PHTOGRAPHING THE OREGON COAST - JUNE 14

JUNE 14^TH – Pacific City Dory Launch

This morning we went to the beach to see the dory launching which occurs from the beach at Cape Kiwanda. The dories are small fishing boats that go out to sea to mostly fish for salmon.

QUIET WATER

DORY HEADING OUT TO SEA

The dories are trailered to the beach and then launched into the surf. Usually there will be a crew of two, sometimes more. The dory is floated off the trailer and then headed into the surf. The  crew then climbs aboard over the stern transom after pushing it out further into the surf. 

Once they are out far enough they start their engine and head out to sea for a day of fishing, mostly for salmon. 

When they return in the afternoon they race for the beach before cutting their engine.   

RACING FOR SHORE

It is quite a show to watch them. The dory men are quite agile, and help each other with the launch.

Here is a video of the launch -   

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuOKC7TupgU

and one of the boats crashing the beach on their return –

       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuOKC7TupgU

As you can see from my  photos there is a great deal of physical prowess involved.

This ended my trip. Four of us headed back to Portland for flights home. The remainder of the group traveled onto Washington State to visit Mt. Saint Helens.  

IN SUMMARY –

This was not one of my  better trips. The weather was not particularly favorable, but I am happy with the pictures I am keeping and showing you. When I returned home I was quite tired and favoring my knee. The knee was one of the factors. It has since healed, and I am vigorously following my old fitness protocol to get into better shape. I have seen improvements all around.

Now it is time to gear up for the Solar Eclipse trip to Idaho and then onto Montana to visit our daughter, Klara. The art of taking pictures of the eclipse is a practiced phenomenon. I have gotten a couple of pieces of equipment to help, and now I have to devote some mid-day time to practicing using the solar filters both for me and the camera.

PHOTOGRAPHING THE OREGON COAST - JUNE 13, 2017

JUNE 13^TH – To Pacific City, OR

The early morning shoot was at Pistol River Beach. We wandered around in the surf a bit in order to create interesting compositions. Once again I got caught in sinking sand around a rock. I ended up with a boot very full of water and sand!! (You would think I would have learned already!!) 

MORNING LIGHT, PISTOL RIVER BEACH

AMONG THE STACKS

BEACH PUDDLES

 Afterwards we returned to our abodes to rinse off salt water and sand, and then pack up for our trip North.

VIEW FROM BEACH HOUSE

We stopped in Gold Beach at the Double D Restaurant for breakfast. It was unpretentious, but excellent in service and food. We stopped again at the wreck of the Mary D Hume at the North end of town. This time it was low tide so we got to have a different view and perspective of the wreck.

WRECK OF MARY D. HUME AT LOW TIDE

North of Florence we stopped to look at Heceta Head Light once again. 

HECETA HEAD LIGHT

INQUISITIVE SEA LION

DEFENDING MY TERRITORY

It also gave us a chance to stretch our legs. Once in Pacific City we checked into the Anchorage Motel, and prepared for an early dinner and then a visit to Cape Kiwanda. We had a very nice dinner at the Pelican Pub and Brewery which is located very close to the entrance to the beach.

I was looking forward to the Cape Kiwanda adventure. I had seen pictures of the surf there back in the 1990’s taken by a lady shooting film. Due to the rocks, etc. there can be some tremendous wave crests. To really capture the action you need to climb down the dune side to get close to sea level. I was not up for it so shot from about 100 yards above.(I later read in the last two years there have been 6 deaths at the Cape.) Still it was fascinating. You also want to be there when the sun is low which creates some great light on the orange sandstone. As you can see four of our party went down close to the water’s edge. It was an exhilarating time.I thoroughly enjoyed trying to capture the wild wave action. The trick was to shoot many shots, and be sure the sun was shining on the waves. 

WAVE ACTION 1

WAVE ACTION 2

PHOTOGRAPHERS AND WAVE

WAVE ACTION 3

WAVE ACTION 4

WAVE ACTION 5

A LAST SPLASH

PHOTGRAPHING THE OREGON COAST - JUNE 12, 2017

JUNE 12^th – Brookings to Crescent City CA

We headed into California today to photograph Battery Point Lighthouse, and then visit a couple of coastal redwoods state parks. Jedediah Smith State Park and Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park. 

