Awesome Photos

Whenever I tell an out-of-towner that I’ve lived in Santa Barbara, CA for most of my life, the response is almost unanimous: “You’re soooo lucky!”  They’re right. Santa Barbara, also referred to as The American Riviera,” is a piece of fine art in itself.  The breathtaking mountains, spanish architecture and amazingly mild weather make my hometown a beautiful place to live.  But wait…what about the beaches?  Well, all that other stuff is well and good but the beaches, the ocean, now that is the best part of Santa Barbara in my opinion.  Did you know that Jacque Cousteau did much of his research in the Santa Barbara Channel?  And that the Channel Islands host some of the best diving in the world?  Well, now you do.

Being a surfer, I spent a large part of my youth on the Santa Barbara beaches.  When I was only 7 years old I would wake up at 5 a.m. and run down to the beach, surfboard in arms.  (I would always be back in time  to get ready for school and so my mom never had a problem letting me go surf . Thanks Mom!)  This photo has special meaning to me because I lived in Goleta (a town on the north side of Santa Barbara) when I was a kid and I surfed alongside this pier for many years.  Now that I’m a bigger kid I don’t surf as much as I used to …and yet, whenever I look at this photo I know I’ll get out there again someday.  I will.

This shot was taken with my Nikon 8008 35 mm,  It was an evening in October- when Southern California still tends towards balmy warm days while the nights are turning colder.   I’m not a meteorologist, so I don’t know what it is exactly, but something about the contrast of warm days and cold nights lends itself nicely to a sunset and it’s a great time to shoot them.  I used Velvia 50 (slide film) and in order to capture the brilliant sunset colors and have the pier silhouetted, I set my f-stop at f-16.