The cool thing about photographing destination weddings is that before and after the wedding a completely different and wonderful culture and geography is right in front of you to experience and capture in photos as well. And the cool thing about this blog is that I get to show these scenes/photos, that I love to shoot, to more people. Wedding photography is somewhat seasonal here in N. California, slowing down in the winter months, so I combine my love of Mexico, and traveling in general, to seek out weddings in warmer climes.
In February of this year while in sunny Mazatlan to shoot one of my destination weddings there (Dan and Alisas, and you can see the pics of their beautiful wedding on my website or earlier blog entries) I strolled along the beach, near my hotel, with my cameras, just before sunset (and almost all of the sunsets there are gorgeous) and came across this local fisherman. A photo op, if I ever saw one! He was standing on an old concrete embankment jutting out from the rocks about 30 yards offshore and casting out from there. The clouds were so low that you could not see the sun until just before it sank below the horizon, but gave me ample time to get some good shots. In all, I watched him and took photos for over 1/2 an hour. After the sun had set I moved in closer staying just out of range of the occasional spray of the waves. Then his rod bent over as he hooked one so I dared to get right up behind him as he reeled it in. It was a nice looking fish, a type of snook, I think, and he was proud to show it off.
I moved back to a safer position (for my cameras sake) up on the sidewalk above the breakwater as he continued to fish. The sun had already set but a hole opened up in the darker clouds closest in and the light reflecting off of the clouds behind them came through and reflected once more off of the ocean. An unusual and stunning occurance I hadn’t seen before so I composed the fisherman into that shot that came out very nice. It appears that the sun is still in the sky breaking through the clouds.
Now, it was getting darker and the ambient light of some of the breakwater lighting became more prominent and began to turn his white clothes an orange hue as a cruise ship passed by in the background. Love it!, .. another day in paradise. btw, you can click on the photos below to see a larger image.
