Painted Hills, Oregon

John Day Fossil Beds National Monument has three separate units.  One of these, the Painted Hills, near Mitchell, Oregon, is famous for its amazing hills striped with color.  It was the highlight of my 47 ^th camping trip in 36 years with Bruce Gregory and Stephen Johnson.

During the day the colors can appear fairly muted, but as the sun gets low the stripes become brighter, as in this photo from the overlook trail.

The wonderful stripes and contours are perfect for landscape abstracts with a long lens.  These two photos from the overlook trail show how the colors can change with the time of day.  The colors often become golden just before sunset.

Another beautiful location is the perfectly formed Red Hill, where we also found prairie clover.

The soil here is very delicate and would be damaged by walking on it, so most areas are fenced off.  In the Painted Cove area a boardwalk allows visitors to see the textures and shapes close up.

And finally, here is a five shot panorama taken from the overlook trail just as afternoon shadows start to touch the hills.

I hope you enjoy these photos, but please remember that they are copyrighted and must not be used without permission, and usually payment of a small fee.

Port Orford, Oregon, Dolly Harbor

Linda and I have been visiting the southern Oregon coast for a week.  We rented a house at the beach in Gold Beach and used it as a base to explore the surrounding area.

  Since then, we have visited the small fishing harbor at Port Orford several times.

 We had two wonderful seafood dinners, enjoyed spectacular ocean views, and even photographed California gray whales, but what interested me most was the unique harbor.

Port Orford harbor is one of just six dolly ports in the world.  The port has no bar to cross, which allows boats to go out to sea more often than boats in other ports, but also means there isn’t a safe place to dock.  So the boats are hoisted out of the water with huge cranes and placed on dollies for storage on the pier.  How do they get the boats onto the pier?

A crane lifts the boat out of the water,

It swings the boat toward the home-made dolly.

Men line it up with the dolly using ropes.

The boat is lowered carefully.

The 25 ton capacity crane is unhooked.

A little pickup is hooked up to tow the boat to its parking place on the pier.

These boats are used to catch crab, rock fish, cod, salmon, sea urchin, and more.  I’ll bet some of their catch went to Griff’s restaurant right there on the pier.  Wonderful fresh seafood!

Remember, my photos are copyrighted and cannot be used without my permission.

Central Oregon Coast

Linda and I try to get to the Oregon coast every couple of years to enjoy the salt water and seafood.  Last month we spent a week exploring the central coast area from Newport to Tillamook.  The weather wasn't very good most of the time, so we had to spend more time working on the seafood and a little less on scenery.  Nevertheless, we enjoyed the beauty of the coast.

We had rain and fog at Newport, but enjoyed the best oysters on the coast at Local Ocean, right across the street from this harbor.

I think the mist added to the atmospheric effect of this beachcomber photo in Oceanside.

Probably the best meal of the trip was at Fathoms restaurant in Lincoln City.  The steamer clams were wonderful, the service excellent, the atmosphere relaxing, and the view incomparable.  The restaurant is located in the Inn At Spanish Head, which is built on the side of a cliff overlooking the ocean.  When you go to this restaurant, you enter on the 9th floor and go up to the 10th floor. Hotel guests go down the cliff in an elevator to get to their rooms on lower floors.

Depoe Bay is a special treat for photographers if you get there on a clear day after a storm. There is a blowhole locally called a "spouting horn".  Big storms create huge waves that blast through a tunnel and out a hole, creating a 50 foot plume of water.  From a photographer's standpoint, you can go north, stay dry, and photograph this blast of water.  Or, you can go south, get drenched from the spray, wait for the blast of water to subside a little, and photograph the rainbow.  I got completely soaked taking this photo.



More Lincoln City restaurant recommendations include Blackfish Cafe, Kyllo's, and Mo's in the Taft district.  All had good seafood, and Kyllo's and Mo's had nice views.  Mo's isn't as comfortable as the others because of bench seating, but they are all good.

Pacific City had amazingly reflective sand, and cars were allowed to park on the beach.  It looked like a good opportunity to get stuck.

The Oregon coast gets plenty of rain, so there are lots of places just a couple of miles inland that have mossy trees, trails through green leafy passages, and picturesque creeks.  We went to Munson Creek Falls and found all of these things.  The falls were nice, but I really enjoyed finding the little things, like these sycamore leaves on a rock in the creek.  Munson Creek is just outside Tillamook. If you are in that area, don't miss the tour of the Tillamook Cheese Factory.  To complete our culinary review, the ice cream cones at the factory are really, really good, but plan to wait in line.  Now, about that diet. . . 

Oregon Coast Panorama

Linda and I need to see salt water and taste fresh seafood once in a while, so we drove to the Oregon coast last month. We rented a condo on Siletz Bay in Lincoln City and ate plenty of seafood, but photography was tough because of terrible weather. After reviewing my photos, I noticed that a lot of them looked better cropped to near-panoramic proportions.

Photography was difficult in the fog and occasionally heavy rain, so some of our photos attempted to capture the stormy mood.  There was little of interest in the foreground sand and blank sky of the beachcomber photo, so cropping to emphasize the center of the photo seemed to be the answer.

When we finally got some sunshine, the storm had churned up huge waves, and the wind was blowing the tops off. Faint rainbows appeared in some of the spray on these waves at Boiler Bay.  Cropping helped the viewer's eye go to the center of interest.

Sunset didn't have much color, so cropping this photo of Siletz Bay was a good way to de-emphasize the sky and create a peaceful mood.  The photo was taken from the balcony of our rented condo.

This flock of birds was also photographed from our balcony, when it was pretty dark, using a fairly long exposure to create a feeling of movement.
When reviewing your photos it is important to realize that the proportions of the image created by your camera might not be the best proportions for every photo you take.  Don't be afraid to crop out unwanted elements to make a panorama, a square, or a photo with some other proportions.