Eight Years of November

I took a look at all the photos I've posted in the month of November over the past eight years and selected one from each November for each year. (What a confusing sentence. Darned if I'm going to edit it, though.)

In 2009 snow covered a still-blooming fuchsia bush as well as a cute little birdhouse in our back yard in Waldport, Oregon.

Another year I was out on the beach in Oregon, looking for patterns in the sand. That's one of the big things I miss here on Whidbey Island -- big empty beaches. Miles to walk, and if there were four people out there, it was crowded! There are lots of beaches here, too, but many are private, others are smaller. No huge expanses of sand during minus tides. Not a complaint! Just something I miss.

Below that is a photo taken at the Seal Rock overlook in Oregon. A long exposure helped emphasize water movement and the spray from the waves.

And the fishing boats in Newport, Oregon? I miss them, too, although I've found a few extremely cool places here in Washington to photograph. Just takes a bit more driving to get to them. The fishing vessel "Finn" looks pretty good there on a foggy morning.

Below "Finn" is a photomontage I made out of paper and copper and rusty metal that I call "Northern Lights."

The weird photomontage below that is called "And the Rains Came." I would have to go back to see all the elements I used to create it. But I do remember that the vertical "raindrops" came from a photograph I took of a carved and painted wooden support pole in Santa Fe. Gotta say, the results surprised me. In a good way.

The sepia-toned image is the Coupeville Wharf, taken in 2015 when we moved here to Whidbey Island.

And this year's November shot is called "Experiment #9504." An ongoing series that is simply fun at the moment.

So there you have it. November's been a pretty good month photographically over the years.

©Carol Leigh
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Seal Rock night life . . .

The sun was down but I stuck around to see how things would look at twilight. This is a 25-second exposure at f/11, ISO 100, of the waves coming in at Seal Rock, just up the road. Such a long exposure softens the wave action, softens the spray, as well as the sky.

When I looked at this photo at 100%, I could see that there were six seals draped across that little flat rock over toward the right and it was easy to see that in those 25 seconds, they barely moved at all. Well, they're seals and that's their job . . . ©Carol Leigh

Pelicans!

Yesterday we drove up the coast and, passing Seal Rock, noticed all the pelicans on the rocks. But what really caught my eye were the pelicans down on the beach, something we don't see all that often. Pelicans and gulls were clustered around the mouth of a little creek, preening, resting, seeing what they could find to eat.

Two people climbed down to the beach and began walking south, keeping their distance from the birds (yay), but the pelicans were especially wary, and slowly began taking off. A shutter speed of 1/25 second enabled me to capture the motion of their wings.

Driving back home, late in the day, all the pelicans were gone, and a big storm was coming in. Wonder where they went to ride out the storm? ©Carol Leigh

Late afternoon on the beach

Around 3:00 I arrived at Seal Rock and began the hike south to see what I could find. There are a couple of creeks that flow across the sand to the sea and they were running pretty fast and deep (for creeks), the result of our heavy rains. Luckily with my boots my feet stayed dry, but my pants got soaked as I waded across, headed toward the rocks.

At one point, I was accompanied by a great blue heron. He watched as I walked past. I stopped to photograph some rocks, looked to see where he went, and he was just off to my left, again watching me. I moved on down the beach and so did he. It's like we were doing a little dance, working in tandem, each of us watching the other, but pretending not to. 

About a mile later, at the farthest southern section of the beach, where you can't go any farther, there's a little cave-like area where the seas surge in through a narrow opening. I set up my tripod and photographed one-second exposures of the moving water. Both of these were at f/22, ISO 100. (Yes, Gisela, I know you like knowing about that stuff!)

The light was beginning to change now, with the sky growing orange, and I began making my way back north, shooting as I went. I'm using a wide-angle lens and I'm shooting landscapes -- not exactly what I'm known for and not exactly what I'm comfortable with -- but I'm enjoying the process.

Now it's getting kind of dark and I still have a couple of creeks to cross before I get back to my car. I pick up the pace.

It's been a good three hours. Lots of walking. Lots of looking. Lots of beauty to be photographed. The beach is all mine -- no one else wanted to ford the creek. And my dance with my new pal, the great blue heron, was amazing.

