Sunday afternoon we decided to give Jason the choice of where we would go for my weekly photo shoot: downtown or the beach. After initially leaning toward downtown, he quickly settled on the beach--only to immediately change his mind as soon as we got there. Walking up and down the boardwalk at Mission Beach, Juliette commented, "This is San Diego. This is what everybody comes here for." Indeed, on our first trip to San Diego together, about ten years ago, we stayed at a hotel just a few blocks from where I snapped this photo. And yet, we've only been back to Mission Beach a handful of times since we moved here.

Technical info: Shot with a Nikon D40 and Nikkor 55-200mm VR DX lens, in manual exposure mode. Focal length 100mm, aperture f/5.6, shutter 1/1000 sec, ISO 200. Post processing in Aperture 3: The usual presets (daylight WB, vibrancy +0.2, edge sharpening). I also had to straighten the horizon a little. To finish, I brushed in two different curves adjustments. Over the woman and the wall, I lowered the white point a little, increased the black point a little, pulled down shadows and pulled midtones way up--mainly this increased contrast. Over the sky, water, and beach, I just pulled the midtones way down to deepen the color, since the sky was a little overexposed.

Thoughts for improvement: Would be nice if the sky were more interesting, plus the woman's posture isn't the most flattering. I think it does a good job of conveying the pleasant, end-of-summer feel that the day had, though. I also like the two people playing in the background.