The Wild Pacfic Coast (Three beaches in Olympic National Park)

coscorrosa

The weather hasn't been great around here for the last month, varying between rain, snow, ice (crippling transit, commuters), and then more rain (causing floods, mudslides...).

So when I found out there might be a chance of sun on the coast for the weekend, it didn't take me long to figure out where I was going to be.

I worked remotely until noon on Friday and then furiously packed and drove to Forks, WA (where I avoided werewolves and vampires, much to my dismay) and just barely caught the sunset at Second Beach. The next morning I caught the sunrise at Second Beach (the first decent sunrise I've ever photographed at the beach, and it was brilliant), sunset at Ruby Beach later that evening, and then topped it off with the sunrise at Rialto Beach on Sunday before heading back. It was high tide during all of this, which isn't quite as easy to work with as low tide (some parts of the beach are blocked off, and the waves will come crashing in making it hard to get detail shots of rocks, etc.).

These are all single exposures (no HDR) taken with my 5D MII (its first trip to the beach). Some of the shots before dawn are several minutes long. I will say having a FF sensor is very useful, it means I don't have to switch between my 24-105 and 16-35 quite as often, and lets me get really wide when I do have the 16-35 on.

Many of the shots were intentionally overexposed to make the waves look softer and take off some of the edge. A good chunk had a 3-stop GND too, and most had a polarizer.

I judge my trips to the beach not with the quality of photos that result but how many times I fall on my butt and get wet. And by that metric, it was an astonishingly successful trip, I didn't slip or get wet at all!

I'll probably do a similar trip a few more times this winter weather permitting, there's no one there (especially at Second Beach which has a modest half mile "hike" to the beach), and the sunsets and sunrises are crazy, in 15 minutes the entire sky is completely different and the colors vary dramatically south vs. west. vs. north.

Anyway, enough rambling, here are some of my favorite shots from the trip:

#1: Second Beach Sunset



#2: Second Beach at dawn



#3: Second Beach sunrise



#4: Second Beach dawn (with the moon!)



#5: Second Beach sunrise (along with a HUGE chain that had washed up from who knows where)



#6 Ruby Beach sunset:



#7 Ruby Beach dusk:



#8 Ruby Beach dusk (this was an *hour* after sunset, all the cool colors had disappeared by then and only the yellows and reds were left):



#9 Ruby beach at dusk (looking south this time, you can see some motion blur with the rocks that got moved during this 30 second or so exposure):



#10 Rialto Beach before dawn:



#11 Rialto Beach dawn (with some small driftwood...)



#12 Rialto beach at sunrise (this is the kind of shot I couldn't do with my 1.3x crop body, looking forward to more of these types of shots):



#13 Rialto Beach sunrise:

bryanj87

The colors are fantastic! You got lucky it wasn't foggy or overcast. These are all classic shots, the type that got me stoked when I was planning my trip out there last year. You should set up a booth at Pike's Market and sell these!

Where are the Bzdula Beams???

black mamba

Hi Ron,

This is very nice production. If you rate this trip by the quality of the pictures taken, it would also be considered to be very successful....no wet butt and a great set of images.

Tom

Dwayne Oakes

Anyone of these could be a wall hanger ! Great Job ! I like
photo 3 the best. Thanks for posting.

Take care,

Dwayne Oakes

grimace

Awesome looking series Ron!!

cmkultradome

Really beautiful photos!! #5, 10, & 13 are my favorites.

Stephanie

Abiciriderback

Great series of images Ron. All show great colors, lighting and composition. Really like #3, #5, #10. Great job. I plan on doing my calls to that area the week of Feb 23. Hopefully in Feb will be working with a low tide is what it looks like now if the weather just holds out.

Ray Still

Arvan

i like your compositions very much, and the color treatment.

good quality!

schmoo

And that's all I have to say!

I was wondering how tourism changed Forks and that general area since Twilight broke out.

I've always wanted to go to the Olympic Penninsula for the wonderful scenes (like this) but I would be a little scared to do that, right now.

Oh and:

coscorrosa wrote:

#12 Rialto beach at sunrise (this is the kind of shot I couldn't do with my 1.3x crop body, looking forward to more of these types of shots):

My sentiments exactly! I have not yet really taken my 5D out for a spin in the landscapes, and I'm itching to try some of those amazing foreground shots. Fantastic as always, Ron.

Awais Yaqub

12 & 13 are stunning
great series as usual !

Tango

note to self, get Ron wet at the next shootout to make up for this trip....


btw,

Tharhawk

While I haven't spent much time on the washington beaches in a few years, you make me want to go there, especially right now, since they are more lonely than in the summer. BTW, I like how you blurred the waves on the last photo. That draws me in.

Darren Troy C

Great series!

kdog

Talk about great light! :wow

You've done it again, Ron.

-joel

coscorrosa

bryanj87 wrote:

The colors are fantastic! You got lucky it wasn't foggy or overcast. These are all classic shots, the type that got me stoked when I was planning my trip out there last year. You should set up a booth at Pike's Market and sell these!

Where are the Bzdula Beams???

I knew it wasn't going to be foggy or overcast looking at the forecast, the luck part is that it happened on a weekend when I could actually go there

Selling these at the market will have to wait until I'm retired (in 35 years - ouch!). Any time spent selling would be time I couldn't be out taking photos. I've accepted the fact that this hobby isn't going to return any financial dividends for a long time if ever, and I'm perfectly happy with that. I had a smile on my face the entire time I was out there, that's payment enough

shniks

Woohoo Ron- #1 and #9 are my faves....



