The Longest Pier on the Western United States Coastline

Today I’m featuring a photo shoot I did a couple of weeks ago. The subject matter is the Oceanside Pier in Southern California. I had not been to the pier for a few years, but remembered it well. It is the longest pier along the western US coastline at 1954 feet (596m). The current pier was built in 1987 replacing a number of prior piers lost to stormy weather. For more information: Wikipedia. The town of Oceanside is located in northern San Diego County just south of Camp Pendleton (which lies along the coast between San Diego County and Orange County to the north).

I had a couple of hours of free time (I was a car pool buddy for my wife coming and going from Northern Los Angeles to a bridal shower for my niece at my sisters home in San Diego) during the afternoon and had decided to do this photo shoot. The pier is very impressive and I had just viewed another photographers photoshoot of a pier and was reminded how impressive the architectural structure of these larger piers were. I also chose to do the shoot in black and white as I like the architectural detail that is highlighted in a monochromatic shoot such as this. For some reason I have always been drawn to shots under the structure of piers, thus the number of those on this shoot. At the end of the pier was a restaurant (prior to Covid), which we had frequented. I’m assuming a new tenant will be found as it is a great location.

I open the shoot with a shot I took walking from my parking spot to the beach area underneath the pier for the next few shots.

Oceanside, California Pier

Next up are the shots I took of the under structure in the order I took them.

The Support Of The Pier

Pier 3

Pier 4

Pier 5

Coming out from underneath on the other side of the pier which gives you another appreciation of how far out it goes with the restaurant building on the end.

Pier 6

I was walking out to the end and stepped off on one of the “pop outs” you see in this photo.

Pier 7

Passing the tower structures on each side as in seen above, I took this shot approaching the restaurant structure on the end.

Pier 8

And on the other side of the pier with all of the people fishing.

Fishing Off The End Of The Pier

The last capture is from the end of the pier next to the former restaurant looking back towards the coastline. You can see just how far out the pier goes from this perspective as well as from the shore looking out to this point.

Pier 10

In case you were wondering why three of these shots have names under them, those are the ones I added to my galleries. It always amazes me how many shots I take and how I whittle them down to just a few favorites. If any of those I hadn’t named strike you as “gallery worthy” let me know!! Thanks!!

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The Bluffs and Surf in San Diego County

From the last two weeks of abstract coastal art prints, I thought I would keep with the same general subject (coastal and ironically same coastal area), but a completely different visual venue. This week I am featuring two of my newest prints I created using a soft watercolor style. The location is the same; the coastline of Carlsbad, California in northern San Diego County. The perspective is from the same general area but one print is looking south and the other print looking north. The San Diego coastline is beautiful all the way from the southern tip on the border to Mexico running north to Camp Pendleton and Orange County.

The perspective of the first one is looking south from Carlsbad down towards San Diego proper. The bluffs are stunning as they frame the beach and the surf.

The Bluffs And The Beach

The second print is almost liking turning around and looking north along the coastline. The bluffs are still there, but not as dramatic. The beach and the surf take your eyes up towards Oceanside and Camp Pendleton.

Ocean Surf In Carlsbad

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Blue Sunset, Blue Moon Set

Following last weeks post of bright red and orange abstract sunsets, this week I’m posting two new art prints that are also created in an abstract manner. One of them is a sunset and the other is a full moon setting. Both art prints are from coastal viewpoints along the Pacific Ocean. The difference from last weeks post is the color hues are totally different. As with last weeks post, these abstract prints were created from actual visual inspirations. In the case of these two, they were inspired from the coastline in Northern California with a thick layer of fog rolling in. In both cases the fog kind of separated slightly to allow the light from both to shine through momentarily, but forever staying in my head.

Blue Abstract Sunset

Abstract Coastal Moon Setting

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Abstract Red and Orange Coastal Sunsets

The attached three prints are abstract interpretations of some colorful sunsets. The setting for all three is Coastal Carlsbad in San Diego County. The inspiration behind all three was some pretty spectacular sunsets over the Pacific Ocean. I have shared in the past a couple of prints that I created from that type of sunset, but with these I took the liberty of creating a look in a very abstract manner.

