It is early morning on Bandon Beach with a full moon, a low tide, my favorite time to come to the beach looking for photographic opportunities. It is interesting how, during the winter months, the low tides are in the evening and during the summer, the low tides are in the morning, a consequence of the Earth’s tilt and the gravitational pull of the sun, which the tilt influences. Even though it was a full moon that morning, it set early, making me work the subject. Had the moon still been up, I would have tried to capture the moon in a west-facing shot rather than the south-facing image here.
I never tire of these beach adventures, as the Oregon coastline is constantly changing from winter to summer and back to winter again. The interaction of waves, currents, and weather patterns, meaning winds, continues to carve their effect on the sands, rocks, and beach. Here, I was able to use the ripple marks, with their strong vertical line, to create a sense of depth and highlight the “Howling Dog” seascape.
An assignment which has us submit an image of our “Artistic Vision”; or our particular perspective and creative intent is an interesting exercise. As we go about our craft on a subject, its lighting, time of day, and environmental elements are blended to create our message. In the image submitted, I was able to utilize attributes of the beach to emphasize the Bandon Sea stacks through the compositional elements of the sand and water. Rather than doing a close-up of the “Howling Dog” and its two adjoining sea stacks, I deliberately chose a wider view encompassing most of Face Rock on the right and several of Face Rock Park’s sea stacks on the left. As a person recently said, “an artistic vision is the driving force behind how we express ourselves in style, subject and message”.
