Three Hills
and a Tunnel
Three places that already have their picture. The Civic Center’s is the blue roof from the road. The lighthouse’s is the tower from the top of the stairs at midday. The tunnel’s is the corridor itself: two dark walls of cypress down to the station, or the afternoon stripes across the road. That is a read of what people bring back, not a count. The versions this trip is for are the bright ones: the white station square-on with the 90V, exposed to paper, the cypress only a dark band at the edges; the tower alone and small on a sea gone white; Wright’s arcs stacked flat, square-on, nothing else in the frame. It is ten hours each way with four chargers, so the shape is fixed by the two clocks that do not move: the Friday docent tour, and the stairs closing at four.
The Threads
what the day is really aboutEach of these places is famous for one picture, and the picture is always the wide one. The 90V sees about a third of what the 38V sees, so the method is to stand back and let distance do the work: the white station at the end of the tunnel with the cypress cut to a dark band, the lighthouse a small mark on a white sea, Wright’s arcs flattened until they read as pattern. Expose for the bright part and let it go to paper; give the shadows a floor and stop there. Level, centered, square-on.
And under it one rhythm: a drive day, a building and the stairs, the tunnel at dawn, a drive day. The Friday is the only day with two subjects, and only because the tour and the stairs both keep office hours.
Book the Friday tour first. Be off the stairs by four. Fully off the road at the tunnel. Never under 10%. No snow on the pass.
Teaches · Frontality — after Lewis Baltz · Bernd & Hilla Becher
The Map
where it all is · tap a point for its legOpen the whole day in Google Maps ↗ — in order: Marin County Civic Center · Point Reyes Lighthouse · Cypress Tree Tunnel. It routes from wherever the phone is, and every spot below links its own leg the same way.
Tap any point for the day it belongs to. Everything hangs off two roads: the I-5 north and south, and Sir Francis Drake Boulevard out to the end of the Point Reyes peninsula. San Rafael is the first night, Olema the second and third; the tunnel is twelve miles from Olema and the lighthouse twenty-one.
Three things to book: the Friday 10:30 docent tour ($18, tickets in advance), a night in San Rafael, and two nights in Olema. Point Reyes charges no entrance fee. The thing that cancels a day is wind over 40 mph at the lighthouse; the thing that moves the drive to the 101 is any snow on the Grapevine, open or closed.
The Days
four days · two drives, one building, one dawn and its spareA weekend's unit is the day — each carries a locator map, its theme, and an energy read. A gold pill on the clock means that time belongs to someone else: a door that opens or a slot that was booked. Everything unpilled is a suggested shape, not a schedule.
Nothing to shoot; the job is to arrive with the car full and the body rested.
An open I-5 is not the test; Phase 2 keeps the road open with snow on it. If the answer is no, go up the coast instead: Goleta, Buellton, Paso Robles, King City, Gilroy, San Rafael, about two hours longer, and the tour is still there in the morning.
The climb is the expensive part of the whole drive: about 5,000 ft of climbing before the valley floor, and the plan prices every foot of it. Down the far side and straight to the outlets.
The first of four. Coffee while it fills.
Almonds and aqueduct. Nothing on the shot list for three hundred miles, which is the point of doing it in one day.
Eat here. The next stop is a charger with less around it.
The longest flat stretch. Cruise control and the speed limit are worth a few percent.
Take it higher than feels necessary. The last leg is the longest and ends in Bay Area traffic.
Over the pass, through the East Bay and across the bridge as the light goes. Sunset in San Rafael is about five.
Fill it tonight so Friday has no charging in it until Olema. Then the hotel, dinner, bed by nine. The hotel is not chosen here; anything near downtown San Rafael is three miles from the Civic Center.
Two subjects, two clocks that belong to someone else, and the sunset as the reward for keeping both.
The county’s directions: pass under the building on Peter Behr Drive and take the first left into the parking. The entrance is in the passage you just drove through.
The only way into the Board of Supervisors chambers and their private balcony, which is where you are eye level with the blue roof. The 90V is the lens for the balcony: the roof’s curve filling the frame with no sky, the blue going pale in the even light. Inside, the tour passes the 1958 model and the skylit public mall; note where the long views down the mall are, for after.
Three frames, in this order. The mall, from an upper level, looking down its length under the skylights: 38V, centered, the balcony edges converging. The arcs: the long wing that runs 150°/330° (OSM) has a face looking out west-southwest, and the noon sun reaches it from your right as you face it, about 55–65° off square, so every arch carries its own crescent of shadow. 90V, square-on, no roofline, no ground. The spire, 172 ft of three-sided gold: put the sun behind you and the spire on a pale sky, 90V, and let the sky go nearly white.
Through the dairy country to the end of the road. The last miles cross open ranchland on a narrow road; it is slower than the map says.
Uphill on a paved road from the lot to the visitor center at the top of the stairs. A 14:15 arrival is the afternoon the NPS warns about; the plan has twenty minutes of slack before the stairs, so an overflow park comes out of the Civic Center, not out of the stairs.
