Laguna Beach

Every umbrella in this photograph is somebody's whole afternoon. Somewhere down there a family is arguing about lunch, a kid is refusing to go in past their knees, and at least one person has fallen asleep reading.
This is Laguna Beach in the middle of summer, seen from straight up. The wave came in as one long unbroken curl running the full width of the frame, and behind it the sand fills with color, hundreds of umbrellas and towels scattered like confetti someone tipped out of a box. Every dark mark near the water is a person standing in it.
I flew this one high and dead level, because the whole thing only works as pattern. From up here the crowd stops being a crowd and becomes texture, and the ocean stops being scenery and becomes a clean line drawn across the top of it. I graded it warm on purpose, pushing the sand pink against the turquoise, because that is what a California summer feels like rather than what a light meter says it looks like.
For anyone whose best days have always been at the beach. Printed and finished to gallery standard, made to bring pink and turquoise into a room that could use both. A piece of a California summer to keep, crowds and all.