Stones of Time

How cool!!
I'd never heard of this park, and looked it up - to my delight, it's within easy driving distance!
Would you please email me and tell me where in the park to find these great pockets of agates ?
Great subject, color, and interest here!

Sandy r:

very interesting and original!
top right and bottom left are not in focus which hurts a bit but other then that, this is such an entertaining subject! I love it.
georg

it's really intersting image

i like tha variety of colors here

well done

Hamed

Thats fabulous Ben. Even more so cos its a natural find. You have chosen a wonderful abstracted pattern from what appears to be a very much larger area and the distribution of these wells throughout the frame is wonderful. A truly excellent shot. Focus is just softening at the corners. It looks like a smaller f-stop might have been necessary.

Beautifully seen and done Ben, love the pockets of color. Very unique.
John

What a fascinating shot ! Great work.

Interesting pebbles and holes !

Love the tafoni style holes filled with stones. A bit curious why such a large f-stop but its a great shot. Looks like you might need to go back, ahh darn another outing
Great eye Benjamin

Looks like boiled lollies in a candy shop! Delightful.

What an eye catching shot. I wouldn't mid the softening focus if it looked more intentional, like at 2.8, but here its right in the middle and I think I would prefer all sharp.

Great shot Ben. Absolutely love the composition! The oof corners catch my eye slightly, but its sharp where it really counts.

Super cool! Unique shot.

Beautiful little treasure troves. Wonderful image.

Very unique, maybe a tad too over sharpened on my monitor. I would like to see more from there.

Georg, you were the first person I thought of when I shot this. Your abstract beach images are an inspiration. Glad you like it.

A return trip is definitely in order. I noticed the oof pebbles in ps, but neglected to check the dof in the field... Oh well...!

Thanks for the comments thus far everyone!

Too cool Benjamin, such an interesting slice of nature.

Great vibrancy in the stones colour and love the range of shapes..

This ROCKS! Sorry but I couldn't resist

This is a pretty remarkable shot Ben! Very good idea and impact. For such images I often shoot a few frames with different focal points and then do some "focal stacking". But the main interest is very well in focus so it is a minor issue. But if you go back - remember to make some focus variations...

Amazing, what nature does!
Great find and I love very much how you framed this. This must be a place capable to offer infinite opportunities for great abstracts and close ups, can't wait to see what you'll bring back next time you get there. About the oof corners, I totally agree with Didl: image stacking for optimal dof is a must for this kind of images.


Paolo

This is really cool, Ben. I'd have to say this is my favorite image of yours. My only nit is the out of focus llc and urc.

Hi Ben,

great find! There are focus issues at the edges, but aside from that this is OK. I think what bothers me about this one, and this is totally subjective, is that it does not seem natural. I don't mean as a photograph, there's nothing about the capture or processing that looks unnatural. It's just that the pockets are so perfectly filled with such perfectly colorful and symmetric, smooth pebbles that are of an entirely different composition from the matrix, that it seems arranged and not natural. Of course, I'm sure that it is naturally occuring and that there's a scientific explanation for what caused it, but in a photograph, it appears arranged unless there's an accompanying explanation - which defeats the purpose of a photo in my book. Purely a matter of perspective of course...

How neat! Looks like a prehistoric jewelry box!

Truly amazing - excellent find. I have to agree about the focus issues on the edges - particularly in the LLC

- Luke

Wonderful colours, very nice shot!

D&L

Hey Ben,

This is sweet! I really like what you've got going on with this. I'm noticing the dof in the lower left corner especially, but since you say a return trip is in order I trust you'll take care of it next time. I don't mean to be overly neg here either.. This is an awesome image! Great stuff.

Reminds me of jellybeans! The one light blue stone near the middle is beautiful. Too bad about the dof, but not a deal-breaker for me

That's just plain cool. Reminds me of the polished rocks we use to collect as a kid. Nice find.

Ben: What a great find and a fine capture. Makes me envious. Well done.>=))>

How long did it take you to put all those little shiny jelly beans in those pockets?

