Bandon Beach

• Edwin Way Teale.

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I recently noticed that most of the photos of Oregon are of the Cascade Range or lake sunrise shots. I have only a precious few images of the other fantastic natural beauty of the state, its coastline. There is a reason for that. While its coastline is staggeringly pretty, the marine layer often comes in just before sunset and only clears up after the sun is well above the horizon. The overcast sky clears up any chance of getting a fantastic golden hour light during our summer road trips.

From my research, I have learned that the best month to shoot the Oregon coastline is the month of September. Warm months often get the marine layer, and winter months are usually rainy. Now, this doesn’t mean that you won’t get the occasional perfect day, but so far, I haven’t been that lucky during my trips.

Bandon Beach is known for its sea stacks, and It was a pretty cold summer morning. My wife decided to stay tucked in the warm hotel room, but I decided to head out to go for a walk on the beach. It was, as usual, foggy morning, and I headed out around 5 am. Because there was not much light to worry about, I spend a lot of time composing the shots to get the wave pattern right. I wanted to get the sea stacks and the sweeping surf as the leading line. After a couple of dozen failed attempts, I nailed the shot I had in mind. And while post-processing, I noticed the very subtle colors on the overcast sky as well. Turned out to be a much better image than I had hoped for.

• Albert Einstein.

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On our first day in Oregon, we reached Bandon Beach and its famed sea stacks. I was hoping for one of those epic storm clearing sunsets but was told by the hotel receptionist that those only happen in fall. In our talks he told me that most of the great some clearing sky happens in fall, winter is too rainy and summer to foggy for photography.

So I didn’t have much hope when we ventured out to the beach but I noticed a crack in the clouds close to the horizon as the fog started to slowly gather strength. So I held hope that there will be some cloud as the sun got near the horizon before the fog came in thick. My wife was skeptical but it turns out I was right for once. As the sunset time approached, we had some wind that cleared the fog a bit and the golden light started poured in through the crack in the clouds. It was not as awesome as I pictured in my mind but better than what I hoped for given the conditions we witnessed while we reached the beach.

• John Dryden.

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Photographing the Oregon coast during a summer road trip is one of the most fun activities I have ever done. If you have done any research on this kind of trip, the town of Bandon would have come up. The photos of Bandon at sunset and sunrise are genuinely spectacular, especially if you were lucky enough to be there when a storm is clearing. I have visited this beautiful town twice now but booth times during summer, and I can clearly state that the spectacular sky that’s seen in most Bandon shots occurs during a precious few weeks in the fall. Most of the time, the Marine Layer makes the conditions pretty drab during both morning and evening golden hour.

During our second visit, after a completely cloudy sunset, I decided to try my luck at sunrise. My wife took one look through the window and decided to go back to sleep. I decided to venture out alone to the beach and try my luck. The sky was very cloudy, and it was looking like a wash in terms of photography. So I decided to go for a walk along the beach and try to get closer to the sea stacks. As I got closer, I noticed that the clouds were breaking near the horizon, and some color was peaking through. I immediately got into setting up my camera and took some test shots. The problem was that while some light was peaking through, the overall scene was still very flat. I wanted to create some depth to the image and decided to use waves as my leading lines. It took me a couple of tries, but finally, I got one to line up the shot perfectly.

Beautiful Bandon Beach. Unfortunately there weren't the tidal pools and rocks I had hoped for at this vantage point. But with the reflection and the soft ripples in the sand I think this simple composition still works, even if there's no cool foreground ;-)

I did a little tutorial video on how to add some glow around the sun. It's no rocket sience but still a nice effect

Bandon beach is a photographers playground. As I first saw this beach I was kind of overwhelmed. Where to start? There are so many subjects to shoot, sea stacks everywhere you look and many tide pools, which can be used as foreground subjects. Unfortunately there where maybe 20 other photographers there at the first evening I was shooting this beach.

The photo I show you here was taken the next morning. First I thought I'd be alone but at around 5am the same 20 photographers arrived again. But still,the beach is so large that it was possible to avoid that group of photographers and get some nice shots in the soft light of dawn.

I hope you like it. This is the only shoot at the west coats where I had some decent clouds and some nice light.

cheers

Bandon was a very busy place the day we visited. At sunset there were roughly 20 - 30 photographers on the beach. A whole travel group it seemed. Good they didn't have the same route like we had :-)

So if there's no way to get a photo devoid of photographers I thought I'd include one to show the dimensions of the sea stacks instead.

cheers

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