I have spent many lunch breaks exploring the shoreline around Berkeley and Albany including Cesar Chavez, Eastshore Park, as well as the Albany bulb. When I came across a good sized tafoni formation in the sandstone behind the race track I knew right off the bat that I wanted to photograph a sunset there.
Lately the days have been short so I decided to head down to the shoreline after work and hope for a nice sunset. I read a book and was lulled into deep relaxation by the sound of the tide lapping up against the rocky shoreline.
As the sun got lower in the sky I searched for a composition and settled with the most prominent tafoni fretwork I could find with Mt. Tam and the Golden Gate Bridge in the backdrop.
Tafoni are intricate formations resembling honeycomb or small circular caves. This naturally occurring phenomenon can be found on certain intertidal or desert rocks often of a granular nature such as sandstone or granite. Prime examples of tafoni can be found at Salt Point State Park north of Jenner as well as Castle Rock State Park, Pebble Beach and Bean Hollow State Beach. I've even come across tafoni formations along the shores of China Camp and the San Quentin Promontory.
A dark pink engulfed the cloudy sky as dusk turned to twilight. Unexpectedly several large flood lights from the nearby parking lot went on casting an eerie glow out onto the shoreline and shallow water. There is always some element of surprise when composing an image and I had to move around so as not to cast the shadow of my tripod onto the scene but in the end I got the shadow anyhow.
This was one of those nights where the darker it got, the more vibrant the colors were in the sky. In the end, I think the floodlights added a mystical feeling to the images.
I used to think you could only find tafoni at Salt Point, but it's all over the place. Love the colors in your sunset.
ReplyDelete