Beach Shoot San Diego - a Must Do Adventure in Southern California

Although I live in Sweden, my grown kids all live in the U.S., so I decided to make a visit to them. Naturally, they all live in different states. I had not seen my son in the Los Angeles area in more years than I care to reveal here so I wanted to make that visit especially cool. Enter Beach Shoot San Diego. This company is owned by Dan Woods and is just quite possibly the coolest thing I have ever done... and I have done a lot in my 52 years. Seriously. I have explored southern Australia, Mexico, a whole lot of Europe, and well, suffice it to say I have 'been there, done that' - except for kayaking.

I got in contact with Beach Shoot San Diego specifically for the kayaking thing. See, what Dan does is take awesome photographs while you are indulging in any number of adventures. He arranged everything for us in advance; the place, the kayaks, everything. Although he is not really a tour company per se, he is very knowledgeable about all of southern California and does love to share in between snapping brilliant pictures.

We decided on the area around the Palos Verdes peninsula for our kayak adventure since that is close to where my son lives. So while the business is centered closer to the San Diego area, they are more than willing to make adjustments. All you need do is ask, Dan will take care of the rest. When we arrived, Dan already had the kayaks and equipment down on the staging area... and let me tell you, this was way above and beyond the call of duty. Palos Verdes is full of cliffs with very few places to easily get to the water itself. So getting everything (and us) down was a chore. He climbed up and down that cliff 5 or 6 times I think, and never seemed to break a sweat! I broke a sweat just looking at that drop. How I made it down (I'm handicapped) I'll never know. Well, I do know... Dan held my arm the whole way with no complaints at all.

Once at the bottom, Dan outfitted us with life preserver jacket thingies. (Hey, I'm old - the mind fades...) He then handed us our paddles and walked us through various kayaking instructions since I had never been in one. He told us various commands he would give us based on the wave conditions and rocks and such, and showed us which way to paddle for each. Being a dumb blond, I promptly did the opposite each time. DOH! So anyway, we had a safe launch and an absolutely amazing kayak trip. Like I said, quite possibly one of the top things I have ever experienced.

While we were paddling away (ok, my son was paddling away, I mostly sat there and grinned) Dan kept taking photo after photo. On waves, past rocks, with a cool lighthouse backdrop, I think he even managed to get one of the sea lions we saw out frolicking that gorgeous March day. In all, there were well over 150 shots to choose from.

Now we get to the bottom line, eh? As I said, the name of the place is Beach Shoot San Diego, so of course it is all about selling those photo packages. I personally ended up buying the whole shebang. I was given a price break for that, but man... they were all perfect shots so how could I single any out? If you buy any of his packages in advance, he will also cut you deal. But truly they are worth every penny of the full prices. There are a ton of different packages available at very reasonable prices. You can find them all on their website so I won't quote them here, but ours would have run around $300usd I think and been well worth every penny.

Beach Shoot San Diego has pretty much any combination of adventure shoots you could dream up involving the beach and/or the ocean. While we simply loved every minute of our kayak shoot, he also offers things like combination kayak & snorkeling shoots, simple romantic beach shoots, surfing shoots... hell, he will even take it away from the beach setting and do biking or Segway shoots. It bears mentioning again that although he is based in San Diego, he is willing to hit pretty much anywhere in Southern California.

No matter if you are planning to visit (or live near) San Diego or Los Angeles (and all points in between) you absolutely must call and book one of these adventure shoots with Beach Shoot San Diego at 858-952-2847. Dan Woods is a blast to work with and very obliging. How often do you get professional shots of cool adventures, with running laughs & area commentary to boot? He's less than just a boring studio session, and you get oh so much more! Tell him Lori sent ya.