This is a stitched panorama showing the coastline north and south of Tennessee Point.

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After a pleasant day lawn bowling at the venerable SFLBC in Golden Gate Park, Claudia and I made our way out to the Marin Headlands through bumper-to-bumper Labor Day traffic. We were welcomed by a fantastic afternoon – hardly a trace of fog and a gentle sea breeze. From the Rodeo Beach parking lot we took a late day hike north along the coast. Instead of climbing up toward Battery Townsley and Wolf Ridge, our common route, we opted for the low road and walked a bit less than a mile to where the low trail ends due to steep bluffs. At the terminus we found Tennessee Point itself - a curious, flat, bare plateau perhaps 100 feet above the surf line. Here Claudia paused to read while I flew the camera. I am curious about the history of this bare, flat patch. Surely it was once used for something.

I was generally interested in this area for several reasons. This is the seaward end of Wolf Ridge, a hillock that saw interesting activity in World War II. It is also just south of a major landslide area that has disrupted roads, base end stations, and other construction from previous military epochs. At some point I would like to photograph this slide so the day’s outing provided a scouting opportunity.

I was a little surprised to see how rugged the bluffs became between the trail’s end and Tennessee Valley, the next point of coastal access to the north. I was also delighted to find three base end stations snuggled into the low hillside just above the end of the trail. This KAP flight would also position the camera out in front of the twin Battery Townsley casemates thus affording a new view of that subject.

I flew the camera for an hour or so near sunset below a Sutton Flowforn 30. The breeze remained gentle and consistent – just enough to keep the lighter Canon EOS-M rig aloft. Every few minutes a flight of several Brown Pelicans would glide past our position on the bluff making elegant use of orographic lift and passing just a few dozen feet away. It was peaceful and quiet, a delightful time in this most scenic spot.

Walking back we chatted about our earlier encounter with a group of a half dozen folks at Battery Rathbone – McIndoe. They appeared to be a professional video crew flying a new DJI S1000 octocopter drone featuring retractable landing gear and a Zenmuse gimbal carrying a Panasonic GH3. This is a pretty fancy drone setup worth over ten grand at least. Its large 6S LiPo batteries will keep it aloft for 12 to 15 minutes. Lord knows what they were up to or whether they had permission (it is my understanding that drones are not allowed in the GGNRA). While I greatly admire the technology of this setup I think its cost and complexity (both technical and regulatory) would be a source of continuing anxiety. For me the kites seem so pleasantly simple in comparison. Granted I am shooting photographs and they must have been videographers.

Tags:   Coastal Defenses GGNRA Wolf Ridge base stations fortifications Mill Valley California United States

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Panorama stitched from four landscape format images using Autopano Giga 4.4.

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Earlier on this day, I photographed Salt Pond A17, a pond recently connected to the tides. Poor planning on my part, arriving at high tide, made that exercise less interesting than I had hoped. So, I made my way south on the A17 and A16 levees down to New Chicago Marsh, which never fails to entertain photographically.

New Chicago Marsh is located just east of Alviso at the southern periphery of the original South San Francisco wetlands. The name dates back to the 1890s when P. H. Wheeler, a land speculator, proposed developing the area as a new industrial center. The site, much of which was inundated at high tide, was platted and sold as individual lots numbering in the thousands. As it turns out, industry never arrived and the venture went bankrupt.

As the 20th Century progressed, dredged levees created the Alviso complex of salt ponds and cut off the New Chicago Marsh area from its connection with Coyote Creek and tidal flow. Sometime before the 1960s, a system was introduced to provide New Chicago Marsh water from the Bay via managed flow through slough channels and ditches. This made the area a “non-tidal salt marsh” and this is its state in the current day. Viewed from above, marsh channels from centuries ago are readily evident as is water rendered bizarrely colorful by a population of resident halophiles.

According to the US Fish & Wildlife Service, “in 1974, the 365-acre New Chicago Marsh was the first parcel of land purchased for, and protected by, the newly established Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge.” In 2020, it will find itself on the leading edge of the first phase of the South San Francisco Bay Shoreline Project, which will protect against tidal flooding and rising seas, while also enhancing habitat for endangered species and opportunities for recreation.

I am taking these documentary photographs under a Special Use Permit from the Don Edwards National Wildlife Refuge. Kite flying is prohibited over the Don Edwards National Wildlife Refuge without a Special Use Permit.

Tags:   A16 Alviso New Chicago Marsh PLACES SALT PONDS SBSPRP South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project salt pond San Jose California United States KAP kite aerial photography Hidden Ecologies Don Edwards Wildlife Refuge South San Francisco Bay Bay Trail Alviso Environmental Education Center Bay Shoreline Project

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This is the cover design (by Lorraine Rath) for a book I have underway with Heyday Press covering my photographs of the South San Francisco Bay landscape. The project has been both fun and arduous. The publication date is December 2013.

Heyday Press has now posted an upcoming book announcement:

heydaybooks.com/book/saltscapes/#

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Saltscapes explores a unique and transitional landscape using a novel photographic technique.