Orange Ocean Sunset

Orange Hillside Sunset

Abstract Coastal Sunset

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Balcony Sunset Photoshoot

This weeks blog has a number of pictures attached to it. I’ve been asked a number of times about the process I go through creating the digital art you see posted. Almost everything starts with a photoshoot. (I do create art prints digitally from scratch, but this post is about an example of creating from a photoshoot)

For this example I am using a photoshoot I did in January of 2011. The setting is a sunset over the Pacific Ocean taken from the balcony off of our bedroom overlooking the coastline of Carlsbad, California (Northern San Diego County). This is the house we raised our girls in and we lived there for almost 20 years. The house was at the end of a cul de sac in a neighborhood that was located on top of a ridge 3 miles inland from the Pacific Ocean. To the immediate west of our neighborhood/property was a field owned by the Carlsbad Water District. The importance of that was that it was never going to be built on and offered an unobstructed view all the way down to the coast. I give that background because of this photoshoot. In all the years we lived there, this sunset was an exception to the rule and was only seen a few times. For this type of sunset, there must be high level clouds and an unobstructed view. We had the view at all times, but during the spring, summer and fall months it was more typical to have a marine layer come ashore late afternoon into the night. The marine layer typically was low level clouds (not fog), that hid most sunsets over the ocean. The only time we actually had clear skies at sunset was in the winter as the marine layer was less common. The high level clouds were also a rarity in this area preventing this type of a colorful sunset. On this particular day, we started to see the colors burst forth in our backyard. I immediately clued into what was happening and grabbed my camera, ran upstairs to our bedroom and the balcony. I have attached 8 of the 18 shots I took that day a number of them were redundant and the rest were poor shots looking towards the extreme south and north.

Balcony Sunset 1

This was the first capture I took using my telephoto lens focusing on the immediate west.

Balcony Sunset 2

I zoomed in a little more. The building you see with the “smoke stack” is a coastal power plant that was built quite awhile ago as a coal burning facility. It was converted to gas years ago and today the smoke stack has been removed.

Balcony Sunset 3

This shot is without extending the telephoto lens and is the view we had with the naked eye.

Balcony Sunset 4

Zooming in just south of the power plant capturing more of the clouds.

Balcony Sunset 5

Lowering the framing slightly.

Balcony Sunset 6

Zooming back towards the power plant…

Balcony Sunset 7

Pulling back on the telephoto to capture more of the clouds as the colors are deepening.

Balcony Sunset 8

Pulling back on the telephoto to capture a widening shot. These were the captures I narrowed it down to creating the art prints that follow.

Coastal Sunset

Pacific Sunset

These two shots were cropped and a subtle digital watercolor overlay to highlight the orange tones. Also I removed the smoke stack from the power plant (not knowing it was going to be removed in reality but not until 2020).

Love is Patient

Cropping “Coastal Sunset” gave me the background for this Inspirational art print.

Carlsbad Sunset

In this capture, I used an impasto style painting which creates large dramatic brush strokes.

Dusk on the Coast

Using the same impasto style on this one, but using one of the photos that had blue sky showing such as Balcony Sunset 1.

These five prints from this photoshoot were created after experimenting with cropping of the captured scene and then the different art styles. This gives you a taste of the process using a photoshoot with a singular subject matter. Multiply it by number of subject matters on a more intense photoshoot.

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Abstract Sunsets

My post this week takes a look at three different sunsets that I created using an abstract approach to the subject matter with an impasto style of brush strokes. There are two things going on with these prints. First, I created the scene by making general shapes in various shades of color for the clouds and ocean. Next, I took those creations and did an impasto style of brush strokes. This type of brush stroke is bold and creates depth to the painting.

“Carlsbad Sunset”

In this first one I stayed in the orange and yellow family for color. I also added a coastline for the foreground. Carlsbad Sunset is based on a dramatic sunset over the Pacific Ocean in Northern San Diego County. The view point is a hilltop a few miles inland overlooking the ocean.

“Dusk on the Coast”

This second one represents a colorful sunset again based on an actual sunset in Northern San Diego County. The general viewpoint of both is the type of view we had from our house in San Diego County. What makes these prints even more impressive is that in the 18 years we lived there, these were some of the few colorful sunsets we had. Living close to the coast in this part of Southern California does have its advantages in moderate temperatures year round typically not getting either real hot or cold. That said, the ocean keeps the air temperature moderate, but also does create what is called a marine layer (low level clouds that are close to being fog if they were to get lower). Dramatic sunsets require high level clouds to reflect the colors from the setting sun and a marine layer blocks all of that.

