You may see a few photos from nearby locations here. Many shoots span multiple spots in the same session.
Seascape Beach & Resort
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Where we shoot, on a map
Seascape is a beachfront resort in Aptos with a long flat public beach running through it, fifteen minutes south of Santa Cruz. The Monterey Bay sweep, easy access via Sumner or Mar Vista, on-site dining at Sanderlings and the Pelican, and a sand stretch that any grandparent can walk. The Santa Cruz coast shoot that makes life easy for the whole family.
The way I actually pitch Seascape is as the destination for couples whose shoot day involves more than just two people. Most of the spots I shoot on this coast — Panther, Stewart's Cove, even Natural Bridges to a degree — want a certain physical buy-in: a trail down, stairs, a scramble, a paid lot, a walk. Seascape doesn't ask any of that. You pull into a real parking spot, you walk a flat sandy path past the resort buildings, and within ninety seconds you're on a wide beach with the bay rolling out to the south.
The lay of the land
The Seascape story I tell most often is the in-laws one. A family-and-couple session, mid-September, the couple flew in from Texas with both sets of parents and the wife's two grandparents — one with a walker, one on a cane. They'd been told the Santa Cruz coast was rugged and were worried the whole family wouldn't be able to do the shoot. We picked Seascape specifically for the parking and the flat sand. Grandfather walked the fifty feet from the car to the beach on his own, sat in a folding chair I'd brought along, and watched the rest of the family work through the frames. We shot the multi-generational portrait with him in his chair and everyone else around him, the bay glowing behind, sunset hitting the bluff above. The frame ran on his memorial slideshow eighteen months later — the daughter told me it was the only photo from that year where he looked like himself. Lesson I pass on to every couple now: the right beach isn't always the most dramatic one. Sometimes the right beach is the one Grandpa can actually get to.
Make a trip out of it
Where to stay
Getting here
A few things about Seascape Beach & Resort
The continuous Rio Del Mar / Seascape shoreline is one of the longest flat sandy stretches on the Santa Cruz County coast. At a low tide you can walk almost three miles south before the bluff curve forces you to turn around.
— California Beaches / WikipediaThe Seascape resort sits on bluff land that was originally developed as a planned beachfront community in the 1920s — the Rio Del Mar neighborhood next door is a remnant of that era, with the original Rio Del Mar Esplanade and the Mediterranean-style architecture still visible.
— Wikipedia / Visit Santa Cruz CountySanderlings, the resort's upstairs restaurant, has hosted hundreds of weddings and proposal dinners over the years. The glass wall facing Monterey Bay turns into a sunset frame from October through April when the sun drops behind the Santa Cruz Mountains in clean alignment.
— Seascape Resort / TripAdvisorThe SS Palo Alto — the concrete ship wreck people associate with this part of Aptos — is at Seacliff State Beach, two miles north of Seascape, not on Seascape Beach itself. Worth knowing so you don't walk Seascape looking for it.
— California State Parks / WikipediaAptos Creek empties into a small lagoon at the south end of the beach, just north of the Mar Vista access. The lagoon's water level rises and falls with the seasons; in dry summers it can dry out completely.
— California Beaches / Visit Santa Cruz CountyMonterey Bay is part of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, the largest federally protected marine area on the U.S. West Coast. The water off Seascape is home to sea otters, dolphins, and seasonal humpback feeding aggregations visible from the beach.
— montereybay.noaa.govThe town of Aptos takes its name from a Rumsen Ohlone word meaning 'the meeting of the streams,' referring to the confluence of Aptos Creek and Valencia Creek a mile inland from the beach.
— Wikipedia / Santa Cruz County History
Seascape Beach & Resort also appears as Seascape Beach Resort, Seascape Beach, Rio Del Mar Beach, or Sumner Beach.