A coastal Oregon image has been solely missing from my portfolio for too long. I had been out to the coast a few times over the years, but they were family trips. Trips where meals like breakfast and dinner coincided with the best light but superseded them in terms of importance. I had also made two half-hearted attempts down south at the Samuel H. Boardman scenic area (the zone with amazing natural bridges over the ocean) but didn't have great conditions - I was mainly down there to experience the ancient redwoods in Northern California.
This past visit was still partially family time, but I did manage to sneak off early one morning for several hours. The forecast was grey and cloudy, so no postcard reflection photos of Haystack Rock, but that's ok, I really wanted to capture the mood of the coast and the mood is generally overcast.
I was staying at Cannon Beach when I woke up early and headed just up the road to Ecola State Park. I was thinking of shooting sunrise over Cannon Beach, but the sun never materialized. Along with the clouds, there was also fog that made things moody (but snuffed out any grand vista shots). I noticed the beach below Ecola looked lovely, with no people on it at all (whereas two miles away, Cannon Beach had hundreds of people no matter the conditions or time of day). I decided to head down to the beach below, Crescent Beach, and quickly realized why the lack of people. While far from brutal, the hike was further and steeper than expected. All good, after a little while I was down and had the entire beach to myself.
This black and white image was one of the first I took upon alighting on the beach. This was the mood I encountered, alone on the sand with the fog and birds swirling around the sea stacks.
I kept walking around and was fortunate enough that I timed it at low tide, allowing the rocks on the beach to reveal the life clinging to the them - the sea stars, mussels, sea anemones, and barnacles. Surrounding the rocks were small tide pools and around the tide pools was fresh sand with all sorts of interesting patterns and ripples. It was so beautiful that I felt panicked at times because if I couldn't compose a great shot here, what kind of photographer was I?
I tried all sorts of compositions, initially working on the tide pool reflections or attempting to get distant sea stacks worked into the background. Nothing was looking great though, and this is when I started having self-doubt, plus I was expected back at the hotel for breakfast, I couldn't spend all day on the beach.
The orange sea stars had been catching my attention, they were in the minority versus the purple ones, and did stand out. I started with a closeup, which is lovely. I like how the orange of the sea star and blue on the mussels work together.
I then backed up and took in the whole scene, capturing the image at the top of the page. It took awhile, but I love the photo because, to me, it visually defines the Oregon Coast.
The weather never really changed over the couple of days I had on the coast, but that was fine, it's such a stunning spot no matter what. I'll leave you with the image below. It's actually Haystack Rock with a couple of it's sub-sea stacks, cropped as a pano. I feel like it's something you might find in the Faroe Islands. It's a different take from the usual Haystack Rock images.
