Santa Monica Pier Kind Of Day

This pier has got to be one of the most iconic piers in the world. It’s been in countless movies and it’s fairly easy to recognize out of all the other piers here in the West Coast.

I’ve been to this pier hundreds of times throughout my time living in California. The beach and pier are very beautiful during all seasons and at all times. But by far my favorite is sunset.

As the sun sets over the beach, it casts a beautiful golden glow upon the pier. In the winter you get the mist forming over the water that also glows as the sun set over the horizon. It almost looks fake.

I decided I’d go and take photos only using my 35mm lens. I used an old DigiCam as well just for the nostalgia. I sprinkled some photos from the DigiCam in here as well.

The bright colors of the roller coaster and buildings pop out with the blue skies. This place is great if you want to do a bit of street photography as well. You can often find people sitting on benches staring at the water, people along the railings giving you some cool compositions, and people fishing as well which also allows you to get some great images.

I decided to take some video this time around. I realized that I have never really take any video while I’ve explored this pier. I wanted to try out the HGL video on my Sony and color grade it later on. After a few clips, I was satisfied.

The sun began to set and it got a bit cold. I didn’t bring a sweater so I only had until blue hour before it got uncomfortably cold.

This sunset was beautiful, but it was amazing. The clouds were nothing exceptional so it didn’t disperse the light like it usually does.

I did love the way the light gave the ways a nice cast of color to contrast from the green color of the water. As soon as the sun began to set, you saw everyone leaving the each and heading to their cars. The temperatures drop pretty fast here.

The lights started to turn on at the pier and it began to have that neon glow. I thought about staying longer and taking some night shots, but I’ve taken photos of these buildings lots of times and I didn’t think I could produce anything new or interesting.

Just as I was walking to the steps, I noticed there was 3 ladies taking a photo of the fleeting light over the horizon. 1 had black hair, another blonde and the last one was a red head. I thought it was pretty cool and took a few photos of them while they were taking photos of the sunset.

The pier has its main stairs closed off. They are doing some construction on them so you have to use the ones on the south side. I’ve never used these before but this side of the pier is also nice.

I had to go thought a tunnel to get to the parking lot, but even that looked pretty cool. The beach was still full of people walking, riding bikes and rollerblading, playing volleyball and just hanging around and enjoying the beach breeze.

The whole ambiance made it hard for me to leave. I was debating on riding a scooter along the beach for a while but decided to just head home instead.

There's not much to say about how amazing it feels to spend some alone time at the pier or the beach. I highly recommend anyone to do so.