Calm Bandon

The next morning in Bandon was more of the same but different.  We still had heavy overcast skies (in fact, more than the previous day) and we decided to return to the same place.  However, it was warmer (we both had to strip off a layer of clothing that was needed the day before after only a hundred yards or so down the beach), it wasn’t rainy when we got there so we didn’t have to wait around at all, and best of all it wasn’t windy!  Plus, the tide started higher than it had been the day before, but made its way ever lower than the previous morning, so everything looked incredibly different!

Since we got an earlier start that second morning, we arrived well before one could easily take an image.  Still, despite my best intentions to photograph differently that morning, I couldn’t walk past the same location that initially stopped me the first day.  So I pulled out my camera.  There was way, way too little light for my usual settings, but I cranked up my ISO and opened the lens much wider than usual, knowing that the image wouldn’t be in anything other than a blog post, and fired away.  Sometimes you’ve just got to get that first photograph of the day out of the way.  And this time I didn’t have to do my hugging-the-tripod thing to keep the camera steady.  

As Ann headed farther down the beach to start there, I headed over to photograph a location that had been ruined the day before by some folks who decided to explore the space and left behind footprints I didn’t want in my image.  But it was still too dark and the receding tide was higher than I wanted.  So I looked around and realized that, once again the waves were breaking far away and gently rolling towards me.  So I walked into the surf a bit (read: an inch or two of water) and set up to shoot.  

I spent an incredibly long time there, in part experimenting with different compositions, in part to time the waves right.  It was still well before dawn, and you can see from the image below that the light was very, very cool.  I decided not to try and color-correct the image (like I did the one above), to make it look more “real,” in part because the blue cast  adds to the unearthly quality of the image and in part because the color cast is “real” that early in the morning.  

After a bit, the sun popped over the horizon, which we could only tell because things became more bright and colorful (and our shutter speeds were shortening). The tide receded enough for me to return to the spot I wanted to photograph first - before people started wandering through the sand.  

I told myself that I was going to try and work some landscape images that morning and, despite my first couple of images, I kept my word.  That meant not isolating subjects but rather trying to compose them in relationship with other elements of the image.

I don’t know; Ann seems to be much better at it than I am.  But it’s good to try to push one’s image making. Plus, it gives you a very different way of looking at a place. 

After a couple of  hours, folks seemed to flood the beach.  It was Easter Sunday and we thought the traffic might be light on the beach.  Nope.

So we worked our way back to the parking area, taking our time and photographing whatever caught our eye.  Ann had found a spot where you could see through the rocks (the far side of the hole is the area where that sandy area leads to in the first daylight image above) and I decided to photograph there too.  

We walked around a bit more after this image, but as you can see in the image above, people mean footprints and it became near impossible to make any images that included the beach that weren’t footprint laden.  So we headed back to beast and into town for a good breakfast.

While the colors were not as spectacular as some of our other trips to Bandon, due to the overcast skies, the clouds simply forced us to focus on other things, and that was rewarding in that we came to appreciate the subtle colors in the water and the amazing textures wind can make on its surface.  Yet another wonderful trip to Bandon.