Dumb ol' me

I live within a few hours of the Southern Oregon coastline. For those that don't know, the southern coastline is pretty well known to be one of the best coastlines in Oregon, or some say the world. There is a specific stretch of 12 miles called the Samuel H. Boardman corridor. It includes many viewpoints, some labeled, some not.

My dad actually lives just 40 minutes north of this corridor on Highway 101 and we were there to visit him and to of course take landscape photos.

I learned growing up vacationing on the Oregon Coast that it's nearly 100% of the time (in my experience /s) foggy, cloudy, windy, cold and yeah, that's about it.

This was holding to be true on our current visit, but I decided to go out along the corridor for sunset. Because it is Oregon, and you really never know.

Sure enough. The freaking sky was ... Actually, the FUCKING SKY WAS LIT! This legitimately was perhaps the best sunset I had ever seen and it developed within minutes.

The problem was that I was a pretty damn fresh photographer in 2016 and I had never got that lucky with my travels and getting good light. So I was hurrying fast. Picking my location, I truly found the best one. In fact, it's so damn good there isn't a view in the world I enjoy more.

Like seriously, that composition is too easy!

This particular spot is on the Arch Rock viewpoint. This spot is absolutely heaven, it truly is.

But I'm a quick shooter, I know when I have focus on a shot and have my exposure and histogram in tact. I still saw the incredible light shaping up. This is where I made my rookie mistake, but a mistake I'm happy that happened without injury or death. No photograph is worth it. I scared the shit out of myself that night.

I wanted a different composition, one with the sun in frame and the amazing light that was happening. To do that I had to climb down the ledge a bit, it didn't look terribly steep. But if you've ever heard of sandstone....

I actually got setup and got my tripod sturdy enough and fired off my pic.

That big ol' dark area that takes up a bit of the screen is the ledge I was on, and that steepness isn't Photoshop magic.

It was after this pic that I scared myself. I grabbed my camera with the tripod connected and began making my way back. Only to find myself slipping, unable to get a grip. Looking down...

It was the first time I've considered just dropping my gear. I hit my Tamron lens pretty good. Luckily it has a good plastic protection around the lens. I got out without problems, and no lost gear.

That was the pic of what I was looking at. Dumb. Seriously dumb. I hope you learn from this post to not be like me.

And no, I didn't stop to take a pic after slipping, this picture was taken just before packing up. It's a cool pic, but not worth it!

Once back up reality and realizing my mistake, I still managed to capture the end of the light, and perhaps the best light.

I've always seen a Phoenix in the clouds, spreading it's wings and flying to the right of the frame.

To this day that's my most adventurous photography story.

Hope you enjoyed this journey through a single evening. The images are edited from anywhere between June 2016 and this week, which is why the images perhaps vary in style. I also tend to try new styles at times to find my favorite techniques.

If I've held your interest this long, I'll post my quick introduction here -

I go by Smi77y on the world of the internet, and have for over a decade and then some. Always been active in different areas of social media, from an old youtube channel 60cardscom, to a member of a Canadian podcast "The Eh Team," and now photography mostly. I'm also a big gamer, and a family man with two awesome kids five and nine. Their ages, not names people!

I'm an accountant in my day to day, and I guess you could say that keeps me pretty busy! I love Steemit's idea and the world of crypto and blockchain, I'm an investor with some Technical Analaysis education but I've really just begun diving in.