Dock on the Bay

We managed to get away for a long weekend to Cambria and the Central Coast. It's apple season deep in See Canyon near Avila Beach and they sang their crunchy siren song to Tina, so we had to go.

Part of the trip was so Tina could paint and I could take photos. We left very early Friday morning and got to San Luis Obispo by about 9:30. After breakfast at the Apple Farm we spent the rest of the midday scouting locations in Los Osos, Baywood and Morro Bay. We found a nice spot, but decided to come back when the light was better.

When we came back later that afternoon, we discovered to our horror that the tide had gone out and the lovely estuary was now more a mudflat than waterway. So we came back the next day.

The spot we decided upon was at the foot of Doris Avenue where it crosses Mitchell Drive in Los Osos. Crosses is a bit of a misnomer as the other side is a small parking space between two houses and a footpath with "coastal access" trailing between them. That leads to two benches between two private yards, a foot path disappearing into the water's edge and a view of the estuary and bay from that spot along the shore.

But it was enough for Tina to set up and paint the estuary and tree-lined shore to the east and for me to shoot the private docks jutting northward into the shallow water. Morro Rock could be seen across the way.

I liked the look of the small docks. I used black and white film in my Mamiya 645 in a more formal setup, but took some grab shots with the Canon Eos 40D. Since my intent was a black and white image, I modified the above shot in Photoshop and tweaked the contrast. I really like the look of the structure and its reflection in the water. It has a more classical appeal than the original color image below - at least I think so. It's one of those cases where the color distracts from the overall effect.

The nice thing about shooting in digital is the ability to take a color image and convert it to black and white. That's a bit harder to do with film, although in this day and age I suppose I could shoot in color transparency and then do a high resolution scan and convert to black and white if I desire. That way I'd have more options.

I may do that in the future, but for this day, it was black and white film. I'm anxious to see how the shots turned out. Hopefully as good as the digital image!