a favorite escape…

It looks like every 2-3 years, I visit El Matador State Beach in Malibu. You might recognize it from a few commercials and films. This fourth experience with the Beach came at the hands of a request from a friend from Stamford, CT. Lauren had a great idea for some home decor: to hang framed landscape images from all four seasons of the year - Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter. She showed me an image of "Winter” taken by a mutual friend, and then naturally recruited me to photograph “Summer” for her seeing as I’m in SoCal and do nothing but post California landscape images to my Instagram.

My instinct was immediately to visit El Matador to find that great “Summer” shot. I drove that way just before sunrise and got to work. What made this visit to El Matador different was thinking in black and white and not in color. It made me appreciate the details, and textures of the beach and rock much more than before.

To start, here are some black and white favorites:

Color, of course…

While the exercise in black and white beach shots was welcomed, I inevitably took a ton of color shots of the sunrise. I love this Beach and it’s always great to experience its beauty: