Best Photos From 2024

Though Muir Woods has the closest grove of old-growth redwood trees to my house, I much prefer visiting other redwood parks such as Armstrong Redwoods. Though Armstrong Redwoods is fairly popular, it's nowhere near as busy as Muir Woods nor as bad in terms of seeing tourists trample off-trail all over the trees and forest. It's also a beautiful place to explore while visiting California Wine Country.

In recent years I've discovered that my favorite part of Super Bowl Sunday is that it's a lot less busy if you're exploring the Bay Area. Since I don't watch much football these days, I took my son to Point Reyes National Seashore for the day where we experienced a fairly warm winter day and were rewarding with an incredible sunset over The Great Beach.

During the winter, I took my son on another weekend coastal excursion to the Santa Cruz area. I had not been to Shark Fin Cove before so to my surprise, there was a fairly steep climb down the hillside to access this beautiful cove. Climbing back up was pretty tiring especially while carrying camera equipment. My son is 8-years-old and made it just fine but if he was any younger I probably would not have descended to the beach.

For our 10th anniversary, my family and I traveled to Charleston, South Carolina to explore Lowcountry swamps and eat delicious food for a week. Magnolia Plantation & Gardens was one of our first locations on the trip. While I barely missed the peak azalea blooms, I found the garden to be very beautiful. I could spend all day here.

After four days in Charleston, we moved onto Savannah, Georgia. Our first destination was Wormsloe Plantation which is best known for this 1.5-mile long driveway lined with coast live oak trees. This is one of the most surreal landscapes that I've come across to-date.

During our 2nd day in Savannah, it rained heavily all day long but we were able to take one of the trolley tours around the historic downtown district. That's when I first noticed the beautiful entrance to Forsyth Park. I knew I had to come back and photograph this scene during a quiet time of day. I went back the next morning at dawn. I'm not sure what time the fountain turns on usually but I stuck around til well after sunrise and it still didn't turn on but regardless this was an incredibly beautiful scene to photograph.

I had photographed this beach on the San Mateo Coast previously but felt there was untapped photographic potential that I hadn't realized at the time. I went back this summer during a family outing and spent quite a bit of time exploring this patch of tafoni rocks with my camera while my kids played on the beach nearby.

Pierce Point Ranch is a location that I've been to a number of times over the past 20 years. I've even photographed similar compositions in the past but I was never quite satisfied with the results. It turns out what I needed with thick ground-level fog to achieve my personal vision.

Cambria is a small town located on California Central Coast. I spent some time here as a child during family summer vacations so I've always had an affinity for this area. For my wife's 40th birthday I booked a motel for us along Moonstone Beach just like my parents did when I was a kid. There we spent time on the beach and walking along the boardwalk for three days. At sunrise on the 2nd day, I was fortunate to have an incredible sunrise to work with. This sunrise lasted for quite a long time. Photographers generally photograph the Pacific Ocean at sunset which generally has backlighting. I often photograph sunrise these days since it's quieter and when my family is asleep. The quality of light tends to be different at this time of day as well.

In early November I went to the Sierra Nevada mountains to explore Calaveras Big Trees State Park. One of my all-time favorite landscape photos, The Land of the Giants, was photographed here and I've always enjoyed exploring this forest. I had never visited in November however prior to this. The fall color was exceptional! I'm not sure if it was peak fall color but the foliage was as good as any fall color display that I've ever seen in my life.

Japanese maple trees are always fun to photograph. Filoli Garden only has a few, and they're not easy to photograph but the fall foliage during my visit here was absolutely stunning.

Happy Holidays & Happy New Year!

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