Day Trippin’ to Bodega Bay (El Dorado County Fine Art Photographer)

On Saturday, I went on a day trip to Bodega Bay with a couple of photog friends. This trip was our second annual trip to the wine and coast area.  Last year we drove down to Napa to see if we could get some good pics of the wild mustard that grows all over Northern California but looks particularly attractive in the vineyards. This year, it was the Sonoma Coastline.

Our first stop was the little town of Bodega, where part of the Hitchcock film, The Birds, was filmed.

This was the little church in the movie.  It really is a charming little church that is extremely well maintained and quite active.

This was the school in the movie, The Birds. It is now a private residence and because we did not want to disturb the residents, we took a quick couple of pictures and then moved on. The house does not quite look like this today, but I wanted to make it look a little more like what it looked like in the movie.

After this, we headed down to Bodega Bay and had a bite to eat at a little deli in town.  Then we went up the coast to look for some likely places to do some photography.

I don’t know what the name of this beach was because I forgot to write it down, but when we got out of the car we were almost blown away from the wind and the sea spray was all over us and our cameras.  I took this picture, but it was so windy I could hardly hold the camera still.

So we drove further up the coast to go visit the Historic Russian fort, Fort Ross.  There was not much wind there and it gave us a chance to stretch our legs and take some photos without the wind blowing us over.

After we walked around there, took pictures and read about the history a little, we headed back to Goat Rock to see if we could catch a decent sunset.  We had been there earlier in the day, but it was way to windy to take any kind of decent pic.  We were hoping that the wind would die down as the sun went down.

We got there a little early and huddled in the car until the sun began to go down.  Then we braved the elements, grabbed our tripods and trudged to the end of the cliff.  It was well worth the effort.

 

And my favorite pic of the day…

These two guys, Roger Aylstock and Steve Batz,  are two of the best photographers that I have ever had the privilege of knowing.  I consider them my mentors along with being my friends. They tolerate my silliness and eccentricities (although I do get a lot of good-natured drubbing about it.)   It was a good trip.