I arrived at Point Arena Lighthouse early in the morning, when the warm, soft light of a Pacific Coast morning would be streaming across California and out over the ocean. Everything went to plan, except access to the grounds was prohibited at such an early hour. So I set up down the coast, looking northward over the rocky shoreline. The locked gate had been a disguised blessing: I loved this angle, and I might not have found it if I'd gotten closer to the lighthouse.
