The Alien Shore
by admin
As we were on our way out from Panther Beach where I shot recently together with Jim Patterson, I decided to take one more shot. The winds were strong and waves unpredictable (which always makes long exposures a bit tricky), so I decided to protect myself by hiding behind the rock, which turned out to be a composition I liked anyway. This is 102 seconds exposure, which still preserved a bit of texture in the ocean, yet smoothed out the clouds and the surf, emphasizing the odd texture of rocks.
Sadly, I read in the Mercury News couple days later that the same night we were there, in a beach nearby (just a few hundred yards away) a teenager Dennis Cyncor-McMillan drowned after going for a swim at 4am. You can see how rocky this shore is. There was a group of them hanging out at this beach as well as we were leaving, and it’s highly likely that the poor guy was among them and that we saw him on our way back to our cars. This was his last sunset. I was since in contract with his family, and they used this image during Dennis’ memorial service.