Coastal Experience, Photography, Travel

Images from the Pacific Northwest

I didn’t realize how long it’s been since my last post as I have been really swamped with work over the last few months. I am in the midst of selling my financial advisory practice as I enter retirement. For me, retirement is not just sailing off into the sunset. I have spent months finding a suitable buyer for my practice, and will be spending the next few months in joint meetings introducing my successor and her team to my clients, many of whom I have known and worked with for 30 years.

My goal once I am fully retired will be to spend more time photographing and traveling, but for now work is the primary occupier of my days. I did, however, recently return from a trip to Oregon and Washington to visit my clients there, and was able to spend a bit of time photographing the beautiful Pacific Northwest.

The trip started with a drive to the Portland, Oregon metro area. One evening I had free to drive out into the Columbia Gorge and try to find some sunset photos of that beautiful area.

This was near the last light of the evening looking eastward up river into the Columbia River Gorge from the Vista House at Crown Point.

It has been raining quite a bit in Portland earlier in the week, just letting up a bit that afternoon. I managed to catch some color in the clouds.

After reviewing my photos more, here is another shot from right before sunset that same evening.

I took this one probably about to 30 minutes earlier than the above image. There was still quite a bit of sunlight reflection off of the clouds to the east. I think I like this image a bit better as there is more color in the sky.

Friday, April 24 was a pretty casual day for me as I had been invited to a client appreciation dinner event that evening with my successor, Laura, and her team. So, I decided to head down toward their office in Woodburn Oregon – about half way between Portland and the Oregon capital, Salem, down Interstate 5. When I was coming back from their office Wednesday, I had seen this cool old barn on Oregon 99E that I thought about photographing.

The barn was just south of another small town, Aurora, a bit north of Woodburn – except it took me a while to actually find it heading the other direction on the road.

This old barn is right near the Oregon 99E highway. I was able to catch Mt. Hood in the background in the full sun that Friday. This is looking northwest from Aurora, Oregon.

On Saturday morning after the client dinner, I drove from Portland west over to Astoria, and had lunch there. Then I drove up the coast on US 101 and turned off westward to get to Westport, Washington on the south side of Gray’s Harbor. I had booked motel there hoping to be able to catch some decent sunset shots at Westport’s beautiful marina.

This was the first image I took as the sun was beginning to set out over the marina. This is looking a bit southeast back into Gray’s Harbor.
Here the light was getting that golden sunset glow, and it really lit up the buildings in the background.
This is may favorite image from this series. I just got lucky on the that “perfect” light. I really like the subtle warm tones on the boats and in sky. And the water just seemed to really have that cool sunset glow.

It’s always fascinating how just subtle light changes can really alter the mood, or feeling of a scene. That is one of my favorite things to attempt to capture as a photographer.

I took this photo while on the ferry from Bremerton, Washington as we were coming into Seattle. Normally Seattle is photographed from Puget Sound with Mt. Rainier in the background, but the ferry had turned a bit to the northwest. The mountain in the background is Mt. Baker which sits just below the Canadian border a bit east of Bellingham, Washington – about 90 miles north of Seattle.

Seattle skyline with the Space Needle in the foreground and Mt. Baker in the background toward the left in the photo. It was such an incredibly beautiful afternoon!

This trip was mainly a work trip as I had really only scheduled in about two extra days – just enough to give me time to head up the Oregon and Washington Coast. I do again apologize for my lack of posts lately, but once I am more fully into retirement, I will have lots more time for travel, photography and adventures.

Thank you very much for visiting my blog. Hopefully these images will show you that while the Northwest gets plenty of rain in the spring, there are some spectacular days between the storms.

Have fun out there, and enjoy what nature gives us!

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