I’m not a religious man, but if I believed in grace, it would look something like this. Point Lobos on any given day. The same rocks, the same crashing Pacific that Edward Weston stared at through his 8×10, that Ansel Adams turned into icons of American landscape photography, that Imogen Cunningham explored with her singular eye. This is hallowed ground for anyone who’s ever held a camera and pretended to see.
But here’s the thing that really gets me, the thing that makes me stop and wonder what I did right in this life: I get to share this with two beautiful people. My family. The ones who’ll wake up on a Sunday and say, “Let’s go to Point Lobos,” like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Like we’re just running to the corner store instead of making a pilgrimage to one of the most photographed stretches of coastline in history.
We’re walking the same trails where the masters walked. We’re seeing the same light break over the same cypress trees, gnarled and twisted by wind and time. And I’ve got my cameras, sure, probably not as good as what Weston or Adams were shooting with, but good enough. Good enough to try to capture what this means, what it feels like to be here with the people I love, in a place that’s been teaching photographers how to see for nearly a century.
This is luck. This is privilege. This is everything. The landscape isn’t going anywhere, but the people? The moments? Those are finite, precious, irreplaceable. I know it every time we’re there together.
Anything that excites me, for any reason, I will photograph: not searching for unusual subject matter but making the commonplace unusual, nor indulging in extraordinary technique to attract attention. Work only when desire to the point of necessity impels – then do it honestly. Then so called “composition” becomes a personal thing, to be developed along with technique, as a personal way of seeing.
Edward Weston April 26, 1930, Point Lobos.