Ecola State Park, Cannon beach, OR

Cannon beach is a beautiful beach town on the OR coast. It is a very popular town during the summer, and gets very crowded; best to visit it at off peak times.

At sunrise we visited Ecola State Park that is located slightly north of Cannon beach and has a full view of the sea stacks on the beach from a vantage point. When we arrived pre sunrise, the stacks were covered in fog and looked beautiful. With every progressive hour as the sun rose in the sky the colors got better and the fog started to clear.

While we were busy shooting the sea stacks, there was a surprise in store for us. A herd of Elk had bedded down in the slope behind us. As the sun rose, they started to move around and graze on the cliffs. We were treated to a beautiful view of Canon beach with the Elk grazing in the foreground. Post sunrise, we drove down to Indian beach that is on the other side of the cove. You get a nice view of the sea stacks from this location and I decided to make a B&W panoramic shot of the location. The road down to Indian beach is lined with beautiful old growth trees and we stopped and make some compositions with the trees and their moss covered branches.

We shot sunset at Cannon beach. Although the haystack rock is lovely, we had thick cloud clover and the sun did not break through. We had some sprinkling of pre sunset color and a little bit of post sunset glow in the sky, but no real colors around the haystack. Nevertheless, it is a beautiful location to shoot sunset. The beach here is huge and fairly crowded. The water comes in fairly quickly, so I recommend you put on your keens or your wading boots.

Sunrise was a similar story to sunset. There was a thick layer of marine fog covering the whole coast and we could barely see the stacks. I did make some compositions with the Gulls in the foreground. Despite the stacks not being visible, the beach was a great location for macro shots and I walked around with my macro lens, lapping up all the beautiful compositions. Overall the location is absolutely gorgeous and I look forward to visiting again!