Photography Retreat Part 1

Footprints in the Sand

The Salem Digital Photo Group held their first annual photography retreat this fall. The retreat was held on the beautiful Oregon coast at the wonderful Camp Magruder, near Rockaway Beach, Oregon.

The first day of the retreat was filled with the excitement of getting settled in to the cabin, getting some grocery shopping done to provide snacks for the Retreat-goers between the marvelous and overly abundant food served by the camp and of course a little scouting of the location. As people arrived, the excitement built. Needless to say, everyone had itchy trigger fingers and were ready to get out snapping.

We soon headed out to the beach to for the sunset, arriving an hour early to capture some beach scenes as well.

Beach Fodder

Mini-Dune

Sunset

Long Exposure on the Beach with Star Trails

The first day concluded with an 11:00 PM trip back out to the beach to attempt a 1 hour long exposure. This attempt was plagued with issues, beginning with the the fact that the moon rose at 11:15 PM washing the sand, sky and sea out with its pesky light. Then, 12 minutes into the exposure some yahoo decided he heard voices and shines his flashlight not once, not twice, but three times in our direction, hence the UFO on the beach in the image on the right.

So I scrapped that exposure and decided to try again. Clicked my shutter and waited.

13 minutes into that exposure my batteries died.



I change the batteries, and started again. About  12 minutes into that exposure another photographer stopped his hour long exposure and found a pure white image thanks to the moon. I stopped my third attempt at an exposure. We made the decision to call it a night a little after 12:00 AM and packed up and headed back to the warmth of our cabin and the wood stove heat within. We would try again the next night.

The first day came to a close. People wandered into their beds, exhausted... tomorrow was going to be an early morning full of wonderful opportunities.

Watch for Part Two of this four part blog next week...