Mile 177.3 to Mile 179.3 - Florence, Oregon Coast

Places to visit .
1. Heceta head lighthouse
2. Sea Lion Caves
Things to do/See
I was excited to see the largest naturally formed sea caves. The elevator descends 208 feet to the largest stellar sea lions and california sea lions home. Apart from the sea lions, you get to see pigeon guillemot, Brandt's cormorant, common seagulls, tufted puffins and many more birds. This attraction is at mile 179.1 of the highway 101.


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Stellar Sea Lions

Guillemot and Cormorant

The Heceta head lighthouse was named after a eighteenth century Spanish captain Bruno de Hezeta. This lighthouse was constructed in 1894 and is still functional. It is located at mile 178.2 of highway 101. It is open from 11am to 5pm on weekends and 11am to 3pm on weekdays. You cannot miss this lighthouse in your trip to SeaLions Cave.

Heceta head lighthouse

You would have to hike 1/2 mile to the light-house from the parking lot. On the way , you can see the lighthouse keeper's house. I have heard that they serve as bread and breakfast. The scenic viewpoint from the lighthouse is a photographers dream come true. The water is bluish green. The plants cover the entire spectrum of green. The rocks cover black to brown. The sky colour ranges anywhere from blue to white. You can see what I mean in this picture below. It was taken with a 3 MP iPhone camera and looks brilliant.

View from lighthouse

Mile 0 to Mile 6.5 - Oregon Coast - Oregon Coast Visitors Association

Mile 0 to Mile 6.5 - Oregon Coast - Oregon Coast Visitors Association

Digital Photography 101 - Portraits with Landscapes in Bright Light

Scenario : Background is lit with bright sun-light. Your subject is in the dark. You have used a large focal length(small f number) to capture the person in front and a small shutter speed to capture the background with enough details. ISO is set to lowest possible to avoid any whitewash. The result of such a scenario is shown below. The picture was taken with the following settings in a Canon SX 10 IS. F-Number -2.7, Shutter speed - 1/1600, ISO - 100.                                       

The subject is in the dark, while you have captured the background with enough details. How you do capture the subject and background with enough details and without any whitewash ?.

This is the subject of my post.

The answer to the above scenario is to use a flash in bright-light. Flash in bright light may sound counter-intuitive for the first time. This needs some explanation to understand.

By setting your shutter speed(exposure time) to a very small values(1/1600), you have saved the background from whitewash. At the same time you have reduced the amount of light from the near subject significantly. Thus, the picture shows the subject in the dark. By using flash with the same settings as above, you can capture both the subject and background as shown below

It is clear from the picture that the subject and background are well-lit. The trick is the use of flash to shed more light to the objects nearby and still capture enough details from the background without a whitewash.

Remember to turn on your flash when you have landscapes+portrait picture to capture both the landscape and the portrait without a whitewash.

Mile 0 to Mile 6.5 - Oregon Coast

Places to visit.
1. Eagle Sanctuary - A must see site in winter.
Twilight Eagle Sanctuary
2. Astoria Column - magnificent view of Astoria.
Astoria Column
3. Astoria-Megler Bridge
Astoria-Megler Bridge
4. Fort Stevens
Fort Stevens State Park

Things to Do/See
Twilight Eagle Sanctuary
Astoria, Warrenton, Fort Stevens.
There are several viewpoints along columbia highway 30 leading from Longview beach to Astoria. The drive is very scenic with mountains on one side and columbia river on the other.

Astoria Column offers a brilliant view of Astoria-Megler Bridge and Astoria City. The column itself is around 200 feet tall and has winding stairs to the top. It feels like you are climbing to the heaven itself.

Astoria Column
Columbia Boat at Maritime Museum

You can get into Astoria Valley Trolley at Maritime Museum stop. It travels the entire coast of Astoria and the trolley conductor has a interesting narration of the city.

Astoria Riverfront Trolley

Astoria-Megler Bridge

Travel west of Astoria to reach Fort Stevens State Park which was a defense port during civil and world wars. You can see the hiding rifle batteries, ship wreck from 1906, historic museum, viewpoints of the river, sea and the columbia bar.

Peter Iredale Ship Wreck from 1906

Para-Sailing at Fort Stevens beach

Oregon Coast Mile 0 to Mile 363.1

The U.S Route 101 links Asotria at Mile 0 to Crissey Field at Mile 363. Starting this week, I plan to explore Oregon Coast mile by mile. I am using Oregon Coast mile by mile guide and Oregon Coastal Access Guide by Kenn Oberrecht by Oregon State University Press for my references.

Songs that go beyond goosebumps and emotions

Some of the songs i found using pandora. I have added youtube links. Many of them are from natalie macmaster, vanessa mae, bond, mark esham, tempest.
David's Jig , Natalie Macmaster
- Catharsis, Natalie macmaster(i find her fiddling amazing, my all time favorites)
- Volcanic Jig, Natalie macmaster
- Emerald's Tiger - Vanessa Mae(i like many of her songs too)
- Raga's Dance Vanessa Mae(composed by A.R.R)
- Cotton Eye Joe (Vanessa Mae)
- Palladio Escala
- Celestial Soda Pop, Ray lynch
- Seargent's Early Dream
- Feugo , Bond ( this is another band of violin, viola, cello which i like)
- icarus , mythos
- rays of love, mehdi
- between the shadows, loreena mckennitt.
- OCtober sky , Mark esham
- Flowers of Red hill, Tempest
- Last of the wilds, Nightwish.
- Pachelbel meets U2(Canon in D by U2 John Schmidt)

My First Car - Honda Civic

I bought a Honda Civic -DX 5 Speed Manual. The gear change sounds great and the car gives amazing fuel efficiency.