Del Mar Bluffs and Powerhouse Park

Author's Comments

There is a particular hour in late winter when the sun drops toward the Pacific and the bluffs at Del Mar take on a color I have not quite found anywhere else on this coast. Not gold exactly. Closer to the inside of a shell. The grass at Powerhouse Park goes warm, the sandstone of the bluffs warmer still, and the ocean below holds onto the last of the light longer than it should. I tend to walk south from 15th Street along the bluff path. The view opens immediately - Torrey Pines rising to the north, the long sweep of beach below, La Jolla pale and distant on the southern horizon. On clear afternoons in February or March the air is washed clean and the depth is almost startling. You can see weather systems moving down the coast from twenty miles out. The trains are the gift. Amtrak runs the rail along the bluff edge here, and if you time a southbound train to the last twenty minutes of light, the Pacific Surfliner becomes a moving line of silver against the water. I have waited for this composition more times than I have made it. The schedule helps. The light does not always cooperate. When it does, the photograph has a quality of motion and stillness held together that feels specifically like Southern California in the off-season. Come in fall or winter. Come with a wide lens and the patience to let a train arrive. The crowds are real but manageable, and the bluff path stays quiet once the surfers have gone in for the day.

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