Wishing you all golden sunsets, moving waters, and dances with herons. ©Carol Leigh

118 minutes on the beach

Yesterday afternoon was low tide. It was a holiday. And it was NOT raining! So everyone popped out of their burrows like prairie dogs and the beach was relatively crowded — maybe 25 people in all. Most were scrabbling through all the pebbles and rocks, looking for agates. Chris and I headed north, admiring all the strange and wonderful rock formations the low tide revealed. I purposely took just one lens — a wide-angle — to force myself to take more overviews (which is tough for me). This makes it easier for you to see my environment, which was quite striking that afternoon. ©Carol Leigh

Dramatic weather

A brief window in the weather opened up and we headed north to run some errands. We stopped at Seal Rock, however, because the sky was turning BLACK! I scrambled up a little hill to take some shots and was almost blown over by strong winds, but oooh, a rainbow! Along the historic bayfront in Newport there were crab pots stacked up against a Moby Dick mural, so naturally had to shoot that. And then on to the pot yard, where I've never seen so many crab pots and piles of buoys -- everything ready for crab season that begins next week. Photos of the pot yard to follow. ©Carol Leigh

One beach, one lens

In my quest to (1) get more exercise, (2) stretch my photography a bit, and (3) singlehandedly clean up the beaches of Oregon (!), I set out at a minus tide with my camera and just a 10-17mm fisheye lens.

Well, I got a lot of exercise, picked up a lot of trash, and came to the conclusion that a 10-17mm fisheye lens isn't the most versatile lens for this terrain/subject matter. I stopped first at an overlook just south of "my" beach to photograph the rocks below and a sign that is looking a bit rusty and weathered these days. I find the headine, "Welcome to Our Home," quite sad, given the amount of garbage I found on the beach.

By pointing the camera downward I can really exaggerate the curvature of the lens, which is actually kind of cool. In moderation. Here my back is to the ocean and I'm looking across a large tidepool toward the bluffs in the distance.

And then finally you see part of what I picked up on my walk. I put whatever I could find into my plastic bag until my back gave out. During my two-mile walk I picked up trash along just a half-mile of it. What I'm finding is PLASTIC. Lots and lots of plastic. Water bottles, lids, caps, scraps, and parts of white fish containers (like the containers in my previous eel photographs). I'm finding soda straws, styrofoam, baggies, bits of fishing nets, and flip-flops. I left behind a very large bleach container, a plastic shoe (Croc), and a baggie full of dog poop. One can do only so much.

P.S. Happy birthday to you-know-who and also to friend-of-you-know-who. Love, Carol, Chris, and, of course, Abby! ©Carol Leigh

160 Minutes on the Beach: Part I

Part 1: Where I and another woman save a life.

As I walk past, I notice a rock sticking up from a tidepool while another rock remains submerged. Wait a minute. Something's not right. That submerged rock looks a little too perfectly triangular.

It's a stingray! Oh no! It's beached itself and is partway out of the water. I could wade out and push it into deeper water, but images of the Crocodile Hunter flicker through my brain. I find a woman who's looking for agates just a short distance down the beach and enlist her help. She's got an agate stick and maybe we can use that to push the ray into deeper water.

So that's what we do. Well, that's what SHE does. She's the one with the stick. The ray backs up but oh no (again)! The ray simply re-beaches itself. My partner in ichthyological rescue nudges the ray's nose and hooray! the ray backs into deeper water and seems inclined to stay there.

We part ways, each of us feeling very warm and fuzzy that we, defenders of wildlife, did a good deed for the day.

Well, now that I'm home, I look up rays online. What we saw wasn't a dangerous stingray, but rather a benign skate. And apparently they bury themselves a bit into the sand as a natural activity during their day. And perhaps she was laying a sac of eggs. And maybe she was really cranky that we poked our nose (rather, an agate stick) into her little existence while she was in the throes of giving birth.

(I doubt that ANYONE giving birth would like to be bopped in the nose mid-contraction. As if things weren't uncomfortable enough!)

So here you see the ray as it's making its second foray into shallower water. And here you see my well-intentioned stranger-friend encouraging the ray to stay in deeper water by using her agate stick.

Yup, that's us. Two women annoying the hell out of nature as we go about our little lives.

More beach walk photos to follow. Uh-oh. I think I just heard a bird hit the window. I'd better go check. Maybe I'll need a stick . . .©Carol Leigh

83 minutes on the beach

We had a minus tide yesterday, revealing barnacle-covered rock formations that we don't normally see. I liked the undulating pathway through the barnacles in the lower photo, but, as usual, am primarily attracted by the colorful rocks I find along the bluffs, away from the water. It was a good morning. ©Carol Leigh