Narrow sticks emerge at regular intervals from the water, silhouetted in the reflected sunset, raising more questions than they can answer along the shoreline of the evaporating Salton Sea.
Hints of Structure on the Shore
Tag: Beach
Bombay (More) Beach
As I noted last week, the gradual evaporation of the Salton Sea has left Bombay Beach with more and more of its namesake. The outlines of the town show where the earthen sea wall was constructed to protect it from flooding that now seems less and less likely; the comparatively more green-hued beach shows the areas that were more recently submerged.
Tetrahedron Beached
The slow disappearance of the Salton Sea has moved dramatic art pieces, like this tetrahedron that once rose mysteriously from the water, onto a broad expanse of beach where some of their magic evaporates with the sea.
Sunset on 2025
We’ve reached the end of 2025 and I’ll celebrate with what I think is one of my best shots of the year—and also just chronologically one of the last shots of the year. The tiny camper van and far-off lights add a sense of scale, saying “goodbye” to the distant events of that past time. Happy New Year!
Swing Is Dry Now
The Bombay Beach Ruins is a sculpture garden on the shallow shores of the Salton Sea, and this particular swing is the site of some of my favorite pictures—but the gradual evaporation of the sea has stranded a symbol of whimsy and magic on the beach as, well, just a regular swing now.
Gray Day at Pacific Beach
Though sun and fun and surf (and turf?) may be the core of the SoCal identity, even Pacific Beach gets a gray winter day.
Vineyard Haven Thanksgiving Panorama
Heading back to the mainland after a Thanksgiving on Martha’s Vineyard, I captured this panorama from the upper deck of the Steamship Authority ferry. The width of our decaseconds homepage doesn’t do it justice; I recommend clicking through and zooming in to see all of the details on Flickr.
The House by the Dunes
This lonely cottage by the dunes and brush of a late-autumn Atlantic beach reminds me of a half-remembered setting from The Spy Who Came in from the Cold near the start of the novel, on the Dutch coast. There’s a lonely quiet to the image but the road and house suggest some respite on the horizon.
Edgartown Harbor Lighthouse
Down at the end of the long and windswept path to Lighthouse Beach and the Edgartown Harbor Lighthouse, can you spot the little figure of the walker between the bushes?
All Along the Coast of Martha’s Vineyard
Tiny details of docks and homes and lighthouses against the grand scope of a late-autumn Martha’s Vineyard coastline make this a image for which I would really encourage you to click through to the full-sized version on Flickr.
Atlantic Track Corrosion
Atlantic weather ages every part of Martha’s Vineyard, but the combination of textures and colors of age (rusted iron, grayed cedar, turned leaves) really captures a broad spectrum of possibility. The somewhat “impossible” geometry of the image places them in juxtaposition.
Edgartown Fall Wedding Party
A walk on a crisp fall morning with a dramatic sky is just a little better when it’s also a wedding day.
Bridge Over Overijsselse Vecht
A blue hour expanse in the Netherlands with everything expected of the location: steeples, windmills, bike paths, fields of grasses, and… A beach? Given the sub-15ºC weather, this felt particularly charming but out of place.
Museum Reflection
The summer sun in the Netherlands is still scattering through the sky well after 10:00 PM, providing a companion to the reflection of this tin soldier museum on the grassy banks of the Vechte River.
Salton Skies
Bombay Beach‘s beach keeps expanding as the Salton Sea dries back to where it was at the start of the twentieth century, making for an enormous span to match the enormous arc of sky above.
Decaseconds 