Newport, Oregon

Nye Beach

As the Sun Sets

My wife watches the sun set from Nye Beach. We often stay in the Sylvia Beach Hotel as we like the peace and quiet, and it also sits right on Nye Beach, so we were just a short walk from our hotel room. We had walked down the beach to an area where we could be off on our own.

Not techincally perfect, there’s some flare since I didn’t have a hood for my lens, and the web version further suffers from its reduced color space, but even so I’m fondly reminded of one of my favorite trips to the coast.

The Yaquina Head lighthouse at dusk as seen from the beach in Newport, Oregon

After the Sun Sets

The lighthouse at Yaquina Head as seen from Newport’s Nye Beach, taken just after the sun set. The lighthouse is a few miles north of Newport, so I used a telephoto lens for this shot. I’ve taken shots of the lighthouse directly from our hotel room, but for this shot I was actually down on the beach, and took it just a few minutes after the picture above (I had brought two cameras, one with the wide angle zoom and one with the telephoto zoom, to avoid having to change lenses near the salt spray).

The distortion is due to the moisture in the air, the distance to the lighthouse, and the fact that I accidentally underexposed the image.

A man exercises at dawn on Nye Beach in Newport, Oregon

Holding Back the Sea

One of my favorite pictures. Life on Oregon’s coast is generally pretty peaceful and quiet, but the dawn especially so. It was a cool spring morning, the sun not yet risen, and little could be heard apart from the waves on the shore. s I looked out of my hotel window, a handful of people were out on the beach, exercising, walking their dogs, or just enjoying the beauty of the coast.

As I soaked in the tranquility of the morning, I wanted to stay in the moment, but the sun always rises.

Sea Lions

Barkers

Visit the old section of Newport’s harbor area, and you might hear a noisy crowd. Follow your ears and you’ll probably find a group of California sea lions that bask on some wooden pallets that have been put out for their use.

The sea lions can be viewed from a public dock, and there’s a restaurant just above with an outdoor patio, just don’t expect a quiet meal.