About 11 summers ago, Wanda and I took an impromptu road trip down the Oregon coast. We were simply trying to get out of town for a break and to do some photography along the way. At that time, I had an Olympus DL620 digital camera, which I thought was a big deal at the time. I think it had a whopping 2 megapixels, but it did a decent job and I believe that this was our first real trip with it. In any case, we wound up driving down the coast from above Cannon Beach and we took our time and enjoyed the trip. We drove as far down as Newport, had some dinner, then found a motel for the night (that's a whole other story that we still laugh about sometimes - think 1960's motel kitsch).
The next day, after a leisurely breakfast, we headed back to Portland, but on a wild whim, I took a side road off Hwy 26 and just drove along hoping to find a nice place to shoot. I can't say that I wasn't influenced by the large creek I had seen off the highway (I enjoy shooting models in water), and after about 8-10 miles off the highway, we came to a nice little spot along the creek where the water was wide, fairly shallow, and actually quite warm for an Oregon stream. There were several rocks not far out in the water and a bit of white water as well as a calmer stretch of shallow water. Wanda being Wanda, it wasn't too hard to get her to get out an pose in the stream for a number of shots, and we had quite a bit of fun that day, shooting in the water and along the banks. Although the road continued along the creek for a number of miles, the traffic was sparse and no one looked down to see us shooting
Since that summer, I've shot there a number of times. Wanda and I went back there for a shoot about 7 years later, and since then I've shot there at least two more times. In fact, my water fairy image was shot there, and most recently I did a glamour shoot for a young models portfolio in the same stream With any luck, I'll get to shoot there a few more times - and I'd especially like to take Wanda back there for a new shoot.
The water fairy:
Glamour in the water:
