An interesting fact that I learned while Shelley and I were on this trip is that multiple sea stacks are named Haystack Rock along the Oregon coast. The most recognized is the Haystack Rock that was used in the movie Goonies. This Haystack Rock is found on Cannon Beach. Shelley and I visited another Haystack Rock sea stack while driving along the Pacific coast. You’ll be able to read about that one in the next blog post when we visit Cape Meares Lighthouse and Cape Kiwanda.
Cannon Beach
Shelley and I arrived at Cannon Beach Oregon after leaving our base camp of two nights in Astoria. Cannon Beach is a lovely seaside town that is located about 45 minutes south of Astoria along US 101. Cannon Beach is home to one of the many Haystack Rock sea stacks that are found along the Oregon coast. This was our chief reason for stopping there on this trip. Although I would have loved to spend a couple of days exploring the area in more detail trips like this one for me are more about finding the locations that I want to go back to and spend more time. Cannon Beach was no exception to this rule. It would have been nice to be able to spend more time there and get more chances at photographing during the best light. As it was on the day that we were there, the sky was overcast with a layer of midlevel clouds, and the wind was strong enough that you could see the sand blowing across the roads near the beach.
Haystack Rock
Shelley and I walked out onto the beach. The beach was dotted with people in the direction of Haystack Rock. I found the composition that I wanted of Haystack Rock. I then set up my tripod with my camera in the vertical position, shooting 7 frames with each being a set of three bracketed images. Next, I scanned through the photographs on the back of my camera verifying that I had each bracket of three images. By doing this, it allowed me to have more flexibility in post. I tend to perform these same steps on the compositions of subjects that I am not sure when or if I will get another chance to visit. Below is the final photograph that I produced from the 7 frames stitched together in Lightroom. The final results were shot at f/29, 1/50 of a second, at ISO 100. Each frame was zoomed to 85mm on my 70mm to 300mm lens.
Ecola State Park, Oregon
Shelley and I finished at the beach and headed back through Cannon Beach on our way north to Ecola State Park. Areas in this park were used as locations for the Goonies film. This state park, like most of the others along the coast, offers plentiful photographic opportunities.
Haystack Rock – Ecola State Park, Oregon
For this composition, I chose once again to shoot multiple bracketed vertical frames to create a final panoramic photograph in-post. I did this again for the opportunity to correct the photograph during my post-processing if needed. For this photograph, I shot a total of 8 frames. Once I was back at the computer, I stitched the 8 frames together in Lightroom to create a single panoramic photograph. Each frame was shot at ISO100, 68mm, f/16, at 1/60 of a second.
Submarine Rock – Ecola State Park, Oregon
This was an unexpected photographic find for me on this trip. While I was in the planning stages of this epic road trip, I searched for the commonplace photographs and images. Not that I want to replicate anyone else’s work directly. However, I do want to know what compositions have been done to death. While I will photograph the well-known compositions. I tend to get those done first and then move on to finding my own compositions; something that is different and speaks to my style and visual voice as a photographer. This was one of those locations where nothing that I had online comes close to the composition that I preferred. I made the photograph below with a single frame shot at ISO 100, 55mm, f/16, and 15.0 sec with a 10-stop neutral density filter on the lens.
Please check out the corresponding video over on my YouTube Channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVEf9aXoQMPTAVTztNkNIxg.
