The sun has just set. A lone surfer patiently waits for ride on a wave. My square frame is formal, allowing me to create striking geometric contrast within by dramatically filling three quarters of the square with blue water and one quarter of it with a fiery orange sky. This hot vs. cool color contrast perfectly complements the contrast in scale provided by the incongruously tiny figure almost lost within the vast setting. The image also speaks metaphorically of our biological origins – the evolution of mankind beginning a world of water and fire.

The ocean view buildings that line the Mission Beach boardwalk (currently paved in stone) is often lavishly designed. Many, if not most, of these home, condos, and apartments are rented by the day or month to visitors who spend parts of their summers in San Diego’s near perfect weather. Using a wideangle lens, I held my camera low to capture this passing runner’s reflection in the long glass panel that shelters those who may be using on the patio behind it. A long white line divides public from private space – it echoes the sweep of the wall, and pulls us past the receding line of homes, lampposts and trees that line the boardwalk. The thrust of this line also echoes a vertical cloud that floats above the scene.

The United States Navy has several bases in San Diego, and its sailors often exercise by running up and down the three-mile long Mission Beach boardwalk. This group of sailors is shouting a cadence call as they run past us, a study in various stages of exertion. The navy designation “CG 52,” which appears twice in this image, tells us that these sailors are stationed on the cruiser “Bunker Hill.” Navy Blue carries the day here, along with incongruous touches of florescent green on some of the shoes. I also like the incongruity displayed among the subjects -- short and tall, big and small, male and female. Sailors all.

This young athlete is using the boardwalk wall as a base for her stretching exercises. As she pulls on a leg, she looks out to sea, bathed in the warm evening light. She never notices the softly focused man standing behind her, only a few feet away. He is a scavenger, combing the boardwalk and its trash barrels, looking for refuse that he can later exchange for cash. Using a 350mm telephoto lens, I was able to bring them together in this moment, expressing a series of opposite ideas: differing ages, genders, activity, and goals, contrasted in sharp vs. soft definition. They never noticed or acknowledged each others presence.

I also made this image from a balcony overlooking the boardwalk. Many runners pass below it, all day and every day. I built this image within a geometric structure. The wall in the background provides a strong diagonal thrust, matching the flow of the diagonal shadow cast by a neighboring building. I waited until this runner reached the space between that shadow and the wall, so that the shadow diagonally cuts through one shoulder. Her strained expression is emphasized by the contrasting light and shadow on her face, drawing our eye to her incongruously flying blonde hair. I energize the entire image by comparing her flying elbows to the shadow on the ground that directs the eye towards her flying figure.

In this image, the fourth in my sequence of overhead “balcony” shots, I deliberately place the bristly trunk of a palm tree one-quarter of the way into my frame. I use it as a natural barrier, symbolizing the great divide between generations. I wanted to make an image contrasting an older exerciser to a much younger athlete. It came together within one four-hundredth of a second. I saw both of these people approaching from nearly a block away, and waited for them to enter my frame. As this older cyclist calmly pedals into the narrow space between the left hand edge of the frame and the palm tree, the young skater on the other side of the tree gets ready to pass him. This image is rich in contrast: I am comparing age, placement, costume, energy level, and means of locomotion, satisfying my intention of defining the divide between generations.

When the morning fog blankets Mission Beach, abstract black and white imagery becomes an effective medium of expression. The key to this image is the lone figure sitting on the beach below one of its lifeguard towers. Two ghostly figures walk the through the fog in the top left corner of the frame, giving the image much of its atmosphere. There are no crisp blacks or whites in this monochromatic image – everything is gray, the very essence of fog itself. The mood creates a mysterious and lonely feeling, and expresses the point of this picture.

As I watched a beach volleyball match unfold. I made many images of it as the four participants fought for points under a bright sun. This image features the climactic moment of that match. The man at right has just tapped the ball over the next, while the man leaping higher at right tries to return it but misses the ball by mere inches. The ball flies through his flailing arms and the match ends. The net’s vertical post echoes the upward trust of those arms, as well as the vertical columns of sand that rise from below their feet. Meanwhile, the horizontal flow of the net is echoed by the horizontal stretches of beach, surf and ocean behind them.

Moments after arriving at water’s edge, this woman began applying protective sun block to her skin. This image expresses the satisfaction she seems to feel as she complete the task. Also protected by sunglasses, she offers us a profile in pleasure. In the background, the man who accompanied her waists no time -- he is already wading into the ocean.

These three boys are a bit older than the child in the previous photograph, but they display no less energy as they charge into a golden sea at sunset. I I had been concentrating my attention on the boy at upper left as he crashed through the surf. Suddenly this matched pair of silhouettes raced into my frame. I include all three figures, both near and far, to express energy through youthful body language.

