Landscape

Focus

Some time ago I had shared a picture called “Hole in the wall”. I was confused about the name and thought that it was “the” hole in the wall but apparently there is more than one hole in the wall. There is one on Second Beach as well as on Rialto Beach on the Washington coast. If you notice carefully you will see the hole in the rock face in the background on the right side of the Sea Stack.

We had an early morning shoot in the Olympic National Forest and drove to Rialto Beach. After a long hike on the black pebble and sand beach littered with massive driftwood logs and a fast flowing creek that cut across the beach, we went close enough to the hole but not through it. Reason being the tide was coming in and we would be stuck on the other side of the mountain until the tide recedes 12 hours later. So that adventure was nipped in the bud.

At the end of the beach, there is a cave like gap between two sea stacks that the waves come through which makes for some interesting pictures which I spent time trying to catch the receding waves. After that was done, I went on my own and was taking pictures of the waves from near the real hole in the wall when I saw Marc Adamus running towards me (no cell phone coverage there) shouting loudly to overcome the sound of the waves. He came up to me and said “You need to go back there, the sky is going to light up and you have much better composition from there”. He was pointing to where the camera is placed in this shot.

We both came back to this place which people familiar with Rialto Beach will relate to. There used to be a very photogenic and massive sea stack. That sea stack collapsed a year or so ago breaking into large fragments which broke several hearts. To take this picture, I am standing on top of the collapsed remnants of the sea stack much of which has since been claimed by the Pacific. It is incredibly humbling to see what Oceans can do.

Marc helped wade through the water and climb on top of this rock. Once I was on top of this rock, I felt a sense of apprehension since there was nothing between me and the crashing waves except I was a little higher. Luckily my camera gear and I did not get hit by any waves. The setting Sun disappearing behind the clouds cast a magical glow all around and I captured the waves crashing into the once imposing sea stack that had been chopped up by natures forces.

PS: I have an everlasting memory of the genius of Marc Adamus from this spot. He was standing behind me about a couple of meters away. I was was looking through my viewfinder, not the Liveview LCD screen and shooting pictures while looking through the viewfinder. Marc tells me sternly “your shot is out of focus”. He had not looked at my picture or viewed through my viewfinder. I was flabbergasted how he could tell that without looking. Sensing my disbelief, he told me “go ahead, pull it up and zoom the image”. Lo and behold, indeed it was out of focus. If he had not told me, all my shots from this spot would have been blurry. I would have not caught it and you would have not seen this image.

DriftwoodLightMarc AdamusOceanPacificRialto BeachSea StacksSunsetWashingtonWaterWavesdramaticrockstreelinewave action