Girls in Bikinis

My girlfriend tells me I should try going to a different beach other than Panther Beach, "for creative purposes", she says. And my response is, "why should I?" There's so much going on at this beach that I have yet be disappointed. I'm sure it will happen someday, but for now, I will continue to explore this little stretch of coast. And for good reason, it has more nooks and crannies than a Thomas' English Muffin!

I met up with fellow Santa Cruz shooter, Diego Tabango, for a sunset shoot, and after heading south and running into pumping swells, we decided to move back to the north end.

We chatted a bit, and one of the things we talked about was the names of all the beaches. You see, diegonyc was up at Shark Fin Cove initially, and I had told him to meet at Panther Beach. There are some images floating around on Flickr of Shark Fin Cove labeled as Panther Beach, and that has fueled some of this confusion. And when I first shot at Shark Fin Cove, I called it Panther Beach, too. Heck, if that's what someone else is calling it, then it must be right! Well, we were both wrong.

The funny bit about all this, is that if you do a search for Panther Beach on Flickr, there are a ton of images of bikini clad models on the beach. And I always thought, "how did they get those models down that steep, rocky trail?" Well, as it turns out, Panther Beach has an easier trail, much more model friendly I guess. I wonder if someday I'll go down there to shoot, only to run into a bunch of models in bikinis.

Hmm, maybe that's why my girlfriend doesn't want me going to Panther Beach.

Nikon D300
Tokina 11-16mm @ 11mm
0.8sec @ f16, ISO 100
B+W Polarizer
Lee .9 Hard and .9 Soft Stop ND Grad Filters