Rangefinder Photography: The magnificent Monterey Peninsula with a Leica-M kit

It’s the perennial puzzle for travelling photographers: what gear should I take on my next trip? On this occasion, I had no problem selecting a kit for a visit to a photographer’s dream location. I was off to the Monterey Peninsula, one of the most scenic locations in a spectacularly scenic state – California. And, it seemed the perfect opportunity to put my developing rangefinder photography skills to the test. So, off I went, with a Leica-M kit and no safety net.

On my first post-pandemic excursions to Italy, and then the Iberian Peninsula, I travelled with just a Leica Q2. It proved to be a great choice. But on a recent trip Down Under, I expanded my options. In addition to the Q2, I took a Leica SL2 and Lumix 20-60mm f/3.5-5.6 combo. This also turned out to be a winning move.

Congratulating myself on my new-found adventurous spirit, I decided to try out yet another travel-photography-gear configuration.

My next trip would entail a short flight, rental car pickup, and four day driving tour of the Monterey Peninsula. You can see it in the first map, in relation to San Francisco, where we landed. The Monterey Bay Aquarium, one of the places we planned to visit, is highlighted.

This short trip offered a golden opportunity to find out if I could truly use a rangefinder camera in anger. Surely, my Leica-M kit, comprising an M240 and three lenses, would be easy to carry and cover all photographic eventualities?

The Monterey Peninsula

The Central Coast region of California lies between San Francisco, to the North and Los Angeles, to the South. Unlike those two book-end conurbations, it is a much more sparsely populated region. Its most famous strip of rugged coastline is known as Big Sur. Tourists traverse it by the equally well-known Pacific Coast Highway or Route 1.

The Monterey Peninsula juts out into the Pacific, to the north of Big Sur and South of Santa Cruz (second map, above). The city of Monterey sits at its northern end and Carmel-by-the-Sea at its southern end (third map, above). Between Santa Cruz and Monterey lies Monterey Bay.

Monterey will forever be associated with the Nobel-Prize winning American author, John Steinbeck. He was born in nearby Salinas, and spent many years living and writing in Monterey. One of the city’s main streets was renamed ‘Cannery Row’, after Steinbeck’s novel of that name. It speaks to the sardine fishing and canning businesses that were centred in Monterey during the last century.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium

Monterey Bay is home to a rich and highly diverse ecosystem. The world-famous Monterey Bay Aquarium features many creatures known to inhabit the surrounding waters. Sea otters are probably the most famous nearby ocean dwellers. We saw several frolicking amongst drifting kelp rafts out in the bay, while having dinner one evening.

The aquarium is built on the site of a former sardine canning factory, whose original pipework and ovens have been incorporated as displays. Appropriately, it sits on Cannery Row, a stone’s throw from the hotel at which we stayed. It is regularly voted as one of the top family tourist attraction on the West Coast, and one of the world’s best aquariums.

Interior and exterior of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, illustrating its adjacency to the bay, its origins as a canning factory, and an orca replica, with exposed ducting in the ceiling above

Although the aquarium has many superb displays, two in particular were stand-outs.

Kelp garden

The first, for me the centrepiece of the aquarium, was a gigantic, cylindrical kelp garden. Visitors can view the tank’s marine life from multiple floors, and almost every angle around a 360 degree radius. Monterey Bay supplies the water inside. Careful temperature control, together with copious sunlight from above, and gentle wave motion supplied by a huge piston at the top of the tank, are critical for the healthy growth of the kelp.

Photographing creatures inside the tank posed a few challenges. Firstly, crowds of visitors stand in front of its windows, blocking the view. In addition, window reflections often complicated framing. Finally, the fish did not always cooperate, choosing to change direction and swim away at the last moment.

Fortunately, we were able to secure a couple of seats for a feeding display. Over a loudspeaker, a scuba diver submerged in the tank talked us through the feeding regime, surrounded by hungry fish. A number of small sharks pushed themselves to the head of the line.

Jellyfish

The second, breathtaking display highlighted the jellyfish collection. The aquarium is a world-leader in the captive breeding of jellyfish, and the first to successfully raise several rare species. The superb illumination of the tank, together with the slow pulsating movement of the jellyfish, was mesmerising. I found it hypnotic, and could have stared at the display all day.

I used my 75mm Summarit to photograph individual jellyfish. For ‘shoals’, I used a 35 mm Summilux. The contrasting colours, remarkable shapes, and intertwined tendrils give the images an almost abstract quality.

There were of course many other fascinating displays and demonstrations to enjoy. Penguin feeding was extremely popular, and so I had to resort to shooting from the back of the crowd. The 75mm Summarit, plus some cropping in post-processing, came in handy for this session.

It was back to the 35mm Summilux though for a shot of the tropical tank. This featured brightly coloured, live coral and a rainbow collection of small fish.

I was carrying my lenses in a Billingham, Small Pro camera bag. This offered plenty of spaces to drop in the previous lens while installing the new one. Overall, lens-changing throughout the trip was uneventful. No lenses were dropped onto concrete floors. A zoom would have been easier, but optically, the three prime-lens kit delivered great photos.

17-Mile Drive

There are a number of ways to drive from Monterey to Carmel-by-the-Sea, at the southern end of the Monterey Peninsula. But by far the most scenic, and the most famous, is the 17-Mile Drive. It costs $12. That’s just over 70 cents per mile. It is worth it.

Within a few minutes of beginning the drive, you reach the ocean. Here, you can marvel at the deep blue water and crashing waves, as several currents converge, roiling the ocean surface.

Soon, you reach ‘Bird Rock’, sitting a hundred yards off the coast, painted white by perpetual deposits of guano. Birds excrete their nitrogenous waste in the form of uric acid, which forms a water-insoluble, sticky white paste. It makes a great fertilizer, if you are prepared to risk life and limb to paddle to the rock and scrape it off.

Further along, you pass grand châteaux, hiding behind dry-stone walls, looking as if they had been air-dropped from Bordeaux. And then, you come to one of the most famous views in the world.

The Lone Cypress

One of the most photographed trees in the US, this Monterey Cypress sits on a granite headland, overlooking Carmel Bay. Although its exact age is unclear, it probably grew from a seed that landed on this spot around 1750. This was before California became part of the United States. Monterey Cypress are rare, growing only in one region of the Monterey Peninsula, and the nearby Point Lobos Nature Reserve. So, this isolated specimen is a rare treasure of nature, indeed.

It is a magnificent sight. Its survival for centuries, alone on a rocky promontory, exposed to the elements, is an inspiration for nature lovers. I defy anyone who sees it in person to remain unmoved by the beauty of the scene: the weathered profile of the Cypress; the rocky cliff it sits upon; the blue ocean and crashing waves below; the distant, cloud-topped headland in the distance. It has it all.

I took many photographs of the tree, from multiple angles and locations. I shot the two above, which are uncropped, using my 75mm Summarit and 35mm Summilux. They are both fabulous lenses.

Pebble Beach and beyond

There are many other famous stops along the 17-Mile Drive. The golfers amongst you will have heard of the Pebble Beach Golf Club. I can understand why this is a regular venue for the US Open. The setting is sensational, and the views from the course, breathtaking.

Eventually, the route comes to an end. My first impulse was to turn around, hand over another $12 and drive it again, in the other direction. However, other attractions awaited, and so on we drove, to one of the most charming, and storied towns in California.

But that’s a story for next time.

Here is the previous article in this series

And, here is the second article in the series

The first article in the series

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