As the sun sets, it can illuminate translucent material and abstract anyone or anything within or behind it. Such is the case here. Many beachgoers set up fabric tents, awnings, and umbrellas as sun shields. When evening comes, golden light passes through them. This woman entered a glowing tent to retrieve something from her backpack. As she searched through it, I was able to frame her silhouette in the golden light. Her arched back echoes the curve of the tent itself.

Using the golden ocean as a backdrop, which features a child dashing into the surf, I made this picture of another photographer making a picture. He was seated in a beach chair under a translucent umbrella, and taking pictures of the dazzling sunset with his smartphone. We see what he may see, but also much more. His abstracted figure becomes a metaphor for what beach photography has become – everyone who is not in the water seemed to have a cellphone camera in hand at this moment and all of them were shooting the same thing at the same time -- the setting sun.

The sun has set, and the overhead clouds reflect its lingering presence upon the flat water at the edge of the incoming tide. A group of six people had gathered in the wet sand to enjoy the colorful scene. By exposing my image on the bright water, I make their figures became abstract silhouettes. A man and boy stand at left, two more children occupy the middle of the grouping, and a woman holds a baby off to the right of this grouping. I saw this runner enter my frame and pass through the group. I waited to catch her when she became clearly separated from the others. I also waited until the parallel lines of water receded just far enough to create an uninterrupted, finely textured span of reflective water for my background.

At first glance, these beachgoers gathering near the water’s edge seem to be enjoying a sunset. But a closer look says otherwise.

The man closest to us looks at his cell phone and kicks a spout of backlighted sand into the air with his foot. That flying, glowing sand becomes the focal point of the entire image. He seems frustrated by what he sees on the screen he holds in his hand. His frustration triggers an incongruous moment, and I strengthen the point of the picture by converting it from the brilliant colors of sunset to a simple black and white abstraction. In vivid color, the sunset reflecting on the water draws attention away from the spout of flying sand. In black and white, the sunset is neutralized, and the flying sand, which is the point of my picture, takes precedence.

A woman walks a dog through the early morning mist along Mission Beach. Two surfers wait in the background for wave that might carry them through the foggy water. The scene offers a layered, incongruous look at two entirely different worlds within the same image. The background layer presents the ocean as mystery, while the foreground layer expresses the bond between a dog and its handler.

After fishing for a meal, this cormorant stands at water’s edge, drying its wings. A man, walking a small dog, approaches. The man stops. The dog strains at the leash for a closer look. The cormorant holds its ground. It ignores the canine intrusion, turning its head away. I made this image at the moment when the immobile dog and unflappable bird reach a standoff.

Feeding seagulls in California is banned by state law, but rarely enforced. Some people consider bird feeding to be a generous gesture – but ultimately the practice may disrupt natural feeding patterns and encourage gulls, once used to such freebies, to harass beach visitors. I watched from a distance as this hooded man pours a huge bag of kernels upon the sand, creating a gull feeding frenzy. He seems to be almost dancing with joy as he feeds dozens of birds. My image find him surrounded by birds battling for a free meal, both on the ground and in the air. I used a fast shutter speed of 1/2500th of a second to stop the activity of the man, the falling kernels, and the birds, freezing them all in a moment of time.

I combine five elements here to make this image speak of the sea. At left, a distant stand-up paddle-boarder waits in the fog for a wave. He ignores the cascading series of waves that fill half the frame in front of him. At least fifteen sea gulls are flying directly towards him, their wings caught in graceful flight, echoing the horizontal sweep of the surf to give this image most of its energy. I contrast both of these incoming and outgoing actions to the motionless paddle-boarder. Each element occupies its own place within the frame – composition and timing turn potential complexity into coherence.

An audiophile is a high fidelity music enthusiast. They often know more about the merits and flaws of various speaker systems than they do about the music they are listening to. When I saw these two seagulls standing upon a pair of massive loudspeakers, I immediately saw them in my imagination as audiophiles, and made this image. One of the gulls has just landed atop the pole holding the speakers, its wings spread wide. The other gull has already made itself at home on one of the speakers. The birds are face to face, the negative space between them encouraging conversation. The pair of birds makes a perfect match for a pair of speakers.

The sun had already set when this hunting pelican soared directly past our balcony. I was shooting the colors and textures of the seascape as I saw the pelican approach, and I was able to position it exactly where I wanted it to be in my frame. I place its beak at a spot that is about one-third the way into the frame. It still has two-thirds of the frame to traverse, but my shutter freezes it here forever. The bird is framed by a band of golden light that sweeps across the image behind it. They gray textured water below it becomes a mysterious hunting ground. This gray sea is echoed by a gray sky that fills the top of the image. A few seconds after this pelican left my frame, it found its prey, and plunged straight down into the sea to catch it. It had its meal, and I had this image.

