In my last post, I mentioned that I had booked enough time in Bandon to do some decent exploring.

About 4 miles (6.4 km) north of my hotel along the coast road is a turn off and parking area for another beach known as Face Rock Beach.  The beach is so named from a large rock formation just offshore that some say resembles a face pointing skyward. 

Anyway, the beach is accessed by descending a very long staircase down to the shore below.  Honestly, I am not sure how far down it is to the beach, but it’s a long way.

I walked that long staircase up and down three times while I was in Bandon.  The first trip was more of an exploration to get a feel of the general scenery.  The next trip was during the morning, to start photographing Face Rock.  The final trip was to photograph the area at sunset.

That long, steep staircase tended to discourage a lot of people from visiting this beach, although there were still several folks around.  Fortunately, I had arrived at a decent time in the morning to beat most of the crowd. 

About a mile south of the Face Rock staircase are numerous sharp and stunning rock formations, so a hike was in order.  After packing up my gear, off I went enjoying the morning breeze and that wonderful sea air. 

Something about the sea, the sounds of the surf, and the clean moist air just seems very healing to the soul.  Maybe it’s just the way the the ocean and the coast remind us that nature is in us, and that we are really part of the planet.  Anyway, the scenery just kept getting better.

While I was photographing, I was thinking about where to take some good sunset shots.  Thinking about the beach near the hotel, the lighthouse and harbor area, and here, I decided that Face Rock Beach was the place.

So after wrapping up the morning session, I hiked back north toward the staircase, and then trod up those stairs for the second time.  Lunch was calling my name.

As the afternoon progressed, I made one more descent down those long stairs, and then began the walk south again toward all of those cool rock formations. 

Sunset photography is interesting.  A lot of the time is spent looking for the right foreground and figuring out about where the sun will be ending up on the horizon. From there it’s just waiting for the “right” light and shot.

Another thing that I really love about sunset photography is how the mood and feel of the photo can really change with how you set-up your exposure, color balance, etc. It’s fun to play around a bit. And I think the best feature of digital photography, especially with a mirrorless camera like my Nikon Z6iii, is that what you see in your viewfinder is pretty much what your shot will look like.

So, the great sun god, Apollo, has taken his final bow. I was getting my gear put away and hoping that I would have time to make it up the stairs before total darkness hit. But then I was walking back from a moment behind some big beach rocks when I turned around to see how much light was left and saw this:

So, if you paid attention to that first photo, you’ll know that I did indeed make it to the stairs and the top before darkness hit. That was a big relief although the parking lot is at the top of the stairs. I had enough for the day, so I found some dinner at a wonderful restaurant called the Wheelhouse.

That just about wraps up my trip to Bandon. The last night I was there though, I did walk down to the beach from my hotel and photograph the Milky Way. It was a perfect night – no moon with a clear sky.

Bandon is an absolutely wonderful place for beach lovers, swimmers, and we photographers! Thanks for visiting my blog, and go enjoy that nice autumn weather or the wonders of early spring depending upon which side our our globe you call home.