“Cloudy Ocean Sunset”

This last abstract sunset is based on a look I saw from a Northern California coastal beach that had actual fog roll in just as the sun was setting. It created unique colors through the fog that I took into the blue and purple color family to make this a unique abstract print.

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Northern California Coastline

In continuing with my series of our road trip from Los Angeles to Seattle and back, this week I am sharing some of the photographs I took on the Northern California Coastline. The shots are from the Mendocino area of the coastline. That would be about halfway between Eureka (on the very northern California coastline and San Francisco).

The drive that day (Pacific Coast Highway) took us slightly inland for awhile and then rejoined the coastline. The slightly inland part was stunning as it took us through Redwood Forests. Unfortunately we weren’t able to stop and grab pics of that experience as the shots I would have liked to have taken occurred while we were driving without the ability to pull over. It was fascinating to see that you’re driving on this nice wide two lane (sometimes four) highway with broad shoulders, then suddenly the speed limit goes way down and you round a curve to the road narrowing down to just two lanes without shoulders. That was to protect the existing redwoods where their trunks are literally right next to the pavement. The road would wind between the trunks and I must say it was stunning.

When we were able to rejoin the coastline, I was able to get the attached shots.

Northern California Coastal 1

I loved the rock structures along the coastline similar to what you see along the coastline in Oregon. You can tell from the white tips of the protruding rock structures in the water that birds spend a fair amount of time gathering there.

Northern California Coastal 2

The other thing that is different along the northern California coastline versus the southern or central coastlines are the trees (similar to Oregon, but not as lush) that come right up to the coast.

Northern California Coastal 3

It was a beautiful fall day for strolling the beach.

Northern California Coastal 4

I love the different color shades of the ocean as the depth changes. Notice how clear the water is in the little bay.

Northern California Coastal 5

We hit the weather perfectly along the entire drive. The prior day we had left Seattle very early and made it all the way to Arcata, California just north of Eureka along the coastline. On this day our destination was Santa Cruz along the northern portion of Monterrey Bay, which is south of San Francisco. The next day we drove the final leg home exactly two weeks after we left.

Because of the current pandemic I did want to touch base on how we handled that issue. We were diligent with our masks whenever we were out of the car. We brought sanitary wipes for pumping gas and hotel rooms. The hotel rooms were an issue we researched ahead of time and found that the Hilton chain of hotels seemed to have the best programs. We were able to do remote check-in prior to arrival so we just went to our room and keyed in the code we were given. The rooms had tags sealing the door to verify the room had been disinfected. To protect our family here in Los Angeles and in Seattle we got tests done before heading up and after returning just to verify we were ok.

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Oregon Coastline

Just wanted to share a couple of pictures of the Oregon Coastline….the setting is so peaceful and serene and the sense of tranquility seemed pertinent at this time!! Hope all is well with you, your family and friends!

Coastal Bluff

Oregon Coastline

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Live Your Life In The Present

Live In The Present

This is a daily reminder to myself. Live your life in the present moment. Sounds easy enough, but how often do we find our minds dwelling on the past? The “what ifs” of life. If only I had done this or said that. Dwelling on the past robs you of the present moment. The past can’t be changed. We can learn from it, but it’s the past. It’s over and done.

Or how often do our minds start dwelling and worrying about the future? What if “this happens”? How will I handle it? What will I do?

In both cases, you have just ignored “the present”.  The past is old news and can’t be changed. The future hasn’t happened and all of the worry in the world can’t change it.

As I said, I remind myself of this daily to embrace what is happening at the present moment and to not let it slip by without embracing and enjoying it. If the present moment is that painful, I have faith that it will become “the past” before it consumes me.

The photograph is a sunset over the Pacific Ocean in Carlsbad, California near where we use to live.

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Central California Coast – Excerpts from a Photo Shoot

I wanted to share a couple of shots I captured last weekend on a drive my wife and I took along the Central California Coastline. There are a number of “pull-offs” scattered along the coastline and these captures were from one of those.

California Central Coast 1

 

California Central Coast 2

 

California Central Coast 4

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