Mary and I drove down the Oregon Coast with Jack Graham a few weeks ago. I already blogged about the lighthouses, barns, covered bridges, and the coastline. This edition will be about photographing various flowers, trees, and other interesting subjects we saw. Again, we started in Tillamook and drove down to Bandon over three days and then back up to Newberg and Dundee in the Willamette Valley.
There are Rhododendrons everywhere this time of year. The key is to find some with a good background, out of direct sunlight, and with as little wind as possible. We had a nice morning shoot trying out different compositions.
We also ran into a field of wild iris and worked it over for an hour or so.
As we were leaving Bandon, we were driving along and Mary yelled out “stop the car and turn around.” I had no idea what she saw, but I complied. Here is what she saw and here is what I found behind the trees.
We also found a few other wild flowers along the way.
Lastly, we made a visit to the Schreiners Nursery and Gardens. They have at least 20,000 square feet of beautiful gardens that you can photograph for free. They were very nice and very helpful. They are famous for their varieties of Iris. We also saw more types of Columbine than we had ever seen before. We used our tripods and Canon 100 mm and 180 mm macro lenses. It was a great experience.
Once again, these are the resources we used on our trip. We really liked Photographing Oregon by Greg Vaughn, Bob Hitchman’s Photograph America Newsletter about the Oregon Coast, and you can also go to Jack Graham’s website to see his workshops. Next up – Oregon in “infrared.” To see our “best of Oregon photographs, go to www.pamphotography.com.
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