Psst, you're about to view a post with a lot of images. Want to know how I got my photographs like that? Let me show you... 

Last month when I was in San Francisco, I wrote about the salt water and ocean breeze that made me feel like home. For my most recent stay in California, I opted to stay in the Valley. I didn't want to give up the ocean so I spent some time in Santa Cruz where the beach and the boardwalk were bustling with visitors.

I captured plenty of blues in the images from Santa Cruz and then I realized - blue is a funny color, there are so many hues of blue, even in things as universal as the ocean, and the sky. The blues I captured in Santa Cruz were different than the hazy and misty blues of San Francisco. In Santa Cruz, the blues were sunburnt, sand-filled, and faded.

In Santa Cruz, the blues were worn out from the numerous sunbathers who had visited the area time and time again.