The Forgotten Inland Locations Every SoCal Photographer Should Explore

Even though you’d swear you know Southern California into the littlest of details – street corners, odd diners, washed-out signs along roads you’ve driven since high school – there are always places you’ll simply forget to mention when someone asks where to take a perfect shot.  That forgetting isn’t on you. You’d probably need a brain wired like Pynchon’s to store it all. Most people stay coastal, where the fog is, and the sunsets come on time. But if you’re after new frames, the kind that haven’t already looped through everyone’s feed, then this is a perfect list for you. These are the forgotten stops, the cutaway scenes, the locations every SoCal photographer should explore before someone puts up a plaque or blocks it off. Therefore, pack your trusty gear, and let’s begin!

The Desert Nobody Mentions

Just north of Lucerne Valley, halfway between something and nothing, there’s a place that doesn’t even bother with a sign. It’s marked on some maps as Bighorn Mountain Wilderness Access, but locals just call it the sandstone flats. No parking lot, no cell signal, just a set of sun-bleached formations rising low against the brush. And when the light goes horizontal late afternoon in March or November, it feels carved out for photographers. The rocks reflect pink; the sky forgets how to be blue and goes lavender instead.

You’ll witness no busy crowds, only tracks of things that we’ve crossed the land – rabbit, coyote, motorcycle. There’s something clinical and calming about the open space, the way shadows stretch like old film negatives across the terrain. Late spring is your best bet for navigating the terrain without direct sunstroke. When asking around for the best times of year to move in Southern California, what you’ll hear from seasoned locals is that autumn is the best season to relocate if you plan on making longer use of inland settings for creative work. Bring your tripod, but don’t count on perfect silence; the wind shifts often, and the sound it carries is unfamiliar.

Trona’s Geometric Silence

You might drive past it on the way to Death Valley, distracted by other desolate things, but Trona Pinnacles deserves a pause – deserves your lens. These calcium carbonate spires, born underwater but now upright on the dry lakebed, won’t have to beg for your attention.

You’ll want to drive out early, maybe even before the sun even considers showing up. The light out here doesn’t scatter the way it does in cities. It lands in slabs, harsh at first, then diffused through the dust you’ll kick up getting closer. Frame it however you want – low angle, false tilt, oversaturated contrast – but make no mistake: it’s not static. Spend more than an hour, and you’ll find the landscape editing itself in increments: temperature, shadow, silence.

Suppose you’re shooting with analog film, metering manually. If you’re working with digital equipment, cut saturation by half and let the place speak.

The Park You Already Know, But Don’t

Anza-Borrego isn’t exactly what you’d call a hidden gem. It even has a visitor center. But what most weekenders miss, in their hurried search for wildflowers or easy trailheads, is the edge beyond Borrego Springs – where abandoned metal sculptures of prehistoric creatures stand motionless under the wide sky, left like placeholders from a story no one finished writing.

Photographers often stop at the first few: dragon, mammoth, serpent. But continue east, veering just slightly off paved road, and the sculptures become less literal, more fragmented. A herd of horses, unfinished. A human head, buried halfway in sand. The scale of it all flattens under wide angle, but tight focus reveals texture: rusted seams, sand-stuck claws, cracks filled with purple dust.

Dusk works best here. The sun drops behind the Santa Rosa Mountains slowly; the shadows from these steel creatures stretch long enough to shoot in series. Bring a wide glass, but take your time with macro. There’s a fascinating detail hiding in every rust bloom.

The Reservoir That Isn’t a Reservoir

There’s no real signage pointing to Morris Reservoir, unless you’re already on Highway 39, heading up past Azusa. The road gets strange quickly: you’ll see switchbacks, blind curves, and faint graffiti. Park at the locked gate if it’s closed. Walk the rest. You’ll hear water before you see it.

The dam curves like it was meant for a Bond villain. Massive. Brutalist. But what makes this location unmissable is the overgrown spillway just below, where moss grows on concrete and staircases lead nowhere. It looks like an accidental monument, something a future civilization might misinterpret as religious.

This is one of those locations every SoCal photographer should explore, not just for novelty, but for tone. The place is loaded with stillness; a silence interrupted only by your shutter. It photographs better in grayscale than in color, though fog or light rain can add a moody layer worth chasing. Early morning or dusk – choose based on your lens speed. And bring an ND filter; the water here moves slowly, but you’ll want it slower.

El Cerrito’s Nearly Forgotten Bluff

Somewhere between Riverside and Perris, off a road that no one’s bothered to name properly, there’s a bluff above El Cerrito that still gets mistaken for private land. It isn’t. Hikers avoid it. Locals use it to launch model airplanes or fly drones. But in winter, after the brief rains, the area will turn green.

From the top, you can frame both the freight tracks and the peeling back of the suburbs below – tract homes spread out like half-finished prints. If you shoot here, don’t center the horizon. Let it tip a little. Let the roads weave their own geometry.

Golden hour hits too fast, so arrive before. Wait through the washed-out noon light. Shoot into the sun. Flare should pose no problem; it’s part of the image.

Fade Out

Photographers’ catalog is placed in strange ways. Memory, instinct, and GPS. But if you want your work to hold more than location – if you want it to carry temperature, silence, the pace of slow dust or missed road signs – then inland is worth your time. These were the locations every SoCal photographer should explore, especially when the familiar frame starts to feel too composed, too expected.