Victoria Beach and Pirate Tower

Author's Comments

The first time I came down the staircase at the end of Victoria Drive, I was not entirely sure I was in the right place. You descend through what looks like a residential cul-de-sac, the houses pressing close on both sides, and then the Pacific opens below you and the tower appears, and the whole thing reads like a small piece of fiction someone forgot to remove from the coast. La Tour is almost a hundred years old now. Sixty feet of concrete pretending to be a medieval turret, built as a private staircase, still standing where the surf meets the rocks. The trick is the tide. At low tide in winter, when the sand pulls back and the pools form around the base, the tower doubles itself in the reflection and the photograph becomes something else entirely. At high tide it is just a curiosity against rough water. Come in January or February at golden hour, with a tide chart pulled up on your phone. You want minus tide if you can get it, or close to it, and you want to be down the stairs at least an hour before the sun drops so you have time to find your composition before the light goes warm. The crowd is real but not overwhelming, and most people stay at the base for fifteen minutes and leave. If you wait them out, there is usually a window. The wide shot is the obvious one. The portrait orientation, tower full height with the reflection beneath, is the photograph I keep coming back for. Bring boots you do not mind getting wet.

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