Day 11

My laptop died on the last day of our trip and I was very concerned that all my pictures were lost, but thanks to the Apple Geniuses, all is well. Here is a traditional pic of Seattle as well as some of my favs from the trip.

Day 10 Part 2

A couple final pics from Oregon and then we crossed into Washington state.  Stace struck a few yoga poses on the rocks while I balanced the remaining rays of twilight with an orange gelled flash.

Day 10

We headed north today along the coast of Oregon and stopped in a small fishing / logging village to take a few pics.  Met a nice mother / son couple who were spending their last weekend  fishing for Dungeness crab together before he moved off to Wyoming to work in the oil fields.  They were glad to explain the process, which we documented with pictures.  She was thrilled to hear we'd send the pics to her as a keepsake.

Get some bait.  In this case a big hunk of throw-away cod (cost $2.50).

Tie the bait into the net and toss the net into the water, letting it sink to the bottom.

Wait 15 or 20 minutes and pull up the net.
The crabs are feeding on the bait, but in this case, they are too small to keep.
Close but not quite big enough to be legal, so he goes back in the ocean.
Michael and his mom, Tinsia.

Day 9

Our first morning on the coast.  We're staying in Cape Kiwanda.  We were up again before dawn and simply walked across the street to catch all of these pictures.  The first one is the view from our room.  The sandstone cliffs are beautiful in the morning light and at low tide the pools at the base of the cliffs display amazing shapes and colors.

Sandstone alligator?

 

Day 8

We were up at 5:15am and hiked in the dark to get to the top of Eagle's Cave, a very slippery and steep climb that enables a full 360 degree view of the Columbia River Gorge.  Then on to Multnomah Falls and finally the coast of Oregon at Whalen Island.  Too many photo opportunities to mention.  Here are a few.

See that rock in the background?  That's what we climbed to get the views below.

Day 7

Up early today to to shoot the sunrise over Coeur d'Alene lake.  Wasn't as spectacular as we had hoped so we pulled out our flashes and started experimenting in the woods.  The Nikon Creative Lighting System is way cool and provides lots of options.  Here we used two SB800 flashes off camera set in the woods with orange filters on them.  The power of the flashes can be dialed up and down from the camera to create different lighting ratios.  Stacey's shot of me by the lake became much more dramatic by simply dialing up the flash that was down low and about 45 degrees to the right of the camera.  Coffee pic was natural light.

Caught a nice sunset shot on the way to the Columbia River Gorge.  Shot it at two different white balances, cloudy and incandescent for different color effects