Stephen Bay Photography

Stephen Bay Photography City and landscape photography focusing on San Diego and Southern California.

Balboa park tonight. I could tell the sky was going to be colorful but I couldn't figure out where to go. I was initiall...
02/03/2026

Balboa park tonight. I could tell the sky was going to be colorful but I couldn't figure out where to go. I was initially planning on going to Belmont Park to photograph the Big Dipper roller coaster but when I got there it was under construction. There was a giant crane and it looked like it was replacing parts of the structure. So I decided to go to the east side of Balboa park and shoot toward the sun. However when I got there, the composition I had in my head didn't really work. So I came to west side, parked, and rushed to this spot. It was already after sunset so I was afraid I'd miss the burn but I just caught it.

Yes I paid for parking. The machine was a pain to use and super slow. It spent like a minute trying to see if I was already listed in the system (I'm not). Which was frustrating because I could see the colors turning but I had to wait.

This is sunset cliffs yesterday evening. I guess it lives up to it's name.
01/28/2026

This is sunset cliffs yesterday evening. I guess it lives up to it's name.

As per my last post, I just got back from Borrego Springs / Salton Sea and then I saw all these news articles about a po...
01/20/2026

As per my last post, I just got back from Borrego Springs / Salton Sea and then I saw all these news articles about a possible solar magnetic storm that was going to hit G4 (severe) last night. Apparently we are in a peak of a 12 year cycle and there aren't many opportunities to see or photograph this so I drove back out to the wildflowers in Anza-Borrego. Also the dune evening primrose are at peak and I didn't get a shot of them on the weekend, so I thought I would kill two birds with one stone.

I found a pretty nice cluster of primrose after wandering around for an hour and setup to photograph that. They form these amazing circles with a ring of flowers on the outside. However, I couldn't see the aurora with the naked eye last night. So I thought I missed it completely. However, when I got back home and edited the photos, I was able to faintly see the aurora colors and edited the photos to make it more prominent. So it's definitely brighter than it was and I'm sure the colors are off a bit compared to if you could actually measure it with a spectrophotometer. Plus there was a lot of light pollution from palm springs that I had to remove.

Anyway, I'm glad I went even though it was a lot of hours in the car. Got a chance to meetup with some more friends in the middle of the night and have coffee and homemade apple pie (thanks Bryan!).

Roadtrip this weekend with photo buddies to the Salton Sea and Anza Borrego. This was my last stop at Henderson Canyon R...
01/19/2026

Roadtrip this weekend with photo buddies to the Salton Sea and Anza Borrego. This was my last stop at Henderson Canyon Rd. Bloom is still going strong and some spots look better than a week or two ago.

I was traveling for Christmas and then when I got back I came down with a stomach bug, so I haven't touched my camera in...
01/06/2026

I was traveling for Christmas and then when I got back I came down with a stomach bug, so I haven't touched my camera in a few weeks. I was going to stay inside today too, but I overcame my inertia to get out. Went to sunset cliffs to take advantage of the low tide.

I knew on a day like today, the big blowhole cave (the cave with the open ceiling) would be packed and a madhouse. I can't stand the crowds. So I went in a different direction and photographed this beauty.

The crescent moon tonight above the SeaWorld tower. From mission bay, around 5:20pm
12/22/2025

The crescent moon tonight above the SeaWorld tower. From mission bay, around 5:20pm

The full moon and king tides. What more could a photographer ask for? This is from this morning at the Pacific Beach Pie...
12/04/2025

The full moon and king tides. What more could a photographer ask for? This is from this morning at the Pacific Beach Pier (Crystal Pier) at 6:18 AM. Single exposure.

Fireworks at the Hotel Del winter festival tonight. A lot of green due to the Oz theme. Apparently the hotel was the ins...
12/04/2025

Fireworks at the Hotel Del winter festival tonight. A lot of green due to the Oz theme. Apparently the hotel was the inspiration, at least in part, for the Emerald City.

This is the crescent moon from last night setting behind the California Tower in Balboa Park. Normally I plan these type...
11/26/2025

This is the crescent moon from last night setting behind the California Tower in Balboa Park. Normally I plan these types of shots out far in advance, but yesterday I was bored and starting playing around in mooncalc, a website that overlays the moon position on an overhead map. It looked like this alignment would work from the NW corner of Balboa Park on Upas st so I gave it go. Photo was at around 9:12PM, single exposure.

When I got there, I ran into a few problems. First there were these giant stage lights on a pole that were right in front of the tower. So had to move south to get a clear view which lowered where the moon intersected the tower. Still ok and I think I like this better than if it were higher and being poked by the weather vane.

Second, I don't really have good gear for these long telephoto zoom shots. I normally like to shoot the moon at shorter focal lengths (normally around 200mm) so I can show more of the environment. But here there wasn't really anything besides the tower and we were really far away so I needed as much zoom as possible. Put my zoom at 400mm with 1.4 teleconverter to get a total of 560mm. But I struggled with getting sharp images. Really struggled. So at the last minute I took off the teleconverter. I felt rushed as the moon was quickly moving into position, so under pressure I fumbled a bit with my gear even though I've done this a million times.

Anyway if you are a photographer, what lens do you like shooting these long moonshots with? My 100-400 is great for environmental moon portraits but it's killing me on these long distance compositions.

This is the crescent moon setting behind the Ocean Beach Pier. The photo was taken about 50 minutes after sunset so ther...
11/25/2025

This is the crescent moon setting behind the Ocean Beach Pier. The photo was taken about 50 minutes after sunset so there is still a bit of red glow on the horizon. The streaks are the stars moving due to the earth's rotation in a long exposure. This is from Nov 2024.

When I was editing this picture, I was thinking about where I would put it on my website. I would normally just put it in my seascape gallery but I realized the pier has now been permanently closed as it's unsafe. At least a few of the supporting pillars have been washed away and I suppose if two pillars that were side-by-side were wrecked by storms, the deck could collapse.

The city is going to let it go and rebuild it instead of maintaining it. So I ended also putting the photo in my abandoned places gallery. It's kinda sad that it isn't going to be repaired but I understand that repair was almost as expensive as replacement.

I used to walk out to the end. I suspect it will be many years before we can do the same with the successor.

San Diego is a lot more than beautiful beaches. Here is the sunset on the rolling hills by Julian. This was from earlier...
11/07/2025

San Diego is a lot more than beautiful beaches. Here is the sunset on the rolling hills by Julian. This was from earlier this week on Tuesday. I drove up Sunrise highway looking for fall color. I stopped at a few spots and found some along the way but decided to continue on to Julian and hike up Volcan mountain.

This is about half way up the main trail. It's fairly steep but not too hard a hike. I think the trees on the right are oak trees (can anyone confirm?) and their leaves have started to turn yellow. It was 10 minutes before sunset and the light made the entire field of grass have this incredible glow.

Starburst -- I've been thinking about making this photo for a while now, but didn't manage to do so until last night. Th...
10/29/2025

Starburst -- I've been thinking about making this photo for a while now, but didn't manage to do so until last night. This is the view towards downtown from the Cabrillo Bridge in Balboa Park with a half moon in the sky (44% full). It was around 7pm. I think it looks a gigantic star that is a beacon for the city.

The moon has a starburst because of the small aperture I used while taking the photo. When the aperture is stopped down on the lens, light diffracts around the edges of the aperture blades in the lens, creating those distinct rays that radiate outward. The effect gives bright points of light, like the moon, a crisp, star-like appearance. You can also see the effect around isolated city lights.

The light trails from the cars are because I used a minute long exposure and the camera recorded all of the headlights and tail lights as streaks.

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