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I wanted to avoid the ‘cookie cutter’ compositions that always seem to feature the Wizards Hat the South end of Bandon, whilst still capturing the litter of sea stacks at sunset.

2 days of mooching around the beach and I hadn’t ‘seen’ any compostions, just plenty of tide pools

Then I started to think around the small boulders and rocks on the tideline with the more ‘youthful’ stacks still out to sea. These nubs remnants of what I imagine to have been giant stacks and boulders at one time, the view across the oceon like looking through layers of geological time.

A big bank of clouds blocked the sun right until the final moment before the sun sank, when a burst of color lit up the sky like fire. Some careful incamera filtering allowed me to ramp up the reds providing a nice color contrast to the ice cool of the recedding tide at the bottom of the frame.

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© Copyright Paul Marsden. All rights reserved.

After a week in the waterfall wonderland of the Gorge, took a break to head out to the desert and the Painted Hills.

It’s a stunningly small pocket of badlands, where ancient lines of ash form colorful lines across the hills, though were laid down at the same time, the faults in the area have worked up at different speeds, folding and contorting the lines through the yellow badlands.

sphinx paws | painted hills

The hills rise abrubtly from the plains, and their yellow colour and skin like folds remind me of the paws of the Sphinx for some reason.

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© Copyright Paul Marsden. All rights reserved.

After 3 days in Colombia Gorge,  hiking roughly 8+ miles a day. I was beat.

So I cunningly planned Pony Tail falls as the last (and shortest hike) of the final day. Alas. Unbeknowst to me, it’s also one of the steepest, either that or by then my legs were just playing stubborn mule.

mini me | pony tail falls

You can walk behind Pony, which is fine, but I prefer it for the perfect arc as the river is forcefully pumped at velocity through a narrow crack in the basalt cliff.

Finding this spout in a boulder gap down creek, I was taken with how it mirrored the shape and arc of Pony tail falls — a mini-me of sorts — and tried to base a composition around it as a lead in.

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© Copyright Paul Marsden. All rights reserved.

Oneonta Gorge reminds me a lot of the slot canyons of the Southwest. The tight narrows, the abundance of water (though all year round in this case), the high vaulted cliffs. Except reflected light is replaced with a lush canyon and pitch dark walls.

Getting in there is ‘interesting’ in that there’s was the slightly sketchy climb half scrabble across a massive log jam as an opener to the hike involving chimmying across slippery tree trunks whilst the river rushes beneath you.

the narrows | oneonta gorge

I had the sensation of legs like a new born deer half walking / crawling along the wet, moss lined logs mixed with a nagging “oh my god if I fall in the drink, my gears toast”.

With the log jamb navigated, I got maybe a few hundred meters wading directly up the creek before the water was up to my belt — i’m 6ft 2.

After seeing one guy further up Oneonta gorge swimming about 20 meters up creek. I realised the waterfall at gorge end was going to be off limits. Possibly May is too early in the season, as the ‘swimmer’ reckoned it was about 7 to 8 ft deep further up. No dry bag either. Another time. Or June, once the Spring melt has eased off.

the narrows II | oneonta gorge

Not happy with leaving without something, I set up to try capture the gorge narrows, which wet showing some nice reflected light upstream.

Then my LEE hood randomly detached, and fell in the creek. Ensure me speed wading down-gorge before it floated (or sank) all the while half expecting the current to topple my tripod and dunk the 5D Mk2 behind me. The Gorge was against me. I was sure of it.

Hood and polariser retrieved, cue a filter clean knee deep in water. Not fun.

In the end I managed to find a composition that worked around the reflections, and found some eddys to position at the base of the frame. Though i’m still not sure which crop I prefer.

Portrait seems to flatter the height of the canyon, and gives added sense to it’s narrows, but the landscape with the stark shadows at the sides draw you down and into the gorge and gives a sense for how dark it is there (and it is dark) — i guess both have their virtues.

Working in there is a nightmare, my feet were numb, my Salomons felt like lead boots from all the water they retained hiking out … but it was so worth it.

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© Copyright Paul Marsden. All rights reserved

Hidden deep inside a towering gorge, Elowah falls looms up like something straight out of Tolkien.

A giant waterfall you’d imagine closer to home in Rivendell than Oregon, though you could mistake plenty of places in the Colombia river gorge for the set of Middle Earth.

rivendell | elowah falls

The roaring creek almost (almost!) drowned out the thundering 747-like-roar of Elowah upstream.

One thing the image doesn’t portray is the scale of the gorge, Elowah’s drop is just under 300ft, nor the noise the towering waterfall generates as the torrent pounds the rocks in the splash pool.

The spray from the falls was unreal, coming down in thick sheets, more like rain than mist, making composing and pin sharp shots difficult.

Rain from earlier in the day brought out the vibrant and rich greens lining the creek nicely, as well as the massive lichen stains on the cliffs surrounding Elowah. I was blessed with some  patchy sunshine gave some of the house sized boulders some nice sidelight I’d not seen on previous days.

Tucked away as it is, Elowah falls is one of the Gorge’s gems, and it must be one of the greenest in the Gorge come spring, all that mist pouring of the cascade drenches every inch of the surrounding forest and you can feel it hundreds of meters up stream — which makes keeping your lens / filters / camera dry a real challenge.

I used this acetate sheet ‘improv’ to keep the water off the lens whilst i was working, lifting it only at the last second to shoot — patent is pending

improvised 'mist shield'

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© Copyright Paul Marsden. All rights reserved.