I spent a weekend with a small group of photographers exploring a network of backroads in the Coast Ranges of California. For me, the figurative highpoint of the trip came when we walked up a little hill at Carrizo Plain National Monument. The view was beautifully colored by the reflections in Soda Lake of the Temblor Range and by an expansive field of yellow wildflowers at the base of the mountains. The scene was almost painterly, almost other-worldly. But this was only a small portion of what we saw over the course of the trip.