Weston Country: Carmel, California

Along a rugged Central California coastline that is a touchstone in American photography, Garrapata Beach offers a lonely landscape that can tempt whoever is holding a camera. Edward Weston, haunting Monterey County in the 1930s and ’40s, went on to win worldwide respect for fine-art photography with his meticulous, unsentimental, often nearly abstract images of nature. His sons Brett and Cole also forged estimable reputations in the art. Ansel Adams, who captured iconic images of Yosemite, also lived in the area for the last 22 years of his life.