The stairs drop toward the light at about 247°, and the sun sits twenty to thirty degrees left of that line and low, so everything below you is backlit. The lead frame is the tower alone: 90V from partway down, the lantern room and the white tower small below you on a sea gone to a bright sheet, nothing else in the frame. Expose for the sea at about +1 and let the tower go to charcoal, not black. That is not the picture people bring back from the top of the stairs. Then the 38V for the stair as a diagonal into the bright sea, the tower where it ends: the familiar one, backlit. The climb back is 313 steps, 10–20 minutes by the NPS count; start up by 15:45.
The sun sets about five degrees left of the tower as seen from up here. The tower is ~70 m below the deck (NPS), about fifteen degrees below the horizon, so in landscape the 90V’s ~21° vertical field barely holds both: the tower clips at the bottom edge. Turn the camera vertical (~27° of height) and aim seven or eight degrees down: the light near the bottom of the frame, the sun and its path across the water above and left of it. Or let the sun go out of the top and let its path on the water carry the frame. Stay on the deck and behind the rail; the area off-trail is closed. If the wind is loud enough to make you brace, take the stair frames and leave before sunset.
Walk down while there is still light in the sky.
The one dark drive on the trip, and the reason the sunset is a judgment call rather than the plan.
Check in, plug in, eat. Only six stalls: if one is free at check-in, take it before dinner. In bed by nine — the car leaves at 06:15.
The lead frame of the trip, and the one that most depends on being first.
In the dark, through Inverness Park and along the bay. Slow for wildlife.
First the corridor, as a warm-up: from the Sir Francis Drake end, the drive runs away from you northwest for about 300 m and the sun comes up behind your right shoulder. From civil light at 07:00 to about 07:40 the corridor is evenly lit and empty, and the white station at the end is the brightest thing in it. 90V, level, dead center: the cypress on each side compress into two dark walls, the drive is one pale stripe, and the building sits small at the end. This is the tunnel picture everyone already has, and it is dark. The lead frame is next: by ~07:20 walk up the edge of the drive until the station fills the middle third, 90V, square to the facade and level, and expose the white wall to paper (+1 to +1.7, histogram stacked right) so the last cypress on each side become a dark band at the edges and nothing else. Its distance and the facade’s width are not measured; walk until the band is thin. Whether the low sun reaches the station’s face through the trees after 07:50 is not modeled: look for it, and do not wait past 08:15 for it. If it is dark, foggy and cars are using the drive, wait for full light rather than standing in it.
The white Art Deco station RCA built in 1929–31 for KPH. 38V from the end of the public drive, square to the facade, level, the building and the pale sky above it, exposed the same way.
Breakfast, and look at the cards. If the tunnel frame is there, Sunday’s dawn is free.
Five flat hours. The light at noon in January is thirty degrees up and does nothing for any of the three subjects. If Friday’s stairs were shut by wind and 415-669-1534 says they open on Saturday (the NPS page contradicts itself), this is when you leave for them instead: 21 mi, ~43 min, and a Saturday afternoon is the worst time for the 38-car lot (NPS), so go early.
Back for the version everyone else comes for, to see whether your own reading of it is any different.
The sun now crosses the drive from the left at about a right angle, so the gaps between trunks throw bars of light across the road. 90V again from the road end: the bars compress into a ladder and the station goes into shade. This is the picture people bring back; the reason to make it is to know, side by side, whether the morning one is better. 🔴 Use judgment: more cars, more people stepping into the drive for the same frame.
Home in the last light.
Fill it tonight; Sunday is the long one.
The spare is the point of the third night; if Saturday worked, sleep through it.
Fog, cars, or a frame that did not hold up on the card: this is the second try.
Same stand, same lens, same exposure. Go straight to the 90V from the road end; you know the frame now.
Breakfast and check out.
Ninety-one miles and the pass to the next charger.
Back the way you came in, in daylight and against the traffic.
Take it to full even though the taper is slow; the next leg is the longest of the trip.
The long flat leg. Nothing to do but hold the speed limit.
Lunch while it fills, and read the pass before you eat. From Tejon the coast detour is 125 miles of backtracking at the edge of the range; from here it is 76 miles to Paso Robles. Decide now.
To the foot of the Grapevine.
The last one. Net, the pass costs nothing on the way home, but the climb up to it is real and the plan charges every foot of it.
Over the top after the light has gone and down into the basin. A thirteen-hour day if you took the dawn, about eleven if you did not, which is why the dawn is skipped by default. If you are tired at Tejon, stay longer, or stay the night.
The Spots
where to stand · what the light does · who built itThree subjects, three lenses of distance. Every frame names its lens and carries a verdict: fine, use judgment, or avoid. Tap a spot’s map for driving directions to where you park.
- Stand
- On the Friday docent tour for the Board chambers and their balcony; on your own after 12:00 in the public mall and on the grounds. Fine — a public building on a weekday; photography of the building is allowed, filming the docent is not (county).
