Bowling Ball Beach, Mendocino, California

Hi y'all This is a little known beach along the Mendocino coast, on a quiet summer night, the Milky Way pours straight down toward the Pacific, its bright core sinking into the horizon as if the sky itself were draining into the sea. Below, the famous boulders of Bowling Ball Beach sit half-submerged in the retreating tide, their wet surfaces catching faint starlight and the warm glow of the sand.

A single meteor streaks across the upper right, and Jupiter burns steadily near the horizon, adding one more point of stillness to the frame. I set a 13 seconds exposure, the long exposures softened the waves into mist, so the scene feels suspended between land, water, and galaxy. It is a place where deep time is easy to feel: rocks shaped over millions of years, beneath light that left its stars long before we arrived.

This is one of those odd places: in the middle of nowhere with unusal rock formations.

Comments & critiques are welcome.

Oliver

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Kyle Jones

Moderator
Nicely done! I have been there many times and as cool a spot as this is it can be particularly challenging to photograph - especially at night! I'm glad the offshore fog stayed away so you could capture all those stars.
 

JimFox

Moderator
Staff member
Awesome work Oliver. You nailed the sky and MW color in this. So whatever was off in the last one, you solved it here.

But... I would have to perhaps differ with the "Little Known" comment. At least for photographers, it's rather well known and many of us have been going there 30+ years ago.
 
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