Jay Moore

Waking before dawn along the Oregon Coast for sunrise is always special. The sand under your feet is fresh, as the tide has washed away all the footprints from the previous day under the cover of night. And it's always a great morning when your eyes and mind get the opportunity to stare into the mesmerizing sights and sounds of the Pacific Ocean's waves crashing upon the rugged shoreline, while your body soaks up the wet, sea-salt air as it breezes through you and delicately leaves its salt residue upon your soul. Many of you know (either as Oregonian's or people who have visited), scene’s like this one, on any morning, might mean the absent of the sun and its light; as the lush, green state of Oregon and its coastline has many overcast mornings. So, when you wake and find that the clouds are parting and the brightness of the sun’s rays will be beaming its gorgeous tones upon the rock croppings of Bandon’s pristine beach line, you're giddy like a child. You smile at the rocks. You skip in the sand. You talk to the waves. And hope that something, anything can hear and share this beautiful moment in time with you. And although there wasn’t a physical person along the shore on this morning, I felt like the souls who have gone before me where near as I was squatting within in the wetness of the beautiful textures of the sand ripples left behind by that overnight tide.

Dream Lake is truly a dream location to see and photograph. If you’ve never been, just go … However, if you plan on taking in the scene during the winter/snow months, understand your ‘dream' will include many layers of clothing and temperatures and windchill that can be in single digits with 20-30 MPH winds coming down the mountains and into your face … Those where my ‘dream' conditions during this gorgeous and chilly alpine glow sunrise. I was the first one at the area on this morning, as my buddy and I arrived when the stars where still dominating the sky overhead. And before snapping any of those nighttime beauties, I made sure to set up my location for sunrise, to ensure I had the exact location within the boulders that I wanted. After the blue hour began and the stars were disappearing and more people started arriving to the area, I moved to my spot on the ice and hunkered down on the frozen water for a while. And since I wanted the lower angle with the ice and boulders as my foreground, helping lead you into the scene and then back to the mountains in the distance, I needed to basically lay on the ice during the entire time. Would I have changed anything on this morning? Heck no, because when the pink alpine glow began its show on the mountains, the cold seamed to just disappear.

I love light. And getting the opportunity to chase light along the Oregon Coast is just straight-up magical. However, sometimes it never shows. Sometimes it tries to break through the clouds, but never fully makes it and you only get a small whiff of soft light. And then sometimes it explodes onto the scene like the entrance of a NFL team entering the stadium before the start of the Super Bowl. And like the fireworks, smoke and confetti of the big game, when that light hits, the celebration begins and my breathe becomes shallow and quick. My heart begins to race and I can feel the tingle of life from my ears through my body and all the way down to my toes. And on this morning, that’s exactly what happened. It was a typical Oregon morning … Cloudy with a side of drizzle. Some rain come and left and came again. Then it happened. A small crack appeared in the distance. It grew and expanded and when the light first hit, I still had on my 10-stop filter on my lens to create long exposures to help give all the motion to the ocean and create interest to the sea on this overcast morning. And instead of taking it off, I quickly adjusted my settings and fired off a 13-second exposure of the scene that was blowing up in front of me. And lucky for me, my new buddy Doug (who I just met that morning) was standing strong on the cliffside, staying safe and motionless while capturing his own moment of this magical light.

I had given up. I had gone back to bed. I had woken in the early hours and the storm was still raging and the rain was pelting down on our RV. I quickly looked outside and I decided that the morning was a wash and went back to sleep. That was until one of my best buddies (@jmsdsts) who we were traveling with on this trip, knocked on the window of the RV and said, "you better get out here, NOW." I jumped up, grabbed my gear which was already sitting by the door and jumped out of our Motel on wheels to have this beautiful rainbow smack me right in the face. I literally ran across the southwest desert to quickly find a composition with Mitchell Butte within the scene and was able to snap off a few frames. Sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you make your luck and sometimes you just need a good friend to have your back.

When the temperatures drop and the October crisp air takes hold within the Portland area, the most famous Japanese Maple, in perhaps the entire US, takes center stage. Its shapely leaves morph into a dome of gorgeous autumn colors, as its dark branches, covered in vibrant green moss, twist in every direction possible, creating an almost unimaginable contrast of colors, curves and and lines.