The reserve gate closes at 6:30pm year-round, which kills golden hour from April through September. The wedding-ceremony permit runs around $900 and adds permit-application friction. For the same Carmel-area dramatic-coast feel, Stewart's Cove or Soberanes Trail give you everything Point Lobos does without the timing pinch or the permit cost. If your heart is set on Point Lobos specifically, get in touch and I can recommend a colleague who works there often.
You may see a few photos from nearby locations here. Many shoots span multiple spots in the same session.
Point Lobos
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Hop next door for a different mood
Where we shoot, on a map
Point Lobos State Natural Reserve is the protected coastal headland three miles south of Carmel-by-the-Sea — Robinson Jeffers called it "the greatest meeting of land and sea in the world," and that quote has done the marketing work for a hundred years. A maze of named coves and trails, sea otters in the kelp beds, Monterey cypress on the bluffs, and a strict-but-fair permit system for couples and small ceremonies.
Point Lobos is a state natural reserve, not just a state park — a different category, with stricter rules. Everything is protected: the tidepools, the harbor seals pupping in the coves, the cypress groves, the kelp forests offshore. The reward for the rules is that the reserve has stayed visibly close to what it was a hundred years ago, which is why Edward Weston shot it, Ansel Adams shot it, and every couples photographer in the bay has at minimum considered shooting it.
The lay of the land
The Point Lobos story I tell most often is the gate-closing one. Couple booked Point Lobos for a fall engagement session, gates open until 7pm, sunset at 6:35. We had a clean late-October Saturday, light was perfect, China Cove stairs were open — everything cooperating. We worked Sea Lion Point first, walked over to the Cypress Grove headland, and lost track of time chasing the last of the warm light. At 6:40 a ranger came up the trail to gently start herding everyone out. We grabbed three more frames as the cypress went gold and basically ran for the parking lot. The frames from the last fifteen minutes were the gallery, but I tell every Point Lobos couple now: respect the gate. The rangers will be polite about it, and you do NOT want to be the couple holding up the lockup. If you're shooting here, time the last frame for 6pm and treat 6:30 as a hard stop.
Make a trip out of it
Where to stay
Getting here
A few things about Point Lobos
The original Spanish name was Punta de los Lobos Marinos, meaning Point of the Sea Wolves. The 'sea wolves' were the sea lions you can still hear barking from Sea Lion Point.
— Wikipedia / Point Lobos FoundationThe poet Robinson Jeffers called this coast 'the greatest meeting of land and sea in the world,' and the line has done the marketing work for the reserve for a hundred years.
— multiple literary references / parks.ca.govEdward Weston shot here for decades and Ansel Adams considered Point Lobos one of the most important landscapes of his career. The cypress on Allan Memorial Grove are some of the most photographed trees in North America.
— Point Lobos FoundationThe Whalers Cabin at Whaler's Cove was built around 1851 by Chinese fishermen and the floor joists are supported by six whale vertebrae. It's now a small free museum inside the reserve.
— pointlobos.org / parks.ca.govThe reserve closes at 7pm with last entry at 6:30, which means summer sunset sessions are impossible. From roughly April through September the golden hour falls after the gates lock, so most paying shoots here happen October through March.
— parks.ca.govNaturally-growing Monterey cypress exists in only two places on Earth: the headlands at Point Lobos and a small patch across Carmel Bay at Cypress Point. Every other Monterey cypress in the world was planted.
— Wikipedia / U.S. Forest Service
Point Lobos also appears as Point Lobos State Reserve, Point Lobos State Natural Reserve, Whaler's Cove, China Cove, Bird Island, or Whalers Cabin.