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April 18, 2016

THE REALLY BIG ROCK

... courtesy of jet blue, after six hours of unbelievable legroom, and after sharing the smooth flight with some very nice people, we landed in seattle at 11:00pm ... we then hopped into our rental car and headed south on a three and one-half hour drive to the oregon coast ... it was pitch dark when we arrived at cannon beach ... after a brief exploration i curled up in the back seat and got a few hours sleep while chad continued wanderingabout the darkened landscape ...

... at around five in the morning we strolled down to the beach and began taking pictures of oregon's famous haystack rock (i qualify it because there many so named monoliths scattered around the globe) ...

... from the get-go i was aware that my "visual autism" was going to cause a problem for me ... the entire landscape was wonderfully fascinating to my eyes, which is stage one of a process that usually leads me to focusing upon singularities in the scene, but, something i've learned to accept, on this particular morning that didn't happen ... i knew better than to force the issue, so i amused myself by trying to snap a picture of chad as he worked ... this, i believe, is the exact moment he was framing a most fabulous poster shot ...

... once the sun was up i navigated us to ecola point, just north of cannon beach ... i am somewhat familiar with the area since adrien and i made a great wanderabout here several years ago, so i knew this was a great vantage from which to view haystack rock ...

... again, not attempt to force my eyes into seeing, i just relaxed and directed my energies towards appreciating all that was before me ... i snapped this with my ancient tamron 300mm sp, which, to be honest, surprised me with how well it recorded the color ...

... fully admitting that it's perhaps a bit moody, i like this picture ... although it was already early morning when i took it, it makes sense to me that i interpreted it as if it were pre-dawn ...

... a little surprise, easily visible from the parking lot ... adrien and i must have missed it because during our visit the point was enveloped in wind driven mist ... 

... as i was leaving this old tree caught my attention ... although not much of a picture, i knew it was important i listen to what my eyes were whispering ...

... after a nice breakfast, for me most yummy sourdough pancakes, we drove up to cape disappointment ... chad was fascinated with the tall trees along the road ...

... a greenscape ...

... again, i couldn't focus, so i relaxed and just wandered around looking down ...

... i'm not sure, west coast fiddleheads ... ??? ...

... i love this soft, soft place ...

... along the shore of the little cove northwest of the cape we found this fantastic driftwood forest ... some pieces were larger than small trucks, others were well over fifty feet long ... there were great tree trunks washed down from the interior of the olympic peninsula, small sections of boats, and huge structural beams from buildings ... several neat little driftwood houses were tucked against the rocks ...

... this is perhaps one-quarter of a walkway upon which was inscribed the entire history of the lewis & clark expedition, with the white man's story on one side and the parallel native chronology on the other ...

... we walked out onto the great jetty that was built to protect the columbia river shipping channel ... in the past several hundred years there have been well over a thousand vessels ground to pieces along this treacherous stretch of coastline ...

... the sea lions, however, find it a most delightful place to eat and play ... this fellow, who repeatedly teased me by popping his head up, smiling, and then submerging before i could focus my lens, was easily six feet long ...

... again, the tamron lens allowed me to capture a moment of calm below the north point lighthouse ...

... then, facing a perspective of glare, high contrast, and haze inducing mist, the little switch clicked—my eyes and brain and mind and heart and camera became connected ...

... in that moment, i slowed, stopped, and watched the world ...

"It is an illusion that photos are made with the camera … they are made with the eye, heart and head."
HENRI CARTIER-BRESSON