 
water, jagged rocks and magenta hued clouds.  Magical.  This is another of my 
"favorite places on earth".  Who cares if I run out of film or drop the 
view camera in the ocean (as I have)?  I'll just sit and contemplate and feel 
wonderful.  But be careful.  Leaving one's car here is dangerous.  I only go 
there in my old junker truck since some scum smashed the window of my car and 
made off with my girlfriend's purse and a couple of camera bags while we were 
down at the water photographing.  The locals (including the sheriff's deputy) 
told me that it's quite common.  A rental car with LDW would be safest 
(for you :-).  Sigh, since I smashed up the junker truck I've not been there.
I must get going and fix it as withdrawal is setting in.

Still farther south is Garapata Beach, famed in the Brett Weston photo and more
recently featured in a couple of wondrous (IMHO) photos by Ryudgie (sp?) 
Douglas published in Camera and Darkroom.  Lots of interesting rocks and waves 
here, although the view of the headland is somewhat spoiled by the houses 
perched on it.  But well worth investigating.

Between Santa Cruz and San Francisco are some interesting locations.  Pebble
Beach (not the one down south with the golf course) has really interesting
eroded sandstone and some nice tide pools.  With a wide angle lens you can
play lots of neat games with the shapes of the sandstone and the colors
can be very nice, if you do color.  Under the right lighting (and clouds),
the Pigeon Point lighthouse can be a nice, if somewhat cliched, subject.
Some interesting photos have been made at the town of Pescadero, just a 
couple of miles from the water.

A final suggestion, strange as it may sound.  I recently found a road
near Livermore that winds through some beautiful typical California hills.
This time of year the long grass is golden in the evening sun and the
oak trees are dark olive green and the sky is blue and the hills are gently
rounded.  Really great subject matter - textures and tonalities.  
Unfortunately when I found the road I also found that I'd left both my color 
film and my pack of filters for b/w film at home so I couldn't make any of the 
great images that I saw but will soon tear myself away from the darkroom in the
evening and go back.  Take Vasco Road north from I580 near Livermore.  (From 
San Jose, take 280 until it becomes 580 and then branch off on 680 eastbound.  
It'll take about 45 minutes to get to Vasco Road and another 20 minutes or so 
to get to the good stuff.)

>The second idea is Yosemite.  Of course, this entails a 4 hour predawn
>drive.  I must return to San Jose Sat night.  Is this enough time, or should
>I save Yosemite for sometime when I have a whole weekend or more?  Also,
>does the crowd situation permit serious photo taking.  (I don't mind hiking,
>but time is an issue.)  It is probably not worth 8 hours of driving just to
>say I have seen it and to take a few casual snapshots.

Personally, I think that your time would be too limited.  I have a problem
with Yosemite in general.  It seems that I have trouble finding anything
original to do there.  My mind's so cluttered with images from Adams and
Sexton (and McSavaney and Cramer and Rowell, ...) that everything that I see 
that looks interesting makes me feel "Yes that's nice but it's really a John
Sexton type of picture".  The other problem with Yosemite is that most 
locations have very explicit conditions under which the light is nice -
usually early morning or late evening.  It takes time to figure out where
I want to be at what time of day.  I'm starting to do so after a few trips
now but my first few trips it just seemed that I never had the right light.
One sure bet is to be along the Merced River in the evening when the
light is soft.  This is, perhaps, a little John Sexton-ish but there *is* lots 
of nice stuff there.

Good luck!  I, personally, find the Santa Clara valley to be a blighted 
suburban wasteland.  Pretty much of an armpit.  But there are many, many 
beautiful places to go within easy (more of less) driving distance.  This has 
been the salvation of my 13 year sojourn here.  (Why don't I move?  Well,
there's this lady, you see.  And she won't move away from her kids.  And 
her kids are young enough to think that San Jose's quite nice ... :-)

Barry

-- 


|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Barry Sherman, Amdahl Corp.       | "Any fool can face a crisis - it's     | 
| bjs@ruts.ccc.amdahl.com           |  this day-to-day living that wears you |
|                                   |  out." - Anton Chekhov                 |
|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Amdahl, being a corporation, is a legal fiction.  Therefore it is incapable|
| of holding, let alone expressing, opinions.  Unfortunately, this has been  |
| said of me as well.                                                        |
|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
Newsgroups: rec.photo