Cheers,

coscorrosa

black mamba wrote:

Hi Ron,

This is very nice production. If you rate this trip by the quality of the pictures taken, it would also be considered to be very successful....no wet butt and a great set of images.

Tom

Thanks Tom! I actually think my favorite part of the trip was getting to Ruby Beach about two hours before sunset, having nothing else to do, and finding an isolated place to take a nap on the beach with the sun hitting my face while listening to the waves, knowing that when I woke up, I'd have a great sunset to shoot.

coscorrosa

Abiciriderback wrote:

Great series of images Ron. All show great colors, lighting and composition. Really like #3, #5, #10. Great job. I plan on doing my calls to that area the week of Feb 23. Hopefully in Feb will be working with a low tide is what it looks like now if the weather just holds out.

Ray Still

Thanks Ray! Hope the weather cooperates with you, it seems like the photography conditions alternate between wet/rainy/overcast or completely awesome, and there's no middle ground.

coscorrosa

schmoo wrote:

And that's all I have to say!

I was wondering how tourism changed Forks and that general area since Twilight broke out.

I've always wanted to go to the Olympic Penninsula for the wonderful scenes (like this) but I would be a little scared to do that, right now.

Oh and:



My sentiments exactly! I have not yet really taken my 5D out for a spin in the landscapes, and I'm itching to try some of those amazing foreground shots. Fantastic as always, Ron.

I've heard a rumor that the vampires can be knocked unconscious with a proper use of a RRS BH-55 ball-head, so I'm not worried about being attacked. I think the vampires are afraid of me actually. And if the BH-55 doesn't get them, I'll just throw a few garlic sticks at them.

I'm pretty stoked having a FF finally, my first camera (a 20D) had a 1.6x crop body but I had a 10-22 lens for it so I could still get wide (but I didn't know what the hell I was doing back then so I didn't really take advantage). Then on my 1.3x crop body the widest I could get was about 20mm (effective). Now I'm back at 16mm effective and it's great.

coscorrosa

AaronNelson wrote:

note to self, get Ron wet at the next shootout to make up for this trip....


btw,

See my above response to schmoo about dealing with vampires, the same methods of deterrence can be used on humans too, just letting you know in advance

coscorrosa

Thanks!
Again, thanks to you all for the comments! Olympic National Park is great, and to think I didn't take any photographs there until last March even though I'm only 4 hours away. I know, I'm an idiot.

FWIW, my favorites are 1, 3 (probably my overall favorite), 5, 9, and 12.

Thanks for looking!

David_S85

Stunning! :wow
My fave's are the first one through the last one. Just fantastic scenery and photography.

leahe

OMG! Spectacular images, all of them. I love the PNW, but I have never been to Washington... yet. I definately will have to put that on my list of places to go to at least once. By the way, when I grow up I want to shoot like Ron.

redleash

#2 and #5 for me--really like that chain! The colors are stunning, no gorgeous, no fantastic, no . . . well, words cannot describe!

rwells

coscorrosa wrote:

#5: Second Beach sunrise (along with a HUGE chain that had washed up from who knows where)

Ron,

Fantastic captures

This one looks like a ship (island/rock) that ran into the rocks and is sinking, with only it's bow sticking up above water. The chain almost looks like its anchor line.

Hmmm...did the doctor show those splotches on the charts to anyone else

squirl033

great series, Ron... #3 and #5 really are superb! reminds me i need to get back out there for a weekend one of these days, though frankly i doubt i'll have the determination to make it to Second Beach before sunup! but i do need to give my 5D a good workout, and that's as good a place as any i can think of to do it!

Dionysus

beautiful, beautiful shots.

pillman

MERCY nice area to live. Fantastic work, all nice yet for me
3 and 9 SHINE...

coscorrosa

leahe wrote:

OMG! Spectacular images, all of them. I love the PNW, but I have never been to Washington... yet. I definately will have to put that on my list of places to go to at least once. By the way, when I grow up I want to shoot like Ron.

Thanks!

But I must say, growing up is over-rated (I don't speak from experience on that, but as someone who has not yet grown up looking at those who supposedly have... it's not worth it!).

coscorrosa

redleash wrote:

#2 and #5 for me--really like that chain! The colors are stunning, no gorgeous, no fantastic, no . . . well, words cannot describe!

Thanks Lauren, that's pretty much the feeling I had while I was out there shooting. Like I mentioned earlier in the thread, this was the first time I had taken any beach shots at dawn and sunrise. Just amazing colors that changed every 15 minutes and varied dramatically looking south vs. west. vs. north. It's actually very easy to shoot this stuff, you just take the lens cap off as nature has already done all the hard work

coscorrosa

squirl033 wrote:

great series, Ron... #3 and #5 really are superb! reminds me i need to get back out there for a weekend one of these days, though frankly i doubt i'll have the determination to make it to Second Beach before sunup! but i do need to give my 5D a good workout, and that's as good a place as any i can think of to do it!

You can definitely give it work out, I think I had about 1,000 exposures over a three day trip (probably only about 500 shots though, I bracketed some things and didn't end up needing the extra exposures).

Anyway, just grab yourself a headlamp, stay the night in Forks (motels only about $50 during non-peak season), get up at 6AM, and you can make it down to Second Beach no problem before dawn. The only tricky part was the huge mass of logs at the end of the trail that you have to hop over which is tricky under normal conditions but even more tricky when they're covered with frost

I was all alone for sunrise at Second Beach and it was great. It's just a little less accessible than Ruby Beach and Rialto Beach and there aren't nearly as many people or photographers. It's really a nice spot, I think it's my favorite of the Olympic National Park Beaches (haven't been to Shi-Shi yet though).