My Happy Place…

OH La Jolla, my happy place indeed.

I have to tell you, I remember this night like it was yesterday. It was beautiful January sunset. It had been a while sense I have ventured out to La Jolla for a shoot. I use to go all the time! Back in 2010 when I was working on a 365 project. I took a photo a day, every day, for a complete year. It was INTENSE! The goal was to do only long exposures and I felt the best place to do long exposures was anyplace that had moving water. For San Diego, that would be the beach! After the project was over, I spent much less time at my beloved La Jolla. Fast forward to 2019 when the realization hit that I had not done a sunset photo shoot in years! Well, nothing outside of client shoots anyway. Then it happened! An excuse to go to La Jolla! Funny story actually.

In December, I received a text from a friend in New York. Long story short, my mother-in-law was going to receive a few packages by mistake and my friend asked if I could take the packages back to Amazon to be returned but the only drop off location in ALL of San Diego is La Jolla! Thus the plans for a winter sunset began! Based off of sunset time and the time that Amazon drop off location closed, I chose to hit the beach first, there was plenty of time to take the package to its destination. So there I was! My favorite beach with all my camera gear and ND filters to enhance the sunset that night. Oh, it was pure nirvana. I was in the zone, in my element. I was happier than a clam on that same beach. After taking a few photos in the normal landscape mode, I realized I was missing the beautiful pink of the clouds above the line of site. So I chose to change the angle to portrait mode to make sure I captured all of that beautiful color! While waiting for the shutter to do its thing, I noticed a wave coming in. Next thing I knew, my shoes and leggings were wet. Who cares! This image made it worth it. Besides, it was January! Still warm weather for San Diego in January. Our winter doesn’t start until late February or March. Oh, this was my heaven on earth! But the real fun was after the sunset!

Thats right, it was time to find that Amazon drop off location. I use my GPS and head there. Oh, nothing is there, time to read the directions on the print out for the return label. I follow the directions to find where I need to go. Turns out, the Amazon drop off location is on the UCSD campus. No problem, finally found that! But there was no parking near the building to drop off. There was a parking garage some distance away. Oh, but most of the students don’t drive high profile trucks! Ya, I didn’t fit! I had to keep looking for a legal parking spot NOT in a parking garage! The challenge was real folks. Long story short, some students helped me find a place to park and gave me decent directions to the Amazon drop off location. The detour took me over an hour. Meanwhile, my shoes and leggings were still wet from the wave that hit me. I was quite annoyed at this point! The icing on the cake came when I couldn’t retrace my steps to find my truck! Ya, I got lost and had to GPS the parking lot to find my ride home! Next time, I’ll give my friend the money and keep the shipment! That Amazon drop off location couldn’t have been any more inconvenient! Anyway, there you go, my night of hell with one amazing sunset as the calm before the storm.