I had another day-trip down to San Diego and although I had not planned on it, there was some coastal fog again. Yes, when I left my studio/home in Orange County, the sky was blue and cloudless. But as I approached the beach area to catch the I-5 freeway South, I could see the coastal fog. Cool. (Literally, the temperature must have dropped 10 degrees F). So I did a quick calculation and figured that I had probably 10 minutes to make a stop at the same place I had at the end of August.
As I have learned, the issue with the current weather, is that the costal fog can very up and down the coast; sometimes thick as pea soup and other times light and patchy. And the density of this coastal fog can also change within a fifteen minute span, going from one extreme to another. So what the conditions were going to be at my one stop enroute would be a bit of a crap shoot, as I did not have the time to spend to see how things might change.
From my earlier stop, I remembered some low ground cover that I wanted to see how I could incorporate this element into my composition and for some reason, I was pre-visualizing all of the potential compositions in black and white. So that was my mind set when I did the stop. And fortunately I was not disappointed, spotty foggy conditions which in black and white I think are visually effective and interesting.
The horizontal photograph above I have used to update my Facebook profile (https://www.facebook.com/douglas.stockdale/), while the version below was cropped square and posted on my IG (@douglasstockdale). I know, I am still addicted to landscapes, even if the foreground is slightly littered with cigarette butts and other debris common to a rest stop (then this becomes an ‘urban’ landscape, eh?).
All of this was captured with my Samsung S21 Ultra as I had not anticipated that these environmental conditions were going to occur and second I had not planned on taking another photographs while in San Diego, thus my Canon 5DMk3 and Hasselblad were peacefully resting back in my studio. I am not one who usually hauls around my arsenal of camera gear everywhere I go, instead leaning on my mobile phone to investigate in my experiment/play mode. So next time I drive down to San Diego, at a minimum, I think I just might bring the Canon along with me. LoL.
Cheers,
Doug
Featured photograph; Coastal Landscape, Morning, San Diego (#103245) 2021 Copyright Douglas Stockdale
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Book workshop:
I will be leading a Creative Photo Book workshop with the Southeast Center of Photography (SEC4P) later in the Fall of this year. This will be a virtual event on Zoom; November 6 & 7th and 13 & 14th, 2021, 10 AM – 1 PM, EDT (3 hour session each day, with a week between the weekend sessions to work your book-dummy). Registration is now open, and there is a SEC4P membership discount. Just advised that it is SOLD OUT & wait-list has been started. Let me know if you have any questions!
Developing a Creative Photo Book, a virtual (Zoom) workshop I will be leading again in conjunction with Medium Photo with New dates: March 5 – 6, 12 – 13, 2022 More details and sign-up available now at Medium Photo.
Singular Images 
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