About a minute after I made the previous image of a pelican flying over this surfer, she found that wave that she had been waiting for. I caught her as she attempting to ride it – she is still on her knees, but will soon stand on the board and enjoy the journey. The key to this image is her expression – her face is a study in intensity and tension as she tries to scramble to her feet upon the moving board.

This surfer was ending a successful run by riding his wave all the way to edge of the beach. Two seagulls stand in the foreground as the surfer turns to ride the crest of his wave as it nears the shore. He maintains his balance on the board, bending his body to tuck himself neatly into the pattern of the background waves. His face is a study in intensity. One of the seagulls seems to watch his every more. The other seagull turns away – it has probably seen such sights before.

He seems to emerge from an enormous wave. It dwarfs him in scale. He pays it no heed. He is the very picture of a “cool dude,” a phrase originally used within the surfing culture. He strokes his hair with one hand, while maintaining his balance with the other. This gesture of calm self-confidence, paired with his indifference to the massive wave that seems to be chasing him, provide a double incongruity, while his gleaming wet suit complements his impressive entrance.

This surfer’s board slides through a wave, but the surfer no longer is upon it. He is bathed in an explosion of foam as he skids into an abrupt dismount. I also set my shutter at 1.400th of a second for this image. It allows me to freeze the droplets flying through the air, as well as capture the almost painful expression on the surfer’s face.

This small boy, dashing through the incoming tide with a belly-board in his arms, becomes even smaller when I compare his size to the series of four gentle incoming waves that fill the frame. I abstract the scene by converting the image from color to black and white. The image becomes timeless – the boy learns how to approach a natural force here, while nature counters with an age-appropriate challenge.

When photographing surfers from the Mission Beach boardwalk, I used a long telephoto lens, and usually tried to find a spot where beachgoers were not randomly cluttering the foreground. Yet in both this image and the following photograph, I tried to incorporate people on the beach who may have been watching the surfers as they made their runs towards the shore. In this case, the woman at left partially bends both arms and plaices her hand on her hips. Meanwhile, a softly focused, silhouetted surfer comes splashing to an abrupt halt in front of her and her friend. He also extends both arms, but his are fully outstretched, a futile attempt to remain upright.

The surfer at left is taking his final run – the sun has set, and twilight has turned to dusk. The ocean reflects the fading colors of the sky, providing a spectacular backdrop for a surfing shot. I make the three surfers in this image quite small, creating an image that is not as much about surfing as it about the colors of nature and the environment they provide. This scene also offers a striking incongruity in scale.

This image speaks of departures. A group of surfers carry a heavy board home from the sea at day’s end, while the sun itself barely still hangs in the sky. In a few moments, both these surfers and the sun will vanish, and so will the colors that gild the sea and splash the sky with orange and yellow light. I silhouette these surfers against a setting sun, creating an abstraction that emphasizes the effort of their legs, frozen in time. Meanwhile, the sun burns a white-hot hole into the image, while creating a mysterious yellow halo effect within the orange sky.

This vertical image produces a story in colors. The yellow sun is halfway down, while delicate clouds hover above it within an orange sky. The sea is blue, and seems to flow towards the beach in four gentle waves. The water at the bottom of the image is only ankle deep at beach's edge. It reflects the golden color of the sky, providing a fitting setting for this lone surfer as he emerges from the sea and leaves the memory of a sunset ride behind him.

This work of public art stands adjacent to San Diego’s historic Belmont Park amusement park on the boardwalk at Mission Beach. It is called “Green Flash,” named for a phrase associated with the flash of green that sometimes appears at the very end of a sunset. This translucent sculpture, commissioned by the public arts program of San Diego, was created by sculptor Malcolm Jones. I photograph it early in the morning, as light from the rising sun passes through its acrylic panels. I use a wideangle lens to embrace not only the art work, but the four palm trees and street lamp that stand just behind it, the towering clouds overhead, and the Belmont Park roller-coaster in the background. I abstract the scene by spot-metering on the illuminated panels themselves, simplifying the palm trees, the adjoining building, and the clutter at the base of the sculpture, by throwing them all into shadow.

A huge amusement park climbing wall, studded with stains, cracks, bulges and grips, provides an incongruous backdrop for this child, dressed all in pink. She is hanging on to a grip with one hand and reaching for a toehold on another grip at the same moment. Not only does this grim wall offer an incongruous sight – there are other incongruities as well. Colors clash, and the youth and gender of the subject may surprise us. We don’t expect to see young girls, dangling from a rope and wearing pink, casually threading their way up a menacing, disfigured gray wall. This image confounds our expectations, and triggers our imagination in the process.

