I make the majority of my evening photographs after the sun has already set, but before nightfall removes the colors from the sky. This period, called dusk, usually produces the most striking colors and offers an ideal tool for abstraction. By rendering this runner as a silhouetted figure, I abstract it to remove its gender, identity, and all detail. The figure becomes symbolic rather than descriptive. I saw the runner coming long before it entered my frame. As I waited, I carefully composed the entire background, placing the horizon above the center, keeping a thin strip of beach at the bottom and reducing the amount of golden sky at the top. Most of the frame is filled with horizontal bands of flowing surf, tinged in pink. The distant clouds floating on the horizon create a crowning layer. When the figure finally entered the frame at right, I left more space to the left – space symbolizing the distance this runner has yet to travel.

On this night, clouds masked the sunset itself. A threating cloudbank on the horizon acts as a reflector, deftly painting the colors of the invisible sun upon both sea and sky. This seascape image is anchored by the tiny figure wading through a reflected pool of light at the bottom of the frame. The pool of light flows towards the horizon, where a distant fiery red band of reflected sunlight burns through the base of the cloudbank. Meanwhile, the sky itself becomes an artist’s palette as yellow and orange colors are reflected upon the scattered overhead clouds. While a lovely seascape is the result, the small figure standing in that pool of light creates the story here. It is so small, yet seems to face the vast sea and the threat of storm without a qualm.

This image is also a photo of someone looking at a smartphone. Such pictures will usually not prove expressive unless something else is happening in the image to provide a story-telling context. While this man may provide a focal point for my image, it is the mass of shadows incongruously cast on the wall next to him that brings expressive value to this image. The shadows belong to some of the many visitors who have assembled near the beach to photograph the sunset itself. Those people have no idea that their shadows have become the subjects of my own sunset image. The man looking at his phone does not see either the shadows or me – his sees only what is on the screen before him.

I was photographing this car standing in front of a white picket fence, concentrating on its incongruous protective cover. It hides the car’s detail to make it seem mysterious. As I worked on this image, a woman entered my frame, wearing a blue beach robe and pressing a phone to her head. I caught her just as she neared the shrouded car. Her hair obscures her identity, abstracting her just as the shroud stretched over the car hides its details from us. The slats of the white picket fence in the background rhythmically combine to link both subjects. Together, the dual abstractions create an image expressing the nature of anonymity in our society.

Unlike the vehicles in the two previous examples, this truck does not live under a shroud. It displays an accumulation of rust most likely inflicted by years of salty mist that often lingers along many of California’s beaches, particularly in the early morning hours. The house behind it is surrounded by potted flowering plants, providing an incongruous contrast to the rusted vehicle parked before them.

The sands of Imperial Beach are filled with visitors during summer weekends. I tell that story by moving in on them with a long telephoto zoom lens. I use this long lens to stress my point by compressing the bathers, bringing them even closer together than they actually are. Although the scene is very crowded, I make the image coherent by leaving the only real empty space at the bottom of the frame, creating a spatial anchor for the young man running towards us with the belly-board under his arm. Our eyes go right to him, and then take in the vast supporting cast, many of them shaded by a mass of multicolored umbrellas that dominate the balance of the frame.