Return to Nature: Coastal Highway 1 & Big Sur

 
My photographic roots are in nature. I learned to take photographs - or rather, learned how to take better photographs - using the stationary elements of life as subjects: the trees at sunrise in rural NC, the mountains streams and flowers of the Smoky Mountains, the beaches and byways of the Eastern Shores from NJ to Florida. These are the places where I learned that photography wasn't a hobby but a life long adventure. A passion. And while lately my passion has been people, I sometimes long for the quiet & solitude of a world that stands still.

This week I was able to find that peace again.
As I write this draft, I am sitting on a solitary bench on a bluff in a California coastal state park, overlooking the ocean and cliffs, listening to the waves crash some hundreds of feet below me. It is a scene that is among the most beautiful I've ever seen. And I am reminded that too long have I been away from this world. From the early morning draw of the sunrise. From the jeans and trail shoes and dirt paths that go deep into the forest. From the peace. And from the rhythm - a rhythm of the sun: early mornings, late nights, missed meals and big yawns.
Returning to this place inside me is a welcome change of pace. My passion, of late, is photographing people. I couldn't walk by a scene without wondering how it might improve photographically by adding a person to it. It's been an amazing journey, but one littered with something less than quiet. I love it, I really do. But every now and then it's nice to get away, fly solo, and return to a melody in my head composed only of bird song and wind in the trees.

This trip has been a balm for me. It started out as a trip for Aaron and I and turned into a trip just for me when work obligations kept Aaron from accompanying me. I've never had a concern for traveling alone, so I was happy to go ahead with the trip and turn it into a bit of a visit with two of my friends who live in CA. But while I had a ticket, I didn't have a plan. I just knew I would fly into and out of LA, and spend some time in both San Francisco and the SoCal beaches. What came inbetween was a mystery. And so I landed, rented a car, and set out for the open road, no hotel reservations, no actual idea of what I would see. I felt untethered at first, but then everything unfolded before me. And the coastal road between LA and Santa Cruz became, for me, a return to nature. A return and a recapture of something inside me that wasn't lost, but maybe just deeper down than I had suspected. And the journey continues. Here's just a taste of the Big Sur / Coastal Route images, from San Marco Pass right up to and outside of the Big Sur area. Plenty more to come, so come back. Return to nature. Sit and stay awhile :)