the great dental adventure of 2012, part 1

This post is the first of a series. To see more Dental Adventure photos, click here.

BECAUSE WHY NOT?

As the dramatic year of 2011 came to an end, I was conscious of a deep desire to rest and repair myself. I was done with wedding and portrait photography, finished with the Red Bat partnership, and my schedule opened up to receive more free time. I had imagined myself devoting that time to the pursuit of long-delayed projects, but as 2012 began, I found I lacked the energy and drive for anything that felt like work. I didn't want to crack open those long-negelected Lightroom databases of non-professional photos, didn't want to look at a computer screen at all. I just wanted to write in my journal and think about the past five years, mine the undercurrents in my psyche that I'd ignored while being busy. There was unfinished business of the emotional and mental variety to be taken care of before I could move on with my creative life.

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Point Lobos State Natural Reserve, part 3

This post is part of a series. To read the first post, click here. To see more Point Lobos photos, click here.

We left the cypress trees and traded one breathtaking landscape for another. On the Sand Hill Trail, we found ourselves in a wide-open world of coastal scrub and views whose loveliness strained our abilities to articulate. We decided to save Sea Lion Point for last, when the sun was setting; it would be the scenic version of dessert for us that day. We walked south along the ocean's edge, far above Sea Lion Cove and Sand Hill Cove. When we turned around to look at where we'd been, we saw Headland Cove glowing in the setting sun, its cargo of cypress luminous above the red and yellow rock walls. 

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Point Lobos State Natural Reserve, part 2

This post is part of a series. To read the first post, click here. To see more Point Lobos photos, click here.

Not far from where the Cypress Grove Trail begins, it departs the meadow and enters the shelter of ancient trees. This grove is one of two naturally growing stands of Monterey Cypress trees left on Earth. Some of these trees are more than 2000 years old. They towered over us, almost a hundred feet high, their bright green boughs spreading out to make a ceiling over our heads. At the fork in the trail we veered north, and soon we were looking out at Cypress Cove, Middle Cove, and then Pinnacle Cove. In some places the trail climbed steep stairs carved into the granodiorite. It felt like we were exploring the ruins of an archaic enchanted castle. 

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Point Lobos State Natural Reserve, part 1

This post is part of a series. To read the first post, click here. To see more Point Lobos photos, click here.

A few short weeks after my trip to Pinnacles, I got a chance to visit another lovely, protected place in nature. I only spent one day at Point Lobos State Natural Reserve, but it left a deep imprint on my memory as the most outrageously beautiful seashore I've ever seen. It was so wondrous and varied that I am compelled to devote three photo-filled posts to it now.

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a portrait of santa cruz, part 3 - woods and hills

This post is part of a series. To read the first post, click here. To see more Santa Cruz photos, click here.

The beach was immediately accessible to me when I first moved to Santa Cruz, but it took me a while to find the woods. As I said in the last post, I've never owned a car here, so my woodland explorations around Santa Cruz were all with other people who were using their vehicles to convey us to a parking area near a trailhead. It wasn't until I'd lived in this town for about four years that I started to realize that even without a car, I could get to the most beautiful trees I'd ever seen.

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