Alcatraz with the city of San Francisco in the background
San Francisco Bay is a shallow, productive estuary through which water draining from approximately forty percent of California, flowing in the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers from the Sierra Nevada mountains, enters the Pacific Ocean. The city of San Francisco borders the bay, and these photos were taken from there.

A dramatic cloud cover over the city of San Francisco

Golden Gate Bridge

A small container ship is pulled by a tug underneath the Golden Gate Bridge
If you wish to buy prints or the original image of any of these photos, you can view them in my online store here.

The Golden Gate National Recreation Area protects areas throughout the San Francisco bay area that might be considered quintessential northern California landscapes–craggy cliffs overlooking the sea, beaches pounded by towering Pacific Ocean surf, Marin Headlands peaks disappearing into the fog.

The old-growth coast redwood forest of Muir Woods National Monument is no exception. Until the last century or so, many valleys along the northern California coast were covered with majestic redwoods like these ones, which John Muir declared were”the best tree-lover’s monument that could possibly be found in all the forests of the world.”

You can view and purchase photos of the Muir Woods National Monument here.