from pacific coast to no coast

Broad Beach Malibu, CA

Structure

The rocks are in the foreground with the cove behind. The house’s spray deck frames the right side of the photo with a protruding lookout seat the guides the out on to the headland. The headland is a finger lingering out into the sea. Then the eye rises up from the dark sea through the mutation of color in the sky because the spray deck and the side paneling of the spray deck leads the eye out of the picture. On the left side of the photo, the swell in the cove runs parallel to the rocks on the beach out the headland. The focus of the photo is the conjunction of four of the five elements in the photo. (Sky, ocean, headland, rocks, and the spray deck.) The rocks, ocean, headland, and spray deck all converge where the spray deck protrudes for the lookout seat.

Color

The white washed slide paneling on the spray-proof deck is of an off white color complimented by the steely gray rocks. The sky builds from a sweeping orange-brown color to a gray, light blue. Translucent white swaths show the clouds thickening and thinning in the sky. The ocean is darkest blue in the distance and becomes lighter as is moves towards the shore. The sea darkens where there is wind and lightens were there is limited wind in the shallows protected by the headland. The rocks have a rust colored alga growing on them, which is most likely dead. The headland is mostly various shades of an olive green (darkest in the treetops), which is broken up by the white houses with black windows. The sky is reflected in the glass paneling on the deck to be a soft blue-ish green.

Cultural Significance

The glass paneling on the deck means the house is build on the high tide mark and on stormy nights and days the spray from the waves wets the deck. The rocks are granite and out of place on the beach. The natural rocks are all volcanic in origin or sandstone. The rocks have been transported to the beach to prevent the waves from carrying all the sand out to sea and the house from losing its foundation. The small size of the swell and curvature of the land shows that this beach is a protected cove. The headland in the background receives the brunt of the north swell leaving only a diffracted, weaker swell to hit the beach. The beach is more or less private because the houses are right on the high tide line. Only the beach between the low and high tide marks is public land. It is a cloudy day and most likely early in the morning because there is still an orange tint in the north clouds from the rising sun. It is also a wealthy area, which can be gathered from the houses on the headland. They are all at least two stories and the modern style: white with large windows. They recede up with hill and have non-indigenous trees planted in their yards. The indigenous plants would be low, brown, shrub-like bushes of the chaparral, a dry, hot ecosystem.