Notes To My Mother

Driving up the Oregon Coast I found myself falling in love with this state. First you come to Brookings, a small town with Harris Beach a very popular stop and Boardman State Park. The park extends north of town and has several viewing sites along the highway. All very beautiful, but continue on to Bandon. Oh Bandon! What a paradise for site seers and photographers. The beaches at Bandon, as with most of the beaches in Oregon have a very gradual incline so that when a wave comes in it breaks and the glides and glides toward the high water mark. What this accomplishes for the photographer is a wonderfully reflective surface. Put something interesting to reflect, add some color in the sky and you have Bandon. In addition to the reflective qualities, the fact the beaches incline is gradual means you can stand out in the surf without being inundated by the waves. This is not true at all of the beaches in Oregon, and not even at Bandon when the surf is rough, but when it is calm, it is...

When I began wanting to know more about photography a friend of mine told me it would be a good practice to look at lots of photographs. So I bought gads of photography magazines, perused the internet, and read books with great images in them. One evening I stumbled upon a picture of Bass Harbor Head and knew it was definitely a place I needed to visit.  Now, I believe that every place in the world is special, it’s just that some places are a little more special. One such place is Bass Harbor Head, a lighthouse on the Coast of Maine, not far from Bar Harbor. I had never been to New England so going to get an image of this lighthouse was doubly exciting. I booked a trip in early October to be there when the trees were in color and made my way to the lighthouse. The first night I was there it was high tide.  In the best of conditions there is not a lot of room for photographers to shoot this location, but at high tide the situation can get pretty dicey. Most photographe...