Horse Stuck in the Mud

In 2019 Willie and I worked on a series of photographs of the Salt Ponds in the southern section of the San Francisco Bay. It was amazing to see the shapes and patterns of the salt ponds when you look down from above using a drone, plane or helicopter. As the water is drained out of the bay, the algae and salt content changes, exposes different colors and shapes. We witnessed the same scenes change from week-to-week as the water levels changed. A nice sunset was forecasted one evening in November and we weren't sure what to go photograph, but we thought maybe the salt ponds would look different, and decided to head back there. At times the salt ponds are completely underwater but on this visit, they were somewhere in between. There was enough water that instead of the browns and whites from the previous year, this time they were completely red. The salt ponds are interesting, as well, because they look completely different when they have direct sunlight on them versus soft diffused light. On this particular evening the potentially nice sunset offered diffused light, which allowed reflections and colors to come out, but blocked and orange glow along the edges of the salt formations. I decided to turn the drone around and face the mountains to catch the last light kissing off the peaks. DJI Mavic 2 Pro: 10.26mm, f/2.8, 1/120 sec, ISO 100