I was speeding north on Highway 1, checking the time and watching the golden sun dance closer and closer to the horizon of the Pacific Ocean. I figured I had about 30 minutes to find a suitable location to shoot sunset.
As I turned around a bend in the road, I glimpsed a figure climbing over some rocks on the cliffside, a large hat silhouetted against the sun. It took about 3 seconds for me to decide that sure this was a subject worth turning around for. I parked in a pullout and approached the figure, who I could see was a woman equipped with binoculars. Trusting that her sense of an interesting scene was better than mine, I grabbed my telephoto lens before walking over and introducing myself. It turned out to be one of the best decisions I made during my week-long visit to California.
Lorrie Klosterman is a longtime resident of Monterey Bay, a retired biologist, an apt watercolor painter and colored pencil sketch artist, as well as a published author. We spent the next half an hour talking about the comings and goings of the local wildlife. She pointed out sea otters and porpoises and they swam around the rocks hundreds of feet below us and named the condors that swooped overhead. She gifted me a copy of her book, Animals and Plants of Monterey Bay, a beautifully illustrated and humorously written nature guide to the Santa Cruz shoreline. I found myself utterly entranced by her storytelling ability and encyclopedic knowledge of the natural workings of the California coast.
But sunset was encroaching fast and Lorrie’s not one to stay out after dark. Before we parted, I asked if I could take her portrait. She obliged and these instantly became some of my favorite photos I’ve taken all year. I’m not much of a portrait photographer, but setting and good company can light a fire in me, and spending sunset with Lorrie was an intensely inspirational moment that I simply had to capture.
After editing the photos, I tried contacting her through her author webpage but the contact box seems to be broken. I hope these photos find their way to her somehow.