A mosaic of richly colored tiles provides an appropriate backdrop for this passing surfer who casually totes a large yellow board under his arm. Both the board and the mosaic have echoing curved edges. The yellow color of the board adds a primary color emphasis to the varied colors offered by the mosaic tiles.

The early morning sun enriches the colors of the clothing and equipment being sold here. I use light and shadow to weave a beige and brown “California flag” beach towel, a red “San Diego” T-shirt, and two deep blue belly-boards, into a unified display. I frame them in shadow, and use the additional strong diagonal shadows that run through this image to bind the clothing to the surfing equipment. The image becomes cohesive because I have built it around the complimentary contrasting primary colors.

This cat, resting in the shadows, sits upon a flight of blue steps leading to the second floor of a local building. I photographed it through a window. The window next to it displays a stenciled picture of a surfer riding a wave, giving us a sense of location. I retain a vertical strip of red window molding at the left edge of the frame. It appears again as a dividing line between the cat and the surfer, and eventually becomes a horizontal line in the lower right corner, leading the eye out of the frame. The warm light, deep shadows, and primary colors tie the image together and help define both the cat and the surfer.

Mission Beach lies directly below one of the San Diego airport's flight paths. I made this picture just after sunset. While the sun itself has dropped below the horizon, the overhead clouds still reflect its golden light. This cloud resembles an out-of-scale symbolic hand, reaching out to seemingly grab this passing plane. Because the plane is very small, we see the cloud first. And when we notice that the cloud holds a plane within its grasp, the image tells the story of how insignificant man and his machines become when they are compared to the work of nature itself.

This image features the same subject as in the previous photograph, yet it tells an entirely different story. This image is not about the vast spaces such Coast Guard patrols must encompass. Instead it is about the dangers they may be called upon to face. I made this photo nearly a week before the previous image. The helicopter is much closer, and therefore appears much larger in the frame. I caught it just as it passed over a series of very small rain clouds. Dark clouds often can be interpreted as symbols of impending danger. That is exactly why the Coast Guard flies helicopters up and down the San Diego area coast every night, just before darkness falls. They are on the lookout for possible trouble.

A total lunar eclipse dazzled millions of sky-gazers around the world on September 27th, 2015, as a full “supermoon” crossed into the earth’s shadow and took on a blood-red hue. I made this picture of it with my 345mm long telephoto lens zoomed all the way out. The largest opening of this lens does not let much light into the camera at full zoom, and there was not much light to begin with. So I selected a very high ISO (sensitivity) rating of 6400, and slowed down my shutter speed to 1.9th of a second in order to make this image. I also pressed my camera tightly against a wall of a nearby garden to minimize blurring due to camera shake. I include a palm tree to the left of the moon to offer both an idea of the moon’s scale and my location. This once-in-a-lifetime sight will always remain in my memory, and this photograph will always be there for me to verify it.

(The narrow streets of Mission Beach were full of eclipse-viewers, and nearly all of them were trying to make a picture of this blood-red moon using their cellphone cameras. Most of them voiced disappointment over their results, largely because their cellphone cameras lacked the necessary telephoto optics. The moon was barely visible in their pictures. A lucky few were also carrying telescopes on tripods to view the event, and they could easily have placed their cellphone camera lenses against the telescope’s eye-piece to make large, clear images of the eclipse.)

There are two key moments to watch for during any sunset – the instant the bottom of the sun touches the sea itself, and the final glimpse of the top edge of the sun as it slips below the horizon. (The later moment, sometimes producing what is called a “green flash,” is not the subject of many photographs because it is produces only a seldom seen, instantaneous wink of green light.) On the other hand, when a setting sun first touches the sea, a golden reflection sometimes seems to rise from the sea to greet it. Just such a fortunate moment occurs here. The sun has descended through a thin layer of overhead clouds, and a tiny strand of cloud still lingers across its upper quarter. These colors are illusory. We know that the sun becomes yellow as it nears the horizon, but at this instant only the top quarter remains yellow, half becomes orange, and the lower quarter turns red. The sun becomes a multi-colored disc of reflected color and light as it magically merges with the sea below it. These colors are created by how my digital camera’s sensor happens to record light and color. The edges of the sun seem to shimmer as well, an effect caused by my long telephoto lens. All of these illusory effects combine here to create a photograph of great natural beauty. This image also brings appropriate closure to a gallery devoted to finding new ideas in familiar subjects.