Beach Psycho
This afternoon was spent photographing a senior portrait. The first part was photographed with the senior sitting at a piano at a friend’s Victorian in Eureka. That part went very smoothly. The student also wanted some casual beach shots, so we went out to the South Jetty to a spot I’ve used before. We pulled into the parking area which was deserted, although there were two trucks parked further up on the side of the road. We walked out across the dunes to the beach to the area that I wanted to shoot in. When we got to the beach, we saw two men having a fire north of us, about a 1/4 mile up the beach. So we turned south and just as I was getting my camera equipment set up, one of the guys makes his way down to us, and yells out “what are you doing with that telephoto lens?” My first thought is that I didn’t hear him right and maybe he was interested in photography. But I quickly realized that he’s upset that we’ve chosen this part of the beach and since he was there first, we had to leave. We explained that this was a public beach, and that in fact he was the one intruding, but it quickly got ugly, and for the safety of my clients, Lori and myself, I suggested we just leave. The guy was so wacko there simply wasn’t any point in staying there and arguing with him. So we left, but before doing so, I took a picture of both of their license plates (ah, the wonders of digital photography) and then the student’s mother called 911 to report him. We heard later he was arrested on outstanding warrants, so the story has a happy ending. By that time we had lost the light though, so part two of the shoot ended up in our studio, later that night.