The Oregon Coast

Taken inside the hotel room, handheld.
18-5- mm kit lens at 55 mm, ISO 3200, f/5.6, 1/60

Family road trips do not offer the best opportunities for photography and mine was not an exception. You usually find yourself out sightseeing in the middle of the day with the sun right on your head and family members asking “why take so many pictures” or “why does it take so long to take a picture?”. After all, it is not a photography endeavor, it is a a family trip.

The weather was pretty so so in Oregon, a lot of smoke from fires inland and blue skies without a single cloud on the Coast. Despite these challenges, I have taken a few pictures I liked. They were all handheld and processed from raw format.

The first was a snapshot of a redwood grove in the Redwoods Highway, on the way from Grants Pass to the Oregon Coast. There is a large fire in the end Westernmost portion of the road and the resulting smoke was filtering the sun rays in a particularly interesting way. A similar photo taken with the iPhone, which I sort of like better, is below it for comparison.

18-5- mm kit lens at 30 mm, ISO 560, f/4.5, 1/60

iPhone picture

On the way from Brookings to Coos Bay, Oregon, there are a number of excellent photo opportunities. Between Brookings and Port Orford is the famous Samuel H. Boardman State Scenic Corridor, with "dramatic views of the ocean". But we were there at the wrong time: the sun was harsh, and as we were there past mid-day, it was already positioned west. It was not until we were already in Coos Bay, in the end of the day, that I got some more decent pictures. In the little marina next to our hotel, this old ship called my attention. It was illuminated directly by the sun, and it must have been close to 6:30 p.m.

18-50- mm kit lens at 48 mm, ISO 100, f/4.5, 1/60

18-5- mm kit lens at 35 mm, ISO 100, f/6.3, 1/60

I also got to take a few pictures of the “dying town”. Unfortunately, lots of towns on the West Coast, North of San Francisco, CA, all the way up to Florence, seem to be dying out. Rent is cheap and that attracts retirees and artists, but it does not seem to keep the towns from becoming emptier and decaying...

18-5- mm kit lens at 35 mm, ISO 100, f/8, 1/60

18-5- mm kit lens at 38 mm, ISO 100, f/9, 1/320

And next day, in the morning, before breakfast, I went back to the Marina. The sun was already too strong at 7:30 a.m., but I found the reflections on the very blue water worth of a shot... 

18-5- mm kit lens at 44 mm, ISO 100, f/8, 1/250