Why I Shoot in My Own Backyard: The San Lorenzo Valley and Ben Lomond

I live in Ben Lomond, up in the San Lorenzo Valley, and a lot of the photography I post is from the coast twenty minutes away. But some of my favorite shots never leave the valley at all, and I don't think it gets enough credit as a place worth photographing on its own terms.

It's a different kind of light

The coast is about open sky and water. The valley is the opposite: redwood canopy, filtered light, fog that sits in the low spots on a cool morning and burns off by mid-day. That kind of soft, diffused light is genuinely easier to work with for a lot of subjects, portraits especially, since you're not fighting hard shadows or blown-out highlights the way you might on an open beach at noon. Some of the best portrait light I get all year is a foggy morning under the trees, not a clear afternoon on the sand.

Little Basin and the smaller trails

Little Basin, tucked into the redwoods near Boulder Creek, is one of my regular spots, quiet, easy access, and it doesn't get the crowds that Big Basin's main areas do. The gate at the entrance alone is a good photo on a misty morning. I use spots like this for the same reason I think they're underrated generally: they're close, they're easy to get permission and access sorted for a shoot, and they don't require the planning a bigger, more famous location does.

The valley has its own quiet moments

Periwinkle blooming at dusk along a fence line. Fog moving through a stand of trees at first light. A creek running low in late summer. None of it is dramatic in the way a coastal sunset is, and that's kind of the point. It's the kind of photography that rewards actually living somewhere rather than just visiting it, knowing which corner catches light at a certain hour, which week the ferns come back green after winter, where the fog tends to pool on a cold morning.

Why this matters if you're booking a shoot

If you live in this area, or you're getting married or want portraits done somewhere that isn't the obvious coastal backdrop, the San Lorenzo Valley is genuinely worth considering. It photographs completely differently from the coast, and for a lot of people it ends up being the more personal, more distinctive choice precisely because it's not the postcard shot everyone else has.

If you want to shoot somewhere in the valley instead of the usual coastal spots, reach out and I can show you what's around.