- Light
- 10:30 sun 25° at 153°; 12:00 30° at 176°; 12:30 30° at 184°. The long wing’s west-southwest face (it looks out at ~240°) is raked from your right as you face it from noon, so each arch carries a crescent of shadow; the faces looking east-northeast are in shade and read flat. Inside, the mall is lit from the skylights and has no direction at all, which is exactly what a high-key frame wants.
- Frame
- Wright’s arcs stacked flat, square-on with the 90V, no roof, no ground, the shadows given a floor. Or the mall with the 38V, dead center, the skylight light carrying it.
- See
- Long horizontal buildings that link the crowns of three hills, with a blue roof, a 172-ft gold spire and a skylit public mall added after Wright died; furniture built in San Quentin’s wood shop.
- Stand
- On the stairs between 10:00 and 16:00 (NPS; closed Tuesday mornings; Saturday not verified), then on the observation deck at their top. Fine on the stairs below 40 mph; use judgment on the deck at sunset alone, and for the dark drive back; avoid everything off-trail west of the lot, which the NPS closes.
- Light
- 15:00 sun 19° at 219°; 15:45 13° at 228°; sunset ~17:10 at 242°. The light bears ~247° from the top of the stairs, so everything below you is backlit: the sea goes to a bright sheet, the tower and the rail go dark. At sunset the disc goes into the water about five degrees left of the tower.
- Frame
- The tower alone on a white sea, 90V from partway down the stairs, small and dark below you. Expose for the sea at +1; the tower stops at charcoal.
- See
- A lighthouse set low on the cliff at the end of the peninsula, 313 steps below the visitor center, with nothing west of it but water.
- Stand
- On the Sir Francis Drake end, car on the shoulder fully off the road (NPS), you at the edge of the drive. Use judgment: dawn, a working drive into an NPS operations center, so high-vis, never mid-lane, and step off for every car; if it is dark and foggy with traffic, wait for light.
- Light
- Civil 07:00, sunrise 07:29 at 118°, 156° off the drive’s 322° axis: behind your right shoulder, so the corridor is evenly lit and the station is the brightest thing in it until the sun clears the east (not modeled, likely ~07:50). At 15:00–16:00 the sun is 19–11° up at 219–231°, crossing from the left, and throws bars of light over the road.
- Frame
- The white station to paper: 90V from up the drive, square to the facade, the wall exposed nearly white, the last cypress only a dark band at the edges. The dark corridor from the road end is the shared picture; take it first, as a warm-up.
- See
- About 300 m of cypress, planted about 1930 along the drive to the white Art Deco station RCA built for KPH, ship-to-shore radio for most of the century.
Before You Go
the camera card, the range table, and the numbers to callCamera
- Hasselblad X2D II + 38V and 90V — the 90V on the body for most of it
- ISO 50 in daylight; f/5.6–f/8 on the 90V; stabilizer on, a tripod at the tunnel before 07:30 if you carry one
- Exposure Information + Spirit Level overlay on — every frame here is level and centered
- the histogram stacked right on the bright frames, never clipped on the subject
- 🔴 no drone anywhere in Point Reyes (NPS)
Body
- High-vis layer for the tunnel shoulder
- Headlamp — the lighthouse walk down and the tunnel before civil light
- Wind shell and warm layers; the headland is cold and loud in January
- Legs for 313 steps back up, before four
Car
- 🔴 North: Tejon Ranch · Kettleman City · Santa Nella · San Rafael
- 🔴 South: Olema top-up · Tracy to 100% · Coalinga · Tejon Ranch
- Olema has only 6 stalls; Novato (20) and San Rafael (8) are the backups
- Precondition the battery on cold mornings; leave on 100%; arrive nowhere under 10%
- 🔴 Snow on the Grapevine, open or closed: the 101 north (Goleta, Buellton, Paso Robles, King City, Gilroy); south, decide at Coalinga
Numbers
- Lighthouse Visitor Center · 415-669-1534 · stairs, wind, Saturday
- Point Reyes National Seashore · 415-464-5100
- Marin Cultural Services · 415-473-6014 · the tour
- Caltrans CHIN · (800) 427-7623 · QuickMap, quickmap.dot.ca.gov · Tejon Pass
What You Got
the frames that survived the editThe geotag gets each frame close to where it stood — close, not exact; the last hundred yards are always a hunt. What a machine can't do is the part below: which ones survived, and whether the day was worth the drive.
The frame of the trip.
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Did the station go to paper with the cypress as a thin band, or did it read as a building in trees?
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Did the tower alone on the white sea read as a mark, or as the postcard?
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Did Wright’s arcs read as pattern with the 90V, or as a building?
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After
what the day taughtIs ten hours each way worth three subjects?
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The tunnel at dawn against the tunnel at three — which one is mine?
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Was the third night in Olema the right insurance, or should it have been San Francisco?
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Wednesday’s tour and a Thursday at the lighthouse — would that shape have been calmer?
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