Bixby and Beyond - a photo on Flickriver

Bixby and Beyond

            I have been waiting for an opportunity to make this shot for a while. I reluctantly left my house Saturday night close to midnight knowing there was fog off the coast. My patience had finally run out, and I decided to take a chance despite NOAA"s forecast of fog from San Mateo to Big Sur. By the time I was driving through Santa Cruz, the fog was visible on the road, but the satellite showed it was still clear in Big Sur. I drove through thick fog all the way into Carmel Valley, and right around Point Lobos it cleared. I could see stars through my windshield, and it became a race to get some shots in before the fog rolled in.
I arrived around 1:30 a.m., and walked out to my predetermined location. I had scouted this spot visually the week before on a shoot with Jeff Lewis. I wanted to make sure I could walk out to the bluff, and it looked doable. What I didn't realize was how much Poison Oak was growing on the bluff as I walked out with my flashlight. I made way through the Poison Oak as well as possible, and set my tripod on the cliff.
It was crystal clear everywhere on the coast, except for a blob of fog developing right above the hills in the background. I just started shooting, and hoped for the best. Around 3 a.m. I could see the fog coming in from all directions, and a few minutes later I could barely see the bridge. Knowing the fog was inevitable, I went for one 10 minute exposure at ISO 500 at F/4. During that 10 minutes, no joke, someone started light painting the bridge with a powerful light. I couldn't see them, or hear them, but I knew it was another photographer. I'm pretty sure it helped illuminate the bridge. 
Ironically, the next night would have been the perfect night to shoot, but I was too wiped out from the night before to make another attempt. I actually got some cool shots with the fog streaming in, but I ended up choosing this shot as it showed the MW the best.

This is two shots blended:
Sky F/3.5 @ 30 seconds @ ISO 2000
Foreground F/4 @ 10 minutes @ ISO 500 with some lucky light painting on the bridge.

Happy Memorial Day!
Thanks for looking!


   

Taken on: May 25, 2014

Tags:

Bixby Bridge

Big Sur

Fog

Highway 1

Distagon T* 2,8/15

Night Photography

Nikon D800

Pacific Ocean

Long Exposure

Poison Oak

Memorial Day Weekend

Air GLow « less

Sets appears in: • Big Sur • Coastal California

Groups appears in: • Bridge Photos - Only Best Quality - By Invitation Only • American Beauty more » • Northern California Photography • Official ZEISS Camera Lenses Group • Into the Night Photography « less

Camera: Nikon D800, f/3.5, 30 sec, 15mm, ISO 2000 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Nikon D800
Lens:	Zeiss Distagon T* 2.8/15 ZF.2
Aperture:	f/3.5
Exposure Time:	30
Focal Length:	15mm
ISO:	2000
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	Off, Did not fire
Exposure Program:	Manual
Exposure Mode:	Manual
Metering Mode:	Spot
White Balance:	Auto
Gain Control:	High gain up
Color Space:	Uncalibrated
Software:	Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5.4 (Macintosh)
Show full info

Stats: 22,533 views / 76 comments

close tools panel

Badge creator

Use Flickriver Badge Creator to create a badge linking to your photos, your group or any other Flickriver view.

You can place your badge on your Flickr profile, Blog or Website.

Add to your iGoogle or Netvibes page

Flickriver widget for iGoogle or Netvibes can display almost any Flickriver view - most interesting today, by user, by group, by tag etc. Once added to your personalized homepage, just edit widget settings to select your desired view.

Clickr on one of the buttons below to install:

Embed on your Web site

To embed this view, Copy and Paste the following HTML code:

Black background (preview):

White background (preview):

Firefox and Chrome addons

Adds a 'Flickriver' button to your browser. While viewing any Flickr photos page, click on this button to open the same view on Flickriver.

Install in Firefox
Install in Chrome

Search plugin

Add 'Search on Flickriver' to your browser's search box. Works with Firefox and Internet Explorer. Install search plugin

"View on Flickriver" Greasemonkey script

A Greasemonkey script that adds Flickriver links to various Flickr photo pages - user photos, favorites, pools etc, allowing to quickly open the corresponding Flickriver view.

Also, allows quickly viewing any Flickr photo on black background in large size.

Install "View on Flickriver" script

Bookmarklet

While viewing any Flickr photos page, click on the bookmarklet to open the same view on Flickriver.

To install: drag and drop the following link to your Bookmarks toolbar.
IE users - add the link to your Favorites under the Links folder