BATTERY POINT LIGHTHOUSE

Battery Point Lighthouse is located at the mouth of Crescent city harbor on a small island and is accessible only during low tide. It survived completely in tact the tsunami of 1964 following the strongest earthquake to strike in the northern hemisphere. It is quite a lovely setting.

At Jedediah State Park we were challenged by the dark forest and the magnificently large trees. It was still fun to walk among these wonderful trees, and enjoy the play of light. It really is impossible to show the height of these trees, but one can get a good idea of their size from their base. We spent two hours here enjoying the challenges. 

A SENSE OF SIZE

A TREE MAN

At Del Norte Coastal Redwood S. P. we were able to walk among giant trees with rhododendron plants scattered among them. We slowly worked our way up and down Damnation Creek Trail as the sun began to emerge. We wanted to photograph without the full sun as the contrast would be very difficult to handle.

TRUNK DETAIL

This afternoon’s dinner meal was leftovers assembled at our house in the Pistol River area. When we got there we learned that there was no water!! We called the owner/manager who came out shortly and was able to fix the problem which was pump related. We were going to be able to enjoy showers later in the evening!! Yeah. Thank goodness we had returned to the house for dinner, otherwise it would have been about 10 p.m. when we discovered the plumbing issue!

Tonight we went to Pistol River for sunset. The beach here is quite long with a few sea stacks. There is a large display of lupine above the beach. I opted to stay up there as my knee was not feeling strong, and the footing down to the beach looked stressful. This gave me a big picture of the area and the sunset.

PISTOL RIVER BEACH SOUTH

LUPINE AND BEACH VIEW

SUNSET, PISTOL RIVERBEACH

PHOTOGRAPHING THE OREGON COAST JUNE 11, 2017

JUNE 11^TH – BANDON AND ONTO PISTOL RIVER

This morning we went of to the Face Rock area of Bandon Beach. We had a little color, and worked at creating interesting compositions with rock foregrounds. 

DAWN'S EARLY LIGHT

EARLY MORNING ON THE BEACH

MORNING SKY (B&W)

As the sun emerged and I walked along the beach I discovered sea stars and anemones clinging to some of the formations. They were some distance away but with a 300mm lens I was able to bring them into better view. It was good to have some light and broken clouds to work with.

SEA LIFE

MUSSELS, SEA STARS, & ANEMONE

BEACH, SEA STACK AND SEA LIFE

SEA STARS

BEACH SCENE

After returning to our abode we packed our gear and loaded the cars for our drive South to the Gold Beach/Brookings area. Before leaving Bandon we stopped to photograph Coquille River Lighthouse.  It is at the mouth of the Coquille River and is surrounded by lovely yellow lupine. 

COQUILLE RIVER LIGHTHOUSE

 We proceeded South with a stop at Cape Blanco Lighthouse, North of Port Orford. 

CAPE BLANCO LIGHTHOUSE

We took in the tour here and were able to actually visit the top of the structure where the light is situated. This is the oldest standing lighthouse on the Oregon coast and is located on the western most point in Oregon.

We all enjoyed a stop at Gold Beach, the mouth of the Rogue River. We photographed the wreck of the Mary D Hume which has been slowly decaying since 1985. Mother nature is slowly reclaiming it. I first saw and photographed it on my Oregon Coast Bike Ride in 1993.

PATTERSON BRIDGE, ROGUE RIVER

WRECK OF MARY D HUME

After settling in at our house in the Pistol River area, we went to dinner at the Golden Dragon for Chinese food. 

A HOME WITH A VIEW

RHODODENDRON BLOSSOMS

Then we went to Harris Beach for sunset time. We had some late afternoon sunlight shining through a break in the clouds which was very nice to see and photograph. Again I played with slow shutter speeds which gave mixed results regarding the movement of the surf. Still I was happy with some of the results.

HARRIS BEACH

HARRIS BEACH SUNSET