Swami's Beach

Author's Comments

The first time I came down those stairs I was not thinking about surfing or temples. I was thinking about the count - how many steps, how my knees would feel coming back up at the end of an afternoon. Then the beach opened at the bottom and the domes appeared above the bluff behind me, and I understood why people keep this place in their working memory of San Diego County. Swami's is best in late fall, when the swells start arriving with weight and the light at golden hour drops at the right angle along the coast. The reef pulls back at low tide into shapes that look almost intentional - dark formations with shallow pools that catch the sky and hold it. I work long exposures here when the conditions cooperate, letting the surf go to mist over the rocks while the bluff and the temple towers stay sharp above. The contrast between the soft water and the hard architecture is the photograph. The surfers are part of the composition whether you want them to be or not. They line up on the point in clusters, and on a good winter afternoon you can frame them small against the wider geometry of the reef and the bluff. I tend to shoot wide here. The temptation is to zoom in on a single rider or a single dome, but the place earns its keep at a wider focal length where everything sits in relation - water, stone, stairs, gold. Time the tide. Check it before you commit to the staircase. I have come down at the wrong hour and found nothing but a strip of wet sand and waves against the cliff, and you cannot photograph a reef that is not there.

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