Black's Beach, December 2005

Black’s Beach on a big day back in December 2005. Taken with a Canon 10D.

Wilder Ranch in 2005

Taken back in February 2005 at Wilder Ranch. I was using my first digital camera, which was a Canon 10D.

Location Scouting: Lover's Point, Pacific Grove CA

File this one under early modifications of the California coast. People have been finding ways to alter and modify the shoreline for a long time. Here’s an example from Pacific Grove, California. The photo above shows Lovers Point Beach in 1903, taken by Clara Sheldon Smith (via the Hathaway Collection). Notice the wooden “wharf” in the foreground. This is the second wharf, which was built in 1897 by a guy named William Hatch (see the Pacific Grove Historical Context statement). Apparently Hatch blasted rocks from the beach and cliffs to build the new wharf. The first wharf was built in 1890 but it was destroyed by storms within just a few years. This fits the general story of construction, destruction, and reconstruction up and down the coast.

Here’s another image of Lover’s Point from 1910, taken from a different direction. This was taken by M. Rieder (via USC’s Calisphere archive):

1910 photograph of Lover’s Point by M. Rieder. Here’s the description via Calisphere: “Photograph of a view of Pacific Grove, Monterey, from Lover's Point, ca.1910. Several people look onto the water at left from the rounded rocks on the right. A few boys fish while a man in a suit points towards the left. A woman in a dress and hat stands at top on the far right. A town of buildings, houses, and tree-lined streets stands on the far bank in the background.”

I was down in Pacific Grove last week and had a chance to see Lover’s Point briefly. There’s a concrete pier/boat launch structure that was added at some point after the two wharves—I need to look into those histories a bit more. I didn’t get a chance to photograph it because I was busy…chasing two kids around. I’ll have to get some photos next time we’re down that way. This is another good candidate for the coastal rephotographic project, since there’s a number of historical images to work with.

Wadell Creek Beach, 12/1/24.

From a beach walk in December 2024. Just north of Santa Cruz at Waddell Creek.

Asilomar, July 2026

I have been going to the tide pools and rocky shores of Asilomar for more than 30 years. This one is from the most recent trip there.

Failed Seawall, Cabo Pulmo 2024

Seawalls and other forms of armoring or ‘hard’ stabilization are common responses to shoreline loss and coastal erosion. Seawalls can last for decades, but it depends on how they are built and what kinds of forces they are up against. It’s pretty common for a lot of seawalls to fail within a relatively short period of time. This image shows a stretch of beach in Cabo Pulmo that has seen a lot of erosion and numerous attempts to stop that erosion via seawalls and riprap. This particular seawall failed about a decade ago and its remnants have been sinking into the sand ever since. It shows one of the long-term and often unintended consequences of not-so-well-planned coastal armoring.

HIghway One in Big Sur (1926)

This is a photograph of Highway One in Big Sur from 1926. It was taken by the photographer Lewis Josselyn (1883-1964), who took thousands of great images of the Monterey and Big Sur region. He was also the official photographer for the Forest Theater in Carmel-by-the-Sea. I first learned about Josselyn’s work when I met the photographer and archivist Pat Hathaway in his little shop in Monterey around 1999-2000. Hathaway had an amazing and extensive collection of historical photographs. Now that he has passed away, this collection is now housed at the Monterey County Historical Society.

Site check: Steamer Lane in Santa Cruz, California

Yesterday I had a chance to drop by Steamer Lane in Santa Cruz for a quick site check. Figure 1 shows what it used to look like here. In the photo from 1887, you can see the arch that used to be there. I love how people used to climb up onto those things and have their photograph taken for posterity. By 2006, the arch had collapsed and only a piece of it was still left. That bit of rock is still there today, but it’s worn down in the past 18 years. Here’s what it was looking like yesterday:

Figure 2. Steamer Lane, 8/26/2024. Photo by Ryan B. Anderson.

If you compare with the images in Figure 1, I wasn’t in the right spot. The horizon line is too high. I needed to move down just a little lower, and probably a bit to the left. The tide was rising and already at about 3.5 plus feet and banging around on those rocks, so that wasn’t possible. The lighting is also off—it looks to me like the 1887 and 2006 images were shot in the morning. And of course the I need to use a closer lens—I shot this with a 35mm lens and it looks like something around a 50mm would be much closer to the 1887 and 2006 images. So when I go back I need to make sure to get the tide, time, and lens right. Still, always good to get a chance to get out for a site check.

Location Scouting for the Coastal Rephotographic Project: Wilder Ranch

When Mark Klett and company undertook their ‘Third View’ project, they revisited and rephotographed 110 sites in the US west. I have a similar project in mind for the California coast, and one logistical issue will be choosing my own sites to revisit. Part of the decision-making rests upon the kinds of changes and stories I’d like to tell. Ideally, I’d like to have sites that exhibit a range of coastal landscapes, from those that have changed very little over time to those that have undergone extensive change (whether from natural forces, human intervention, or a combination of both).

A good place to start, of course, is locally. I’ve like the image of the old natural bridge at Wilder Ranch (Figure 1, left). This was taken around 1900 apparently. I’d like to find out who the photographer was, if possible. This image was included in the book by Griggs and Ross that I mentioned in my last post. They rephotographed the same site about 100 years later in 2006 (Figure 1, right).*

This one is easy to relocate and rephotograph, since I’ve been there several times in the past and it’s on a well-known coastal trail. I guess the main question is whether I’d like to lug along a view camera as well just for fun. I do like the idea of using relatively similar equipment for at least some of the sites I rephotograph…even though some of my friends and colleagues think this is kind of insane.

*Figure 1 comes from this post by good friend and colleague Gary Griggs.