My Wardrobe, Myself

NOTE: This post was originally published on my previous blog, Recovering Shopaholic.

I continue to love the new photography hobby that I took on earlier this year.  I usually go out to take photos at least two or three times per week, sometimes just taking a quick walk down the street to the bay to snap a few shots and enjoy the outdoors for half an hour or so.   Occasionally, I will do a longer photo jaunt to one of the many scenic areas of San Diego.

While I enjoy taking photos in many different locales, my favorite places to visit are the beach areas.   There are also a few piers in and around San Diego that are fun to photograph.  In today’s photography interlude post, I will show you some shots that I took of the four main piers in San Diego County.  Soon I’m going to venture a bit north and photograph beaches and piers in Orange and Los Angeles counties. I will share the best of those images in a future photography interlude post.

Ocean Beach Pier

The pier that I have visited and photographed most often is the Ocean Beach Municipal Pier, as it is the closest pier to where I live.  I live in the community of Point Loma, which is by the San Diego Bay, but just over the hill from me is the beach community of Ocean Beach.  I am fortunate in that I am able to see the Pacific Ocean after a short ten minute drive.  In fact, I really need to make the drive more often, as I always seeing the ocean.  I feel happy and peaceful there.

The Ocean Beach Municipal Pier was christened in 1966, the same year that I came into this world, so we have something in common.   This pier extends 1971 feet out into the ocean and is the second longest pier on the west coast (only the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf, which I’ve also visited, is longer).  It’s purported to be the longest concrete pier in the world and is a popular fishing location.

Here are some of my favorite photographs of the Ocean Beach Pier from various angles and at different times of day:

Crystal Pier

The photo of me at the top of this post was taken on the Crystal Pier, which is in the beach community of Pacific Beach, a bit north from Ocean Beach (the community of Mission Beach, where my husband grew up, lies in between).   Crystal Pier is concrete and 872 feet long.  This pier has a long history in San Diego County, as it was built way back in 1927.   It houses the unique Crystal Pier Hotel, which is a set of Cape Cod style cottages that allow guests to sleep above the surf. I have always wanted to stay in one of these cottages, so perhaps my husband and I will have to do a “staycation” there one of these days.

Here are a few photographs I’ve taken of the Crystal Pier:

Oceanside Pier

Oceanside is the northernmost city in San Diego County, just south of the Camp Pendleton Marine Corps base.  It’s less than an hour drive from where I live and is home of the Oceanside Pier, the third longest wooden pier on the west coast at 1942 feet.   It’s a relatively new pier in that it was built in 1987.

My husband and I visited the Oceanside Pier on his birthday back in September and I took close to 100 photos with my camera. Sadly, a user error led me to lose all of those photos, so the only ones I had left were the few I took with my phone to send to my sick friend.  I’m planning to visit this pier again very soon to take more photos, but for now, here the best of the ones I was able to salvage from September:

Imperial Beach Pier

Back in late August, I visited the Imperial Beach Pier for the first time.  I featured this pier and the surrounding beach in its own photography interlude post in early September, but I thought I would include a few photos here, too, to round out the group of San Diego area piers (although I missed one, see below…).   Imperial Beach is at the opposite end of the county from Oceanside, just north of Mexico.   The Imperial Beach pier is concrete and 1491 feet long.  It was built just a few years prior to the Ocean Beach pier, in 1963.

Here are just a few photos of the Imperial Beach pier (see more here):

The Missing Pier

There is one San Diego County pier that is missing from this post, the Scripps Pier in La Jolla.  I could have sworn that I had photographed this pier before, but I couldn’t find any photos except this one, which is not mine:

The above photograph is called “Scripps Henge.”  Twice per year, the sunset can be viewed through the pillars of Scripps Pier.  Needless to say, it’s a very popular photography spot on those days, as you can see in the photo.   I hope to take a photo like the one above myself at the next opportunity.

I will have to make a trip up to La Jolla soon to photograph the Scripps Pier.   It’s a private concrete pier that is owned by the Scripps Institute of Oceanography.  The Scripps Pier is 1090 feet long and was built in 1988.

In Conclusion

I hope you liked this look at the piers of San Diego County.   If you liked this post and would like to see more of my photos, check out the rest of my “photography interlude” posts or follow me on Instagram, where I periodically share my images.