Fluid Dynamics

This is Ocean Beach from Point Lobos in San Francisco. My wife and I were having dinner at the Cliff House restaurant when the colors started changing and, as usual, I had to excuse myself from the table. There’s no getting around the fact that the spouse of a photographer is long-suffering.

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Fluid Dynamics
From a distance, crowds seem to mimic the flow of water

It’s interesting how the people on the beach are evenly distributed. Have you ever notice how crowds of people seem to mimic fluid dynamics? Here they’re evenly dispersed like little water molecules on the sand. You can see this phenomenon when you view crowds from a distance. At a certain level, people follow the laws of physics. We observe the same behavior in traffic patterns which is then used to model highways and ramps.

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In a previous post and similar picture from this beach, I compared the grains of sand to stars in the universe. It seems that whenever I look at this scene I’m reminded of the order of things, and how that order repeats regardless of the scale. Food for thought from someone who can’t sit long enough to eat.

Going with the Flow

I took this along the Pacific Coast Highway in California. It was the beginning of an all-night drive along one of the country’s most scenic highways. I didn’t intend to drive that far, it just kind of happened that way. One thing led to another and I just kept driving late into the night.

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Going with the Flow
This was the beginning of an all night road trip down the coast of California

The area is so scenic that if you are a photographer you’ll want to stop a lot. I had a morning flight the next day so rather than sleep, I grabbed a Red Bull and headed down the highway. I ended up a couple hundred miles south before turning around. Arriving at my hotel around six I had just enough time to freshen up and head to the airport.

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Even at night there was a lot to see; stars overhead, the beacon from a lighthouse, and the moonlit cliffs of the pacific range as it falls into the ocean. The trip wasn’t planned, but sometimes the best things in life are experienced when you just go with the flow.