Photographing Big Sur – Where to Find Perfect Shots and How to Take Them: 0 (Photographers Guide)

Although we have seen many beautiful shots taken along the dramatic Big Sur coastline by top professional photographers over the years in magazines like Life and National Geographic, few but a handful of locals knew where to find the most dramatic locations, when's best to shoot them, and how best to control the shoot. Steakley reveals what local photographers consider closely guarded secrets. I know because I have tried to get them to reveal them but without success. Because I live close enough and spend as much time as I can in Big Sur, I have discovered some of the locations but not many of them. And I didn't know the best time and exact shooting location to get the best, most professional shots. Steakley has shot all around the world, taking photos for Nat Geo and other top publications. (He has some wonderful shots on his website.) I especially enjoyed the beginning section, which reviewed basic shooting information but also taught me many things I didn't know before. Shooting landscape is different than shooting nature, portraits, etc. and he explains how to get the best shots - clearest photos, best depth of field, warmest colors, and so on. It has become my favorite book on landscape photography. If you live on the Central Coast or plan to visit Big Sur, or would like to shoot landscape photos anywhere, this is a "must have" book!

I liked Doug's book. It was a very useful reference for a very recent (late January, 2013) trip up the California coast precisely convergent with Mr. Steakley's itinerary. He covers all the high points and "must-sees" (Point Lobos was a spectacular finish to our south-to-north trek). However, I was VERY disappointed to see my copy fall completely apart during our one week drive up the coast. Virtually every page came out of the binding...a messy inconveniance to say the least. All in all, excellent content that is very useful for the planning process, but poorly constructed from a manufacturing standpoint. Handle with extreme care.

This was my first visit to the Big Sur area so, just the fact that it covers quite a large area, and there are so many points of interest, I wanted to have some assistance. Having only four days in which to photograph as many points of interest meant you have to plan your days. Without this guide I would have been just another tourist pulling off at each and every turn off along the highway and wasting preciuos time. While photographing along the coast I even ran into a couple who had purchased the same book. At that point we started to share with each other locations for each other to visit that we found to be worth the effort and time. Thanks to Doug for providing this guide, I was able to plan, and photograph, as much as possible in my four days. I would recommend this to anyone who is planning to visit Big Sur even if it is just to vacation, they would find this guide helpful.

Overall, I found this book to be pretty underwhelming. It comes in at under 100 pages and just isn't very helpful.If you've driven up and down HWY 1, you've most likely already photographed all the places mentioned in the book. I was hoping for some more depth - recommended trails, hikes, secret spots, best vantage points, etc.

Not even gotten to the text, and found the 3 maps at the front of the book with numbered locations keyed to numbered locations in the text are unreadable at the 100% view, and enlarging them causes them to fall apart and also be unreadable.The book may be fine, but this is unacceptable. The point of the maps is to show visually the locations of the points of interest, but they are reproduced so as to be useless. Why doesn't someone at Amazon check this, or does no one care? This is not the first time I have run into this at Kindle, and I am not putting up with it. Price is only $2 less than a real book- spend the money and get something useable.