China Beach, just north of the Thomas Creek Bridge, a little north of Brookings. I'd seen this beach from above from several locations (including the point in the background) and was determined to find a way down to it. A narrow, steep access trail branches off the Oregon Coast Trail and voila -- here it is. Isolated and beautiful. SO glad I made the effort for this one. This photo, by the way, was featured in a CNN iReport on secret places, or something like that.
The GATC has an annual photo contest, which I used to run every year and at which, she says immodestly, I always walked away with a few first and second place ribbons. Judging was, and still is, I think, blind and done by an outside professional. They recently sent out a call for entries, but when I saw in the rules that I'd have to resize them to a specific size, I realized I couldn't do that because I don't have software that will enable me to size by number. A few days ago, I got an email from the photo chairman asking me to enter some of my photos. I told him why I couldn't, he said he'd resize them for me, so I was off to try and choose a mere six photos out of hundreds gathered over the past 14 or so years, mostly in the last couple of years, truthfully, since I've gone digital.
As I went through various folders of photos I'd see more and more that I really liked, didn't see any way to narrow it down so far, but then I just decided to not sweat it. I ran a photo slide show of the ones I'd already placed in a 'possibilities' folder, and culled from there, using the ones that stood out the most, then culling again until I got it down to six. I really wish I could have had some help with this from some of you out there, but since that wasn't possible, I thought I'd share the 'final six' with you, in no particular order.Most of these, probably all except the one from Mexico, have been on my Oregon Coast blog, but not everybody who visits here reads that one.
Crater Lake in the early morning, when the colors are so rich, the water so still, the reflections so perfect.
This is the surprise of the bunch -- for some reason, I guess it didn't cut the mustard when I first went through the photos taken on this trip, but when I saw it recently something about it really struck me and all morning as I was culling, kept striking me. This is the meadow at Prairie Creek Redwoods in Northern California, one of my favorite places.
This is early morning on the Oregon Coast Trail, headed out to the headlands shown in the distance in the first photo. Views from up there, in all directions, are nothing short of amazing. If anybody's interested, the trail head is just slightly north of the Thomas Creek Bridge.
Native azaleas in Azalea Park in Brookings.
I fell in love with this lilypad in Ajijic, Mexico and still love the photo and its simple symmetry.
I'll let you know if any of these wins anything. In this era of digital photography, I'm sure there are lots more people entering, and I know for a fact that there are some damned good photographers in the group, so I'm not holding my breath.
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