Experiencing the wilderness of California Coast

Me and my wife planned a visit for night photography to Big Sur Pacific Coast region which is about a 6 hr drive from our place in Los Angeles. I don’t think we ever missed a chance to enjoy the night sky when we were given the opportunity to do so in our trips. We started driving at 10.30 am and reached Pfeiffer Beach by 4.00 pm. In between we had some astounding views of the pacific coast. The world famous CA1 highway goes along the coast. We stopped for some photographs with the elephant seals up close.

                                                                             Elephant seals resting in the beach

When we reached Pfeiffer Beach, it was one of the windiest beaches I have ever been with monstrous waves crashing on the rocks it intimidates a new person visiting the beach for the first time. We enjoyed watching an amazing sunset at the beach and took some photos standing against  a cold wind blowing from the Pacific Ocean.

Crashing Waves at Pfeiffer beach

 

                                                                                        Pfeiffer beach Portal

We planned to come back to the beach that night again to admire Pfeiffer’s beauty in moon light. To experience dark sky and also to capture good night photographs of the star with the landscape one should look for the 1/3rd moon phase. This was one such night when we would be able to watch the stars along with the moon illuminated beach and its massive rock formation. We went to the lodge and got ourselves ready and was excited to venture into the beach around 9.40pm to capture the moonlit Pfeiffer. Stunned by its beauty in moonlight, I kept watching the crashing waves creating white surf with the Moon and Venus bright in the western sky.

                                   Venus getting trapped in between the rock formation along with white surf

As we wanted to spend sometime in the beach just amazed by the nature, I wanted to experiment with some light painting the silhouetted rocks.  I tried to illuminate the huge rock standing tall in between me and the ocean.

                                                               Light painted Rock Structure at Pfeiffer Beach CA

When we were done with our photography we called it a day and went back to the hotel  room to rest for the night. In the morning an hour and half to Sunrise we wanted to go capture the rising Milky Way Galaxy. We drove for about half hour to go to a spot from where we can clearly view the Milky Way. We captured the milky way along with the first light of the day just before the Sunrise near the cliff.
To sum it up it was one great experience which we will cherish for life time. We finally started back on our long drive back home and we wanted to capture the moment with a self portrait shot and we put the camera on the timer to get the shot which we will remember forever.