Yachats

We were out running around the morning Devon was supposed to leave when he got a text message - his flight had been cancelled.  On our way back home to see about re-scheduling a flight for him, he got another message - he’d been rescheduled for a flight that would pretty much take all the next day and have him arrive back home in the middle of the night (well, more like early the next morning).  Not good.  We got home and, as Devon looked up the United number, I turned on my iPad to see a Washington Post news alert - Plane Crashes in San Francisco.  Devon’s flight was through San Fran.  As Devon was talking to United customer service, I remembered that a couple years ago my flight back to Iraq out of Eugene was cancelled (cracked windshield found during inspection) and all flights were booked for 2 days (it was graduation weekend).  My solution then was to find a flight out of Portland.  “Hey Dev, ask her when you could leave out of Portland tomorrow and when would you get home?”  Ann and I were supposed to head out to Yachats on Sunday anyway, we’d just leave from Portland plus, it gave us an extra day with Devon and a chance to eat at our favorite Italian restaurant.  The flight was a much better one, so we loaded up the car and headed north.

Dev had an early flight out so Ann and I had an early departure out to the coast.  After stopping for breakfast and then grabbing a latte, Ann took a nap and I drove.  The day was looking like it’d be sunny, the drive was beautiful and we arrived for an early check-in.  The hotel we stayed at was right on the coast by some great rocks, so after lunch we decided to scope the area out.

It was really windy and the surf was mighty rough, but man is the Oregon coast beautiful!

It’s challenging to photograph with a camera with a single focal length lens.  Sure, I had my point and shoot that has a zoom, but really,  most of the photographs I take are done with the one lens.  Someday I’ll be back to multiple lenses, but for now working within the technical constraints of a single focal length has really forced me to think about how to create interesting images without a lot of lens gimmicks.  Plus, the quality of this camera is simply amazing.

At one point, Ann commented about a seagull that landed on some near-by rocks.  I decided to try and see how close I could get to it, so I took a few steps towards the gull on the rocks, then looked away.  Eventually, I faced Ann, with my back to the bird, and would take 1-2 steps backwards, pause, twist at the waist and snap a shot.  I was using my point and shoot to zoom in as much as I could (which wasn’t much).  Then Ann started photographing me, walking backwards towards the birds (another had flown in).  Dan the hunter was trying to be as non-threatening as possible, but . . . I was probably just looking stupid.  I was surprised at how close I got, and of the bunch, there was really only one interesting one, caught when the bird opened its mouth.

We were pretty much wind blown and needed to take a bit of a break, but it didn’t last long.  We decided to spend the rest of the day scoping out more shooting locations and headed down the coast a ways to see if there were better, more interesting spots near-by.  We wound up by Cape Perpetua to check out some of the possible locations there.

By then, the clouds started rolling in and the water looked mean.  Ann and I had bundled up a bit, but not really enough.  We made our way around a trail scoping out spots, but decided that this area wasn’t it.  Still, there were a couple of things worth photographing as we scouted.

And the light streaking through the clouds sure had some character.

By this point Ann and I were tired and hungry and ready for dinner.  But we weren’t quite done photographing for the day.  Or should I say night.