Weather like this makes me think about my California trip in June this past summer…flew out for a family reunion at Stockton and wound up with a couple of free days so drove over to the Monterey Coastline and wound up shooting the beaches and rocky coast, plus a waterfall near there the first free day, which is called Mc Way Falls in Julia Pfeiffer State Park. The trees and flowers  out there, while different looking from our landscapes here, are still quite pretty and arty.

Above is McWay Falls and Cove, a nice waterfall that shoots out from that chunk of dark rock on the left side, after it flows under Highway One, and comes down into the sandy stretch of beach sand by the cove. Below is Smugglers Cove, a bit north of McWay Falls State Park, where smugglers used to use the cove for cover from the authorities and after dropping anchor in the cove, they walked through the chunk of rock and hillside through a tunnel build from large wood timbers….

I saw alot of lizards on my hike down to the cove and tunnel that day….

…but the rugged beauty along the coastline just took your breath away….

On my second free day I returned and photographed a young man that I had been talking with on the phone and internet, had been able to find Dannon some modeling work out in California and then he told me he would shoot with me when I flew out there.  I enjoyed the coastline south of Monterey and he met me there the next morning. He has a beautiful build and looked great on the beach rocks with the large waves crashing on shore. Dannon and I even found a few starfish while shooting and there was even a commercial fishing boat out in the water while I was photographing him on the rocks with the waves.  Talk about a super guy to work with, could have shot him all day long out there. Dannon lives along the coast in the San Jose area.

Here are a few of my images of Dannon from the shoot on the beach there…….

He really enjoyed the rocks so we concentrated on those alot and with the waves crashing in on the rocks, it made for some great action as well. As I stated earlier, we found some neat starfish at the second location just up the coastline about a mile from the starting location….

The day before, I even found some California Jade while out there. South of Monterey there are a few beaches where one can find Jade, one is called Jade Beach near Jade Cove, another is Sand Dollar Beach, and yet another just south of those two, one can find Jade in about nine different colors, Willow Creek Beach. Most of the jade that is found there is green or black or a mixture of both colors, and is used extensively for carvings and tumbling stones.

Had a great time while there, saw several cousins I hadn`t seen in years and the weather while there was beautiful.