Friday Photo of the Week
- rsmartin2682
- Apr 10
- 2 min read
I didn't choose this photo as the first of this series because it is a great photo. I didn't choose it because it has the perfect lighting or composition. I have never edited it, and I suppose if I did, I could get the water to look crisper and the lines in the rocks could be more prevalent. I could lighten up the photo too and try to bring out the sky behind the wave a bit.
This photo is about determination. And the story has a happy ending.
In November 2011 my boyfriend was going on a work trip out to California. This time, he asked me to go with him. I was resistant. I hated to fly. I am a horrible traveler. I was working full-time and had three kids ages 10, 6 and 4.
He was adamant that I go, which I could not understand. What was his deal? I kept thinking.
Eventually he would convince me to join him in San Francisco. After he finished up work, we had two days of site-seeing before we headed back home to Colorado. In typical tourist fashion, our first stop was Baker Beach.
November in California is deceitful. I was of the impression that California was sunshine and bikinis year-round. The bite of the breeze caught me off-guard.
I had pictured walking down the beach hand-in-hand barefoot with the waves tickling our toes. The beach was empty, but only because it was freezing cold down by the water. I was still determined to get some good beach photos.
In the distance, I saw a pile of large rocks weathered by impressive waves. I wanted a picture of the waves breaking on those rocks. I dragged my boyfriend over to the rocks that sat with the Golden Gate Bridge perfectly in the background.
It took me a minute to get my camera settings just so, but I couldn’t get the angle right. I needed to get closer. My boyfriend would not let me try to scale these rocks without his assistance. A few minutes of cursing later, we found ourselves right on top of a large rock. It was the perfect angle.
A large wave was just approaching the rock, and I pulled out my camera to get what I expected to be sweet little sprinkles of water surrounding a beautiful peacock-shaped wall of water. As it got closer, I realized that not only had I misjudged the California weather in November, but I was also ignorant to the size and power of their waves.
Within moments, we were drenched from head-to-toe. But I got the shot.
After this we went to explore the Golden Gate Bridge, where another one of my all-time favorite photos was taken. The photo below is also not the best in quality. And had I know that my boyfriend was about to turn into my fiancé, I probably would have worn a cuter outfit.
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