San Clemente Pier

Author's Comments

The pier itself is the obvious subject and most people stop there. A wooden line walking out into the Pacific, the silhouette holding up against the sky, the surfers small in the water below. It is a fine photograph and I have made it more than once. But the picture I keep going back for at San Clemente is the one looking inland from the end of the pier, back toward Avenida Del Mar climbing up the hill, the white walls and red tiles of the old Spanish colonial village catching the last light of the day. South-facing coast, late afternoon in winter, the sun slips off to the right and rakes across the bluff. The town glows for about fifteen minutes. Long exposures work here in a way they do not work on a lot of California piers. The pilings are old wood, dark and textured, and a thirty-second frame at dusk turns the surf below into something soft and continuous while the structure stays sharp. Bring a tripod. Bring a neutral density filter if you have one. The blue hour after the sun drops is when this pier gives up its best frame, when the lights along the railing come on and the sky still has color and the water has gone to silver. Park up on Avenida Del Mar and walk down. The approach matters. You see the pier first as a line at the bottom of the street, framed by palms and stucco, and that is a photograph too if you are paying attention.

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