It was 1:30am on a monday morning; this monday morning. Perfect time to grind asphalt and photograph.

This time I had a target in mind: the moonlight cascading over the Pacific Ocean, sidling up to cliffside views and the backdrop of Redondo Beach, all locked in a quiet pornographic patois while bugs belched out for hot sex. The moon was nearly full and seemed like it was still vaguely in the right place (since I'd been too damn lazy to photograph earlier).

I hung along Pacific Coast Highway for a little while. I liked that everyone was asleep; this was my world, damnit. I swung left and werved around this corkscrew deal that took me up to the promentories. I got some fingernails-on-chalkboard action at one point from seeing a car behind me. 'Of all the times', I thought, 'You have to be behind me, you fucker. Oh please let this jackass pass me or go someplace else'. I guess Jackass must have been telepathic: I didn't him or her again.

From there it was 35 MPH, all alone, bending through the cliffside real-estate and scrub-brush. I remembered the public viewing area/parking lot this time and kept right. Just my luck, though, they had those '9pm to 5am No Parking' signs. I wasn't surprised: gang-bangers and drugged-out teenage fools fuck up good parking spots all the time. That didn't stop a group of three 20-somethings from being parked and starring down onto the coastline of Redondo Beach, but I was a party of 1 and I wasn't about to stick by my car to photograph.

Past that place was this wide, wide 2-lane road that sported nothingness and freshly paved concrete. Eventually I found a residential street, parked, dutifully waited for the cops to speed by, then ran across the ghost town road. Even so, I knew sticking by the road would attract unwanted attention, so I began to walk down this gentle slop filled to the brim with dog-ear'ed weed thingies. Naturally, I'd put on sandals for comfort that night--which led on three different occasions to me hopping on one foot to get said dog-ears out.

I more stumbled onto the cliffside path than saw it, but I was glad for the convenient bastard being there. I walked a little ways and decided to take some shots of the cliffsides set against Redondo Beach. Then a thought struck me. I turned around, looked up at the beaming moon up above and out along the long, empty road framed by brush and a lone tree, like some minimalist postcard from Africa. I set up shop and tried the scene out. I'd never seen what bright moonlight looked like in long-exposures--but damn was I impressed. I decided to do another of those "hey, I'm in my own photograph being all human condition-ish" types of shots. Of course, at some point, I got the 'Roads go ever, ever on' song from Lord of the Rings stuck in my head. It was one of those sorts of trails.

Sometime later, I somehow found myself about 3 feet away from a several hundred foot drop off of a cliff. The ground was at a deep incline, with some brambles and dead bushes keeping me from toppling over. I had both hands firmly planted near my tripod stand, trying to take a shot of the moon, this billowing tree and the blue-white metallic surf that beat below. I focused on keeping both hands perfectly still, gradually pushing down with more and more pressure when they got the urge to shake. It was a very zen/slightly near death experience--and I even got the shot after a few tries.

After that I went for some slightly more sane cliff shots, then just stood around for awhile and admired how water could look like living metal underneath the moon and sky. I wanted to share that with you in more than just a photograph, and I stood in place while I remembered every detail, like an etching against wood or glass.

Time had passed by me along its way, with me catching up to it sometime around 3:30am. I'd worried some that Ashcroft police had given me a ticket or something, but all was good and calm. I came back to my place, listened to Beth Orton's 'Paris Train' a few times and slinked off to a muddied sleep.

The shots'll come soon.

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