El Matador State Beach

Author's Comments

The stairs down are steeper than they look in photographs, and that is part of the deal here. You are entering a place that hides itself from the highway. PCH is a hundred feet above you and disappears the moment your feet hit the sand. The stacks are the reason everyone comes, and they earn it. In winter, when the sun sets far enough south to rake across the beach rather than drop behind the bluff, the whole cove goes copper for maybe twenty minutes. The wet sand mirrors the sky. The stacks silhouette. If you have timed a low tide to coincide with that light, you can walk out past the first arch and shoot back toward the cliff with the sun threading through stone, and that is the photograph El Matador is known for. It is also the photograph a hundred other people are making next to you. I have made peace with this. The crowd thins as soon as the sun is down, and blue hour here is quieter and, honestly, sometimes better - the stacks go graphite against a lavender sea, and a long exposure smooths the surf into something like fog around their bases. That is when the neutral density filter earns its place in the bag. Check the tide chart before you commit to a date. A high tide at sunset will pin you against the cliff and hide the reflective sand that makes this beach what it is. A minus tide near golden hour is the version worth driving for. Fall and winter are the seasons - the light angle is right, the marine layer is less aggressive, and the crowds, while still real, are manageable if you arrive early enough to find parking without circling.

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