I’ve loved the Oregon coast ever since I first visited it as a young child. It’s a place of raw beauty, frequently strewn with rough rock and rougher weather. But there are also stretches of sandy beach, and occasions when the sun breaks through the cold drizzly days. These are the moments that are pure magic. Landscape photography is always a dance with the elements; there are countless times when I’ve planned to capture a particular photograph only to have Oregon’s fickle weather state otherwise.
There’s a phrase you’ll hear locals say around here: “If you don’t like the weather, wait 15 minutes.” There’s a lot of truth in that. It’s also an important mantra any self-respecting outdoor photographer should repeat if they plan to capture truly transcendent images. Patience is the key.
For this image, I arrived on the beach just before sunrise, hoping to capture some slow exposures of outgoing tide swirling around these posts. But the fog was so thick that I could only see a few feet in front of me. The air was dead still; the only sound around me was the lapping of soft waves on the beach and an occasional call of a seagull. Even with nothing to capture through lens at the moment, I set up my gear for the first shot. The sky was lightening as the sun lifted above the horizon. Maybe things would clear, maybe not. I simply had to wait to see if the moment arrived; heading back to camp because of the fog would only guarantee failure.
Leaving my camera on its tripod, I scouted the area with coffee thermos in hand to find other potential compositions. The grey sky continued to brighten as the early sun began to burn off the fog. Suddenly, light burst through the fog—the sun had just crested the hill, throwing the piers into stark silhouettes. I adjusted my camera’s position to place the sun right at the junction of post and beam, then took this shot.
A few minutes later, the fog returned with a vengeance, completely obscuring the sun. But I drove back to my campsite, giddy with the knowledge of how this morning’s patience had paid me back a thousandfold—moments like this are the landscape photographer’s gems.
About this Artwork
Entitled, Pierhenge, this photograph transforms pilings left from an abandoned pier into a mystical structure; a henge of pilings, if you will.
The work is available as a limited-edition framed print. Its accompanying narrative is etched into a black acrylic plaque, designed to be hung next to the print, as shown in the following illustration.
Click the image below to visit this piece’s detail page where you can read its narrative, check availability and pricing, and more.
Click to visit this artwork’s detail page in my portfolio.