Beautiful image.

Holy cow, what great color, light, and comp to show these off at their best. The wet rocks with their myriad colors are fantastic. Great shot Benjamin!

Looks like an old game board we used to have that had hollows and polished stones...really nice in its simplicity

Benjamin,

Very cool! What a great, natural arrangement. I don't think anyone could have "arranged" things any better than this. It reminds me of a game that is played with little stones, but I can't think of the name of it right now. Other than the soft corners, this is a great find and very nicely captured. Makes me want to take a trip to Bean Hollow!

Lon

It does look like a smaller aperture should have been used, though it's still a pretty incredible abstract.

It is very nice to see this image being so well received. I am looking forward to returning later this week and using a smaller aperture to ameliorate the aforementioned issues. Having this image completely in-focus is crucial, in my opinion. I have attached an image from the iPhone taken at a slightly different location along the same stretch of beach...it should assist in giving you a sense of scale and perspective. Thanks again! -bg

ps.
Lon, the game you are thinking of is called Mancala..

That is so cool, Benjamin. Almost feels impossibly good, but it's obviously "found light" for you. My first thought was that Popp's had maybe visited here sometime in the near past

Edit: Seeing the iPhone image makes me realize these are much smaller than I imagined. I guess the Popp's are off the hook on this one.

Never have I seen anything quite like this...very awesome. I agree with the focus thing, and I'd be interested to see what other patterns you found here. Seems like a location for endless possibilities.

Awesome Ben, absolutely fantastic! Your best so far, IMO.

Word of advice - if you want everything in focus, no point in shooting at less than f/8, or really f/11. And if in any doubt, just hit up f/14 or 16. No reason in a case like this not to.

Very interesting image. I think its very unique but theres some technical flaws that detract to me. The main one is that the whole image isnt in focus like it should be. I also would like to see the image shot again when the whole rock is wet.

Phenomenal, exquisite image Ben. The variety of color in the pebbles set in a canvas of gray stone is flat out amazing. Stunning.

Beautiful and unique image. Great find, Benjamin.

What a great spot, Ben. Hard to believe that this is done by nature. The colorful stones pop out nicely off of the rock. Unfortunately the DOF seems to be a problem at the corners. I had the same issue with these shots twice last year and from now on I will always do a focus stack when I'm shooting scenes like that.

What a cool find Ben, love the mixtures of colors and the textures. I might be tempted to crop from the bottom to remove the out of focus pocked on the bottom left.
Nice work.

What a great fin! Nature can really do some amazing things - great image!

Excellent find Ben!

Great find and nicely done. I haven't seen pebbles like this since I left northern Cal. many years ago. Cool shot.

Hey,
I'm familiar with this area, and didn't realize this could look so amazing! The sense of scale here makes me think these holes are bigger. Anyway, I really like the arrangement, and the distance to the subjuect here. You know i'm goona have to keep an eye out for this now, next time I'm there.

Chris

Totally wild! Very cool shot. I actually think Kartik made a good point, without a caption i think a lot of folks might assume this is a set up still life as opposed to fortuitious nature. So, mkae sure the print comes with a caption!

I've visited that stony pebble beach dozens of times over decades. Its a very popular though small beach and during weekdays many schools from the nearby SF Bay Area stop there on their field trips and have sessions with kids performing various tasks. There are numbers of these tafoni sandstone formations that also occur at other central California beaches. Most of those on this beach are with a side wall orientation though a few like this are sometimes uncovered by the sand looking up towards the sky. The main problem with naturalness is that kids being kids seeing the stones and the little holes tend to have an orientation of filling up the holes with stones. Wave action usually clears away stones from such holes except at a certain point when the tide is receding. Usually wave action puts a few stones in holes and almost always some stones and sand grains are on the rock surface between holes and though I've never seen a set of all holes nicely filled up to the brim like this such is certainly possible.

Very unique image Benjamin, and very fun. Nicely done.

What a cool shot of color and form.