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.