Jeff's Coast Photos

Jeff's California Coast Pix
Although I find mountains more attractive than the ocean, I can't help but admire the rugged scenery of California's coast. Unlike the flat sandy or marshy beaches on the east coast, the beaches of the central coast are rugged and often dramatic.

The captured the following images from Santa Barbara's own beach and from Cambria and Carmel, which lie further north of here, each of them in different counties (Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Monterey).

Click on the thumbnails on this page and the larger version of the image will come up. The full-sized images are big files -- some over a quarter of a megabyte in size -- so give them time to download.

**Santa Barbara Beach**
	These two views of the beach look east just outside downtown Santa Barbara, which lies just inside the shallow harbor hidden behind the rocks on the left of this image. Remember that Santa Barbara is one of the few places on the West Coast where the coastline runs east-west, rather than north-south. Los Angeles is a bit more than 100 miles to the southeast, which is to the right in these photos. The second image, by the way, is taken from just a few hundred yards up the beach, but I used a telephoto lens, which makes the Santa Ynez mountains in the background look more prominent in the image. (Files: 133 kb and 155 kb, respectively)

Similar scene to the one just above, but this one's been rendered as a watercolor. By the way, in all of these shots of Santa Barbara's beach I believe it was close to high tide, so the waves were close to the shore. It probably looks more dramatic that way, even though I hadn't planned it.(File: 67 kb)
	Here's a view taken from on top of the cliff where there's a city park. It's format to fit proportionately to a computer screen, then I gave it the watercolor treatment so I can use it for a wallpaper image. (Files: 168 kb and 93 kb, respectively)

**Cambria Beach**
	This is the Pacific coast looking south, near Cambria, CA. It was taken at a scenic turn-off from the coast highway after leaving Hearst Castle. The temperature at the coast was in the mid-70s but just a few miles inland, it was over 100 degrees. It certainly helps to have a cold-water current running just offshore! This is one of several images I rendered using a photo editor program to look like a watercolor painting. It's been resized to 1024 x 768 pixels so it can be used as a wallpaper background on my computer. (File: 185 kb)

Another view of the beach near Cambria, this time looking north. I don't know anything about the pier off in the distance. (File: 202 kb)

Just a shot looking down the cliffside. (File: 243 kb)

**Monterey and the Carmel Coast**
In 1999, I took a trip to Monterey in October, where one of the big attractions is the harbor. I snapped one photo showing a sea otter lounging in the harbor. I don't have a thumbnail image of it, but if you click on this link you can see the image. The sea otters are surprisigly big, too. From nose to tail they must be almost 5 feet long. Santa Cruz lies in the distance far across the bay of both photographs. Wildlife was everywhere -- otters, sea lions and harbor seals. One of the boats in the harbor had been commandeered by a harbor seal for a snooze. If I would have had a telephoto lens with me, I could have gotten a photo of it. Evidently, it happens frequently enough. Several postcards in the local shops showed other boats with basking seals.
	Perhaps you remember seeing trained "seals" doing tricks at the circus or on TV shows. Those were California sealions. Now, imagine several hundred of them hanging out on the breakwater. A chain link fence separates them from the tourists, but they're only a few feet away.
I didn't manage to get many good photos inside the Monterey Aquarium but I did luck out taking images of the jellyfish. It's an amazing exhibit. These jellies appear to glow like a Tiffany lamp but they're just artfully lighted from above. The effect is striking, however, against the blue background of the tank. These photographs should not even have come out. I took them using a very slow shutter speed -- one-eighth of a second. Normally, one-sixtieth of a second is needed to keep objects from looking blurred. It's a good thing jellyfish don't move very fast! The second image here just a thumbnail -- no larger version.
	After leaving Monterey I wanted to get some photos of the setting sun along the coast south of Carmel. This scene shows the coast about 10 minutes before sunset. (116 kb)
Finally, the sun sank to the horizon and I captured these images. What I really needed was a special filter to allow me to photograph the bright sky and the darker foreground, but I used a photo editor to accomplish the same thing. It's still not quite true to the actual sunset. A photograph teacher once told my class she used a combination of filters to capture sunsets as the human eye sees them, but she never shared her secret. Shucks. (Files: 97 kb and 63 kb, respectively)

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