Capturing Brown Pelican Images In La Jolla With Lukas Griffin

Surrounded by the sea and backed by the steep slopes of Mt. Soledad, La Jolla's natural beauty can be found in the abundance of activities that the village has to offer. The area has rightly earned a nickname - "the jewel" of San Diego. This is likely due to its views of outstanding shores and sought-after beaches. It’s true that La Jolla has much to offer in the way of picturesque landscapes, but it’s not just the sun, sea or sands that stole my heart. In fact, one of my favorite attributes of the area can only be discovered during the winter months at La Jolla Cove. 

Every year, during the colder seasons, the cliffs at La Jolla Cove become home soil to breeding Brown Pelicans. If you pay a visit to the coves at this time of year, the birds can be seen swooping around the coast in numbers according to the size of their flock. To look at, these birds are anything but dull. If you’re lucky enough to catch a sighting of Brown Pelicans during the summer months, both their size, elegance and general being is impressive. However, in the winter, there is something a little different about their appearance. If you’ve seen Brown Pelicans before, you may have noticed that their feathers tend to be pretty mono-toned, but in the winter, vibrant red coloring can be spotted down the backs and sides of their necks. 

Some time ago, I was actually lucky enough to capture a magnitude of images during the warmer weather of Brown Pelicans in flight over the Pacific Ocean. This shoot was very successful, as there seemed to be an abundance of Brown Pelican images to capture down by the beach.

Click here to view the artwork featured above: Whoosh V - Windansea Beach, Southern California. 

Shoot Schedule - I spent a number of hours in this location, just capturing every aspect and angle possible of the birds presented. From the pictures taken on this shoot, I managed to create quite the collection of Brown Pelican images and I intend on visiting the cliffs at La Jolla Cove to capture these wonderful birds with their new addition of striking colors. 

Supposedly, the best time of day to visit the cliffs during the colder months is from sunrise through to mid-morning. This is largely due to the colorful plumage displayed from late December to February and the clear skies and sunlight which San Diego offers make for excellent shooting conditions. If you are fortunate, the wind will be offshore and, in your favor, when you are capturing pictures of Pelicans on the beach. 

If you manage to schedule your trip to the La Jolla cliffs carefully, you will likely share the small cliff top area with fewer people than if you visit on the weekend. The fewer photographers occupying the limited space on the cliffs, the better. 

Upon arriving you may not find many pelicans on the cliffs, or none at all. On the other hand, you may stumble across a whole crowd of them. Regardless of what you may first see, move slowly so that the birds that are there can become used to your presence and are not startled and move away to flight. Usually, the Pelicans that are on settled on the cliffs are there to rest, and if they are flushed, they will likely settle down on another cliff and not return for quite a while.

Click here to view the artwork featured above: Rhythm - Windansea Beach, Southern California.

Lighting - The waxing light before sunrise can offer such a pleasing pastel-colored background for Brown Pelican images. When shooting at this location during the early hours of the morning, you may spot fellow photographers and admirers of the birds, just waiting for the opportunity to capture a shot. I often see photographers combining pastel-colored ambient lights with a strobe fill. 

This is a delicate balance of light and is made difficult by the need for high ISO, as freezing the wings with shutter speed will be very important when capturing pictures of Pelicans on the beach. However, a high ISO will mean that you must not underexpose to avoid excessive shadow noise. Don’t be afraid to meter so that the clear dawn sky, with the sun at your back, is at +2 or more stops, decreasing gradually as the sun rises. A Better Beamer can be helpful to increase the distance of your flash, and a bracket will serve to position the flash off of the axis of the lens. 

Around 30 minutes after the sun has begun to rise, direct sunlight will reach cliffs, this light will be ever so slightly blocked for a while by La Jolla’s Mount Soledad. You will find that you can frame up the resting and preening pelicans that are standing on the cliff edges with attractive front lighting, by ensuring that your shadow is pointed directly at the birds.  

Focused Frames - Framing individual birds against a distant, out of focus, pleasing blue or green ocean backdrop is dead easy. The key to creating a defocused background is to place a relatively uncomplicated background at a great distance relative to the subject and I was actually lucky enough to capture what has come to be one of my favorite images in this way. Click the link below to view this capture close-up. 

In La Jolla the pelicans are 15-50′ (5-15m) from you while the background cliffs, waves or blue ocean range from a hundred yards to a mile away or more. With distance ratios like that it is possible to stop down to f/8 or f/11 to hold depth of field on the subject with a 500mm lens and still achieve a defocused background, making the subject’s edges appear especially sharp. 

I would recommend taking advantage of the soft background and leave negative space in some of your vertical compositions to allow for that cover shot that will allow you to retire early. Before the sun climbs too high it is possible to put a catchlight from the sun in your pelican’s eye, or to maximize the visibility of water droplets on a pelican that has just returned from the water. 

To do this, position your subject so that the sun is directly behind you and low. If the shadow of your lens lies just to the side of your subject, you are in the right spot to go ahead and capture a magnitude of Brown Pelican images.

Click here to view the artwork featured above: Whoosh VI - Windansea Beach, Southern California. 

Ideal Forecast - For best Brown Pelican images of these birds in flight, I always find myself hoping for a clear horizon and frequent offshore morning breezes, so that the Pelicans approach the cliffs upwind and are front lit as they fly directly toward the lens. In this way their faces and undersides are illuminated as they spread those huge wings to soar and land. 

It is tempting to shoot frames when capturing pictures of Pelicans on the beach as they fly past, and I have certainly shot my share of those. However, over time I have found that in nearly every case side lighting produces an image that is too harsh and gets tossed. If you do not have offshores don’t despair; often upon approach to the cliffs the Pelicans will wheel and make a second pass before deciding where to set down, especially if the cliff is already crowded with Pelicans or people. Take advantage of these loops to obtain the angle that you need. 

When shooting Pelicans in flight in La Jolla the background will quickly change from bright sky to deep blue ocean water, whitewash and waves to brown sandstone cliffs. These situations will fool your light meter and, if you are shooting in one of the automatic modes, will often produce blown head and wing highlights or an underexposed bird. Metering with a handheld incident meter, or using your in-camera spot meter on a neutral area such as a grey-covered rock, is recommended. 

Braking - Pelicans have a habit of braking dramatically as they land so, if you are standing back on the top of the cliffs and are hoping to capture pictures of Pelicans on the beach with their wings spread wide, you may want to step forward a bit and aim for the lower cliffs. I find the vantage point shooting down at the lower cliffs works better for me, since the Pelicans landing there are rising up off the water at an angle that takes them straight at you and with undersides well illuminated. 

Another reason why I like shooting from a higher vantage point is actually because of the Pelicans that just suddenly appear from below the edge of the top cliffs. Those landing on the lower cliffs are easier to track and focus as they approach over the water. 

So, that concludes my guide to capturing pictures of Pelicans on the beach. I hope that you have found this article both intriguing and useful from a photography standpoint.      

If you are an art curator, looking to expand the collection of brown Pelican images in your home, you can view the artworks featured within this article using the links provided.     

If you’d like to keep up to date, feel free to visit my Instagram page @lukasgriffin for further examples of my photography work. 

PHOTO CREDITS

All photos used within this article are courtesy of Lukas Griffin.

All images are available to purchase as prints, view all collections.