On approach to SFO, a glance out of the airline window finds the South Bay’s patchwork of vivid salt evaporation ponds. These ponds support a five-year-long process of solar evaporation that yields 500,000 tons of salt a year. As San Francisco Bay water makes the trip from 2% to 32% salinity it evolves through a succession of bright colors - evidence of halophilic algae, bacteria, and other organisms that thrive at specific elevated salinities. And these tiny creatures paint our day’s version of what has been a remarkably transitional landscape.

The salt evaporation ponds cover what was once a vast marshland. In the mid-19th Century small “mom & pop” salt operations were established alongside a scattering of landings placed where the major creeks met the Bay. The salt ponds changed in the 20th Century as small operations were subsumed by waves of corporate consolidation. In recent times one company, Cargill Salt, owned the salt-making rights to all San Francisco Bay salt ponds. In 2003, Cargill sold 16,500 acres of South Bay salt ponds and salt-making rights to a coalition of non-profit and government agencies. The transferred wetlands are now managed for the public good with an emphasis on wildlife habitat, flood control, and recreation. In this new transition some of the ponds are destined to become tidal marshland again.

Most of the images in this book were taken by using a kite, unseen in the image, to lift a small, radio-controlled cradle holding a camera. I position the camera by walking around and/or letting out or retrieving kite line. I aim the camera and fire its shutter using the radio while I stay at the ground end of the kite line. The camera can rotate through the compass, tilt from horizon to nadir, and change from portrait to landscape format. I compose my images by watching the camera and imagining what it would see. The whole process entertains me greatly.

Kite aerial photography is a delightful technique for documenting the South Bay. While standing in that flat landscape the visual experience of the ponds is dominated by sky reflection on the water. Lofting a camera allows a view straight down and this eliminates most sky reflection to reveal the colors and textures of the ponds and, in ways I had not anticipated, traces from previous epochs in the landscape.

Tags:   KAP kite aerial photography Hidden Ecologies Don Edwards South San Francisco Bay salt ponds salt pond book cover Heyday

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My first forays into the South Bay salt pond landscape were fueled by a photographic interest in color and texture. This theme still holds great appeal as I often find places that offer the potential for abstract or painterly images. My second landscape theme sprang from the realization that my aerial images contained traces of the South Bay landscape’s many transitions. Discovering and deciphering the vague remnants of boat landings, salt works, railroad projects, and infrastructure remains entertaining. As I head into my second decade of wandering the South Bay a third theme has gained firm footing - documenting the landscape’s current day transition. And there is change aplenty as the South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project (SBSPRP) has bold initiatives underway in Alviso, Ravenswood and Eden Landing.

Each year I have a South Bay hiatus between February and September in deference to nesting birds. This good, commonsense condition is part of my Special Use Permit that allows KAP in the South Bay and access to otherwise off-limits areas. I anticipate my first outings in the fall eagerly for they provide a sense of how things have progressed during the year. And each year I am struck by how much change I find in the landscape. Formerly fallow salt ponds acquire natural colors and textures followed by vegetation after being reconnected with the tides. The construction of levees, flow control structures, and nesting islands redefines pond components and the nature of water flow through them. New trails, viewing platforms, and signage foretell expanding public access.

In this context of change I am delighted to find image pairs that illustrate progress in the restoration efforts. The abstract “Homage to Rothko” is one of the more popular images in my book Saltscapes and a personal favorite. While out shooting on Sunday I found myself near Salt Pond E6B so I stopped to look for the rusting 55-gallon drum that marked the location where I took the original image five years ago. Having spotted the drum I sent a camera aloft with the hope of getting a similarly framed shot even though the wind direction was off by 45 degrees or so. I lucked out when a short lived shift in the wind drifted the camera cradle out over the pond and provided a comparison image.

While the 2014 view differs greatly from the original “Homage to Rothko” I am fond of this version for it shows how much change has occurred in Salt Pond E6B, a disused salt pond managed since 2009 to reduce its residual salinity. I am also pleased that the new image has its own painterly feel. In the 2014 view the only dry surface is the upper side of the barrel, all else is below water, and the wind produced ripples lend an abstract texture to the image as though brush strokes.

I am taking these documentary photographs under a Special Use Permit from the California Department of Fish & Wildlife. Kite flying is prohibited over the Eden Landing Ecological Reserve without a Special Use Permit, as is access to this part of the Don Edwards National Wildlife Refuge.

Tags:   E6B Eden Landing Heyday final SALT PONDS STB horizontal KAP kite aerial photography Hidden Ecologies Don Edwards South San Francisco Bay salt pond SBSPRP South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project ELER Eden Landing Ecological Reserve

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I am visiting son Charlie Benton in San Diego this weekend. We spent a nice late afternoon at the boulder field in Santee where I was able to take a few aerial shots under very light winds.

GeoTagged

Tags:   KAP kite aerial photography San Diego rock climbing geo:lat=32.8506445 geo:lon=-117.021066 geotagged

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