Sometimes the world does not give you much to work with. It’s a good principle in travel sequences to include photos that show what it was like to be at the location. However, while large waves out in the ocean may be integral to the site, photos of distant waves lack drama … and just about every other aspect of photo appeal. One trick is to show tourists reacting to the attraction, rather than just the attraction itself.

Spring flowers are slowly appearing on the California coast. On the beach near Monterey recently I found purple sand verbana. (There is also a yellow variety.) The purple variety it quite striking close up, but the flowers are so small it can be missed. Each flower in the cluster is about a quarter inch (6 mm) across. As the season progresses the flower becomes common in the sand along the coast.

Larger version “here”:http://quickshotartist.com/blog/images/250.jpg

Point Reyes National Seashore is well known for scenery, wildflowers, and summer fog. The park is about an hour north of the Golden Gate Bridge, either following California’s Highway 1 up the coast or winding through the hills west of the city of San Raphael. During a recent visit there were wildflowers, but not much sunshine. Hence the adjusted goal was to taken moody pictures of gumplant. I ended up merging four images into a wide angle view.

click to enlarge

An elfscape is a natural scene on a small scale. They contain a number of miniature plants and usually a piece of wood or a tree trunk. While having an actual elf in the scene is desirable, it isn’t mandatory. However, the scene must appear to be compatible with the appearance of some such wee being. There are more elfscapes in the world than one might think. Look for them in forests and above the normal high tide mark on beaches.

Vermont autumn forest, c. 1975

The specific problem with the edge of the bluff at Point Lobos was getting it in focus, but let’s step back from the edge for a moment. Point Lobos State Reserve is on the California coast about two hours drive south of San Francisco. Point Lobos deserves its proclamation as “the greatest meeting of land and water in the world.” It eases the burden on photographers in one sense, because almost no matter where one points the camera one is likely to get a remarkable picture. However, it raises the bar in terms of measuring up to the splendor presented.

It’s springtime! Well, in some places it is. In other places it’s on the way. Spring brings fields of flowers, and with that a photography challenge. It’s nice to show the location of the flowers with a long view that shows the lay of the land. It’s also good to show the individual character of the flowers, rather than just a splotch of painted color. A way to accomplish both in one image is to make a spliced panorama of a close view and a distant view.

Pomponio Beach is featured in a previous post about a gray-day panorama. Beaches are good places to find texture patterns. The margin between sand and conventional grasses is often home to an interesting assortment of plant life.

I was trying to get the woman walking down the path, the kite fliers flying kites, and a car traveling on the road, all captured for a stitched panorama. It’s important to have a zone at the frame edges with no motion so that the stitching can occur successfully.