High Surf, Thick Fog — My favorite photography of the year 2025

Like others on 35mmc, I was immediately attracted by Hamish’s invitation to submit one’s favorite photo of the year – in my case because I believed that I had just shot it in early November!  However, to date I haven’t been a contributor to 35mmc, so needed to get past my own reticence and hang-ups.

For background, I’m English, (though now live in California—more on that later), and got into photography when my first child was born at the end of December, 1966 – on 1^st Feb, 1967, I bought a ‘Used Bargain’ from Dixons on Oxford Street, London for £27 10 shillings, a Minolta Autocord (I still have the original receipt!) to take his photograph for posterity.  From then on photography was primarily recording the children growing up, family and other social activities, and family holidays.

Photography became a more important part of my life partly by accident and ultimately by design.  I had moved to Silicon Valley in 1988 at the request of my employer, and what was initially temporary became permanent.  I travelled a lot and carrying a camera became a norm, both for recording the wonders of the ‘new world’ and some of the exotic places that I ended up in on business.  Much of this photography was of the ‘I was there’ genre, which I slowly grew out of, trying to develop a more personal vision, moving away from literal reality, capturing the evocative and what is felt.  I also moved back to black & white – in the beginning all my photos had been black & white as I couldn’t afford color film and it’s processing, but then those family holidays in Greece looked so much better in color!  But for me monochrome images are much more intense and express mystery, emotion, and aesthetics.

As retirement loomed in the mid-2000’s, the question arose as to what to do with all that spare time(!?!): an answer evolved through several channels — the male side of my family (father, brother, son) are all architects and it’s a strong interest of mine; I attended The Kings School in Chester, founded at the time of Henry’s Dissolution of the monasteries; and history is another of my strongest personal interests – so I ended up photographing the interiors of all of the English medieval cathedrals (see: www.englishmedievalcathedrals.com).  In parallel with visiting the UK to see family and photograph cathedrals, I spent a wonderful 15 years travelling with my partner (herself an accomplished photographer) to explore a variety of cities, cultures and peoples around the world.  Sadly, she died in October 2020, which effectively put a stop to my photography for a couple of years.

As an key element of retirement, I had moved ‘over the hill’ in 2007 from Silicon Valley to Santa Cruz, a hippie beach town on the north side of Monterey Bay, where, in 1885, three Hawaiian princes introduced Californians to the pleasures of surfing, and it’s beaches and Boardwalk provided amusement and fun for a multitude of visitors (the Boardwalk’s Giant Dipper is the oldest wooden roller-coaster west of the Mississippi, built in 1924).  Today Santa Cruz is becoming more of a commuter city for Silicon Valley and, many locals allege, is losing its idiosyncrasies to gentrification.

Only recently have I re-engaged in actively seeking new, local photographic opportunities (I’m now in my 80’s, so lugging around a camera bag, with a couple of bodies and several lenses is not on the agenda!).  One of these local opportunities is West Cliff – which runs from the Boardwalk out to the Lighthouse, then almost due west for another couple of miles — spectacular cliffs along the Pacific Ocean.  It’s typically only in the winter that it gets photographically interesting, with storms, big surf, and dramatic clouds providing the inspiration.

My favorite photo of 2025 is, therefore, one that occurred in one of the first storms of this winter (on Nov 6, 2025), in relatively unusual circumstances.  As is usual, storm surf is big, often over-topping the seawalls, eroding dirt and vegetation, and flooding the sidewalk and roadway; — but in this case there was also a dense sea-fog, which is unusual.  This made for a moody and dramatic image – timing was a bit of luck, as one could hear the surf, but not see it, so speedy reflexes helped!

During my photographic progression from novice to hopefully something better, I was never in a darkroom (I was thrown out of Chemistry in high school for endangering the other pupils!).  In my film days I did own a few SLR’s from time to time, but in practice favored TLR’s and rangefinders (and, like others, lusted after a Leica but only came to afford it after I retired).  I bought my first digital camera, an Epson Rd-1 in 2007, and have used digital rangefinders (including Leica’s!) ever since – nevertheless, I also accumulated a collection of 35mm and 120 film rangefinders which I still ‘exercise’.

Currently, I regularly only use two cameras: a Leica Q2M, which is my ‘everyday’ walk-around camera; and a Leica M10M.   I have been using the M10M with a variety of ‘other’ lenses, particularly two from Omnar lenses – a CN26-6 and a Leitz 42mm Mikro-Summar – Barnack Omnar.  I’m very much a ‘wide’ guy, so rarely use anything beyond 50mm, and for recording the landscapes, seascapes and cloudscape seen from West Cliff these lenses are great!   In some posts in the new year, I hope to be able to share some of these images and how these lenses perform on 35mmc.

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