To my followers, please accept my sincere apology for the long delays between my last few posts. I really have no excuses. Honestly, ever since the US election back in November 2024, I have been depressed. It’s really tough to see what has become of our once great nation.

But, we still have much to cherish and for which to be thankful. And I have made a few more trips with lots of photos waiting to be published. So, I hope you can forgive me.

Let’s get down to business here. Back in late September and early October of 2024, I had made a journey up to the Pacific Northwest to visit clients in Portland, Oregon and near Seattle, Washington. If you recall from an earlier post, I had made my base in Forks, Washington. The cool thing about Forks is that it’s only a few miles from the Washington coast, and there are some great beaches and sights right there.

One afternoon, I decided to photograph the sunset on Rialto Beach, which is only about 14 miles due west of Forks. And as it’s part of the Olympic National Park, all the beaches are public. There really wasn’t any hiking involved as the beach has a parking lot and restrooms right there. You just have to maneuver around and over some drift logs. I did walk down the beach to the south quite a ways to get away from some of the crowds and to get a feel for the place. I was a bit worried about what I would end up with photo wise as it was a really hazy afternoon.

The cool thing was that there was a slight breeze with some interesting surf, so I was hopeful. After spending some time scouting around for a good composition, I found this huge tree that had been washed up on the beach, pointing almost straight west.

Really wanting to get this right, I messed around for a while with different angles and compositions. In the meantime, I ended up with friend with a similar idea. She was working on the north side of this huge tree log while I was working on the south side. After we had both settled into our shot set-up, we began to chat. She was in Forks on business for a day, and we just chatted about the beauty of the area and some of the sights that we had seen. I enjoyed having someone to talk with who was also a photography nut, and it was cool to see her go about the process of setting up her “shot”.

Well, here is what I came up with that afternoon on Rialto Beach. It was chilly with a cold wind off the ocean, but the light turned out wonderfully!

I really hope you like these photos and the short story. We both stayed to watch the orange ball sink below the horizon, and then packed up our stuff, said goodbye and headed back to the parking lot where we went our separate ways.

All in all, it turned out to be a wonderful afternoon/evening. I drove back to Forks, and had a nice salmon dinner with some huckleberry cobbler for dessert.

I have lots of new photos and some cool videos to post, but I am not going to even say where. Please have some faith that I’ll be getting back on track. Thanks so much for the support, and have fun out there!