Blog | Jakob Berr Photography

After four months as editing interns with ZUMAPRESS, the time has come for Beth and I to move on to new horizons. My summer internship with the Denver Post will start on June 6, which left us enough time to embark on a roadtrip and visit some of the most beautiful parts of the West Coast.

I was hoping to blog about this trip more regularly and more often, but internet access and the time to edit pictures and prepare blog posts are hard to come by when the road is your home. Currently, we are stranded in a cheap motel in a not-so-good area of Fresno, Calif., after the mountains in Yosemite and Los Padres National Forest ate up the breaks of my car. Since no mechanic is open on Memorial Day, we had no choice but to wait until tomorrow – which finally gives me a chance to post the first chapter of the Big Trip: San Clemente to Big Sur.

Over the next couple of days, I will post several more chapters of the trip, so please check back soon!

Originally, we planned to drive the Pacific Coast Highway all the way to Big Sur. A couple of weeks before we left, however, a rock slide rendered parts of the road impassable and forced us to take a little detour through the Santa Lucia Mountains. We didn’t know it at the time, but this turned out to be a beautiful stroke of luck.

The detour took us along the Nacimiento-Fergusson Road through the Ventana Wilderness of Los Padres National Forest. The pass winds up to a total elevation of 2780 ft., where the low-hanging clouds coming in from the Pacific engulf the mountains in an almost magical fog penetrated by soft sunlight. This unique topography and climate have given birth to a stunning and unique ecosystem: Literally out of the blue you turn around a corner and drive from an arid, montane chaparral into a rain forest-like woodland where huge, ancient redwood trees grow out of sight into the soft, grey silence of the clouds.

Driving on the US-101 N near San Miguel, Calif., May 18, 2011.

Clouds move into a valley in the Santa Lucia Mountains at Los Padres National Forest.

Nacimiento-Fergusson Road winds up into the clouds engulfing the Santa Lucia Mountains.

We got a little carried away by the fairy-tale mood of the scenery...

A trail head leads from Nacimiente-Fergusson Road into the fog.

Redwoods grow along Nacimiento-Fergusson Road as it winds down toward the Pacific Coast.

The Pacific Coast near Lucia, Calif.

Fueling up the car at probably one of the most beautiful gas stations in the world near Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park.

After setting up camp in a grove of huge Redwood trees at Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park, we got a chance for a dress rehearsal for the backpacking trip to Yosemite: Our first dinner of the camping stove, consisting of couscous, dried tomatoes and dried mushrooms. Delicious...

After the memorial on Wednesday, I went up on the pier to try and get some pictures of the surfers. I had this idea of a top-down shot with a longer shutter speed that I hope to do when I photograph Terry surfing, and I wanted to try it out. I really like what’s happening with the water and the motion in these images, and I hope that I will get a chance to photograph Terry like this. There are two shots that I’m torn between – in the first one, I like the second person in the upper right corner and the tension of the surfer, but it’s also a lot more blurry. In the second one, I like the light on the wave and the reflection on the wet suit. Hopefully, it’ll all come together when it counts…

Matteson Morey, of San Clemente, Calif., surfs near the San Clemente Pier, May 11, 2011.

On Wednesday, we went down to the pier after work. There was a paddle-out memorial for Jeff Kargola, a star in the freestyle motocross scene who recently died after a crash. The memorial was mostly over when we got there, and there were only few people left on the beach. I got one shot that I liked:

People gather at the San Clemente beach after a paddle-out memorial for Jeff "Ox" Kargola, a young motocross driver who died last April, May 11, 2011.

While I’m at it, I might as well put up some of the other pictures that I’ve shot recently and never posted. Last week, my cousin Max was at a conference in San Francisco and – without knowing that I live in the suburbs of L.A. – decided to rent a Harley with matte-black finish and ride it down to Los Angeles. He jokingly told me to drive the 2,000 miles or so from Missouri to come and see him, and was quite surprised when I told him that I was already there.

We used the opportunity to get together for the first time in about three years and went on a camping trip to Joshua Tree National Park. I should probably mention that Max is somewhat crazy – he is one of those guys who jump off 100-feet cliffs on their skis. He also loves to be photographed, especially when he chews tooth picks on his Harley. And since I like taking pictures, I ended up hanging out of the window of my car taking pictures of Max while Beth was driving all the way to Joshua Tree.

Photographing a moving object from another moving object was new to me and quite a lot of fun. I ended up taking about 1,000 pictures of Max over the two days that we were out there (ridiculous, I know), but the two photos in set below are the ones that stood out most to me.

National Park Boulevard in Joshua Tree National Park, Calif., May 7, 2011.

Max rides his Harley Davidson on the I-10 near Palm Desert, Calif., May 5, 2011.

Taking a break at the Lookout Road House on the Ortega Highway near Lake Elsinore, Calif., May 5, 2011.

A Joshua Tree stands in front of some of the granite formations that are the hallmark of Joshua Tree National Park.

Max rides his Harley Davidson down Pinto Basin Road toward the Cholla Cactus Garden at Joshua Tree National Park, Calif., May 6, 2011.