SoCal - 7 day Trip
Southern California is a strange place.
I live in Arizona, where getting to the Pacific means four hours of desert before the landscape suddenly gives up and everything arrives at once. Twenty-five miles from the ocean, the roads tighten, the traffic thickens, the palm trees appear, and somehow millions of people have agreed this is where they should all live.
This trip was to Carlsbad and Oceanside over the Fourth of July. It wasn't a photography trip. It was a family trip that happened to include a camera. Mornings and evenings belonged to wandering with a camera in hand. The afternoons belonged to family, friends, beach chairs, and letting the day unfold. As tempting as it was, I didn't photograph everything. Sometimes it's enough to just be there.
Day 1
Notice no people…
I spent the first part of the evening in my own head. Then I looked around and remembered why I'd come. Five hours through the desert deserves more than hesitation.
I came looking for surf culture. Not the postcards, the real thing. Salt on the skin, boards under tired arms, another day measured by the tide instead of the clock. That's when I realized this wasn't a pastime. It was simply how people lived.
There we go…now I’m rolling
Once I stopped overthinking, I realized nobody cared that I had a camera. Everyone was too busy living their own version of the beach, surfing, reading, skating, sharing dinner on a towel, or simply doing nothing at all.
The beach has its own rhythm. You either find it, or you don't.
Then Father Time wins. The sun slips into the Pacific, boards go under arms, towels get folded, and everyone heads home to do it all again tomorrow.
Leaving for the day
As the sun slips below the horizon, the beach makes its quiet transition. Some people stay to watch the last light fade into the Pacific. Others gather their towels, tuck their boards under their arms, and head home to do it all again tomorrow.
The beach gets dark fast. One minute everything is painted gold. The next, all that's left is the sound of the waves and silhouettes disappearing into the night.
Day 2
Day two started with coffee.
My wife and I slipped out early while an old smoke detector back at the house chose 6:00 a.m. to announce its retirement. Our four-year-old, convinced the world was ending, made sure Grandma and Grandpa knew too.
Not exactly the peaceful beach morning from the travel brochures.
Then work found me. Meetings, emails, phone calls—the usual. Somehow it's easier to get through when the Pacific is just outside the window.
I escaped long enough for lunch with the family on the beach. That's about all the California sun and my pale skin could handle. A sandwich, the sound of the waves, and then back to the shade.
Sometimes that's enough.
The workday ended almost as quickly as it began. By evening, the camera was back in my hands.
They noticed the camera before they noticed I'd already taken the photo. Instead of questioning it, they started talking cameras. That's how it goes—photographers have a way of finding each other.
"What are you shooting?"
"Portra 400."
He smiled.
They were from Oahu, not Southern California, though I never asked what brought them here. It didn't matter. For a few minutes we talked film, light, and cameras before they picked up their boards and disappeared into the evening.
Sometimes the best thing a camera captures isn't the photograph. It's the conversation.
DAY 3
It's funny how the mind invents urgency. You convince yourself this is your last chance to find the photograph.
The truth? We were only moving a few miles up the coast, from family in Carlsbad to friends in Oceanside.
Still, places have a way of slipping away. So I grabbed the camera, headed for the beach, and let the evening decide if there was one more story to tell.
This next photograph I've been chasing for a long time.
Long before I ever made it to this beach, I'd already seen it in my head: surfers crossing the sand, boards under their arms, passing in front of a lifeguard tower as the last light of the day settled over the Pacific.
The trick with photographs like this is that reality rarely cooperates with the picture you've imagined. This time, it did. Sometimes the light shows up. Sometimes the people are exactly where they need to be. Sometimes you get lucky enough to make the photograph you've been carrying around long before you ever pressed the shutter.
And just like that, Carlsbad was behind us.
That's the thing about the coast. You never really finish with a place, you simply move on to the next stretch of sand, the next coffee shop, the next sunset, hoping it has a different story to tell.
The camera went back in the bag, The next beach was waiting….to be continued.
