December 2025 Photo of the Month

My December 2025 Photo of the Month is TP1132, a photograph made on the beach along Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve.

TP1132 Background

Due to a particularly low tide, friend and reader Alex suggested we visit Torrey Pines.  I would mention that with the ongoing road and trail closure at Torrey Pines, this was our only option until sometime in the Spring.

The low tide was excellent, as we had a couple hundred yards of beach to walk along, allowing me to photograph the sandstone cliffs from some more appealing angles than I had done in the past.  Most of the times I have been on the beach, larger waves almost lap the cliffs themselves.  To have so much room was fantastic.

I actually didn’t plan to photograph this location, but Alex and I had walked out as far as Flat Rock.  This is often the destination for beach walkers, and something we have done many times.  At this particular spot, there was a large puddle to either walk in or around to reach what I think are the farthest Northern reaches of Blacks Beach.

Now, I had the wrong shoes on (loafers that are beat up and soak up water like a sponge), and I am clumsy walking on dry land, much less wet.  For this reason, I decided that Flat Rock was my turnaround point.  Alex wanted to look a little more South, so I figured I would take a break and enjoy the coastline on a wonderful afternoon.

I could kind of peer around the rock outcropping adjacent to Flat Rock, but I also couldn’t see where Alex was.  But he had a camera, so I figured he found something along that beach that he liked.

Time passed, though, and my patience was waning a bit.  I had no idea how far South he went, when he would be back.  I was also getting hungry.  Then my phone buzzed me, and Alex was sharing his iPhone location with me.  We get a decent cell signal, but I have also found it isn’t super accurate at the beach, where the lack of signal to the West can distort things.  And sure enough, all his location would tell me is, “Alex is nearby.”  That wasn’t super helpful.  So I idled away looking at other distracting things on my phone, and waiting.  Just then, my phone buzzed again, but this time, it was a photo of me, staring down at my phone, as Alex was standing right above me.

To complete the moment, I went ahead and took a photo of him on the outcropping, and then when he moved out of view, I looked more carefully and thought, that’s a nice composition.

And that, my friends, is the very 2025 way I ended up making one of my favorite photographs of 2025.

As always, thank you for viewing, and I hope you enjoyed the image.

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T.M. Schultze is a San Diego-based photographer, traveller, and writer. He writes, photographs, and draws things of the outdoors that have inspired humans for thousands of years. He co-authored the Photographer’s Guide to Joshua Tree Park which can be purchased here.