Spring Flowers at Julia Pfeiffer Burns

Posted by Don Smith (California, United States) on 23 May 2009 in Landscape & Rural.

I can't begin to count the number of times I have photographed Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park and McWay Falls, located 37 miles south of Carmel, California along Highway 1. I routinely take workshop students to this iconic location in all types of weather.

On this particular evening, the Pacific fog was beginning to spread its summer-like wave over the western headlands and softening the light like a giant studio softbox. I truly love shooting under foggy conditions, so much so, that I have designed an August workshop around it at Big Sur (please see details below). Because of the monotoned look fog presents, I try to compliment it by finding something colorful in which to juxtapose to help add some "punch" to the image.

I was working with two students this particular evening and tried to locate some colorful foreground elements. I felt McWay Cove, with its turquoise water worked beautifully as a mid-ground element, then I spied these tiny flowers growing amongst the non-native ice plant and felt they would make a great foreground candidate.

Allowing for the proper perspective meant flattening the tripod so the camera was literally inches off the ground. I then played with the positioning of the flowers so they wouldn't block the falls. Finally, I used f/22 to ensure the flowers were sharp. This was really a situation where a tilt/shift lens would have come in handy, but instead, I used my 16-35mmL knowing the cove and McWay Falls would not be razor sharp but also would not compete with foreground flowers. It is imperative that foreground elements remain sharp at the expense of any other element in the image - a soft foreground ruins most images.

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