Posted by admin
in Blog on July 23, 2012
In my last post, I talked about our stay at Crater Lake National Park. When we left Crater Lake, we moved on to explore more of Oregon. The first place we hit was Toketee Falls, which is in the Southern Cascades/southwest part of the state. It’s an extremely photogenic waterfall, and it’s located in an incredibly lush, wooded area. The hike to the falls from the trail head is about 15-20 minutes, and includes a bunch of stairs.
Me and Karen at the lookout to Toketee Falls
Karen’s shot of Toketee falls (I’m still editing mine!). To get the water to look this silky during a somewhat bright day, we had to use neutral density filters to cut out some of the light.
Our next stop was the town of Medford, Oregon, and we stayed there for two nights. We searched for stuff to photograph there, but nothing really spoke to us so instead we explored the cute downtown area of Ashland. We did a wine tasting at a place called Edenvale Enoteca and then met up with my friend and digital print-making pioneer Mac Holbert. He just happens to live in the area, and we had dinner at a great place called Dragonfly.
After leaving Medford, we headed toward the coast and spent three nights in Coos Bay. We parked at a casino/RV park that was right on the water. While we were there, we explored the nearby town of Bandon and did a bit of shooting there. Unfortunately, the weather didn’t cooperate with us, but we still had fun experiencing the Oregon coast.
One of Karen’s shots from Bandon Beach
Our final location of the week was Winchester Bay, where we stayed at an RV park/marina. The parking spot is great because we have water all around us. Unfortunately, we didn’t have great shooting karma here either. We drove up and down the beach, checking out the lighthouse and enjoying the views, but nothing really grabbed our photographic eyes. Sometimes, that happens. We weren’t overly bummed about it. What WAS frustrating, was our waterfall wild goose chase. We knew of two waterfalls that were within two hours of us, but when we went to seek them out, we got pretty lost on a series of gravel mountain roads. Five hours later, and after asking for help twice, we arrived back at the bus with empty memory cards. *sigh*
Anyway, from here we move on to Eugene, Oregon. We’ll explore a bit of that area and also get some minor work done on the bus. More to come…
This was our most exciting encounter during our 5-hour waterfall hunt.
