An easy day, an easy camera

Orrick, near Forest Creek

I set off this afternoon for Orrick with my Minolta, my Holga, and (of course) my trusty camera phone.  I had the Minolta loaded with cheap, commercial ISO 400 Fujifilm, and had brought along some E-100 color film for the Holga.  I had two goals – the first was to find access to the beach on the north side of Forest Creek, and the second was to do some Freeman Patterson exercises.

Finding access to the beach was simple, but hair raising.  The road was small and heavily rutted, and the various holes were full of water which made it difficult to judge their depth.  I poked along in 3rd gear, hoping fervently that I would not discover a hole deep enough to crack an axle on the Saturn, but eventually reached a parking area on the north side of the creek.  The beach itself turned out to be absolutely glorious.  It was covered in driftwood near the bluffs, and the sand was for the most part hard packed and easy to walk on.  There were few human tracks, and I spent the majority of my time there out of site of any other human beings, totally alone.

I hiked north all the way to the next headland, which was a fair strole through thin mist.  The bluffs were heavily covered with brush, but occasionally I could hear the trickle of water down the rocks beneath – only if I had an ear pointing in that direction.  If I turned my head to look for the water I would lose the sound in the wind.

The ocean was lovely and lively, rushing energetically up the beach, or forming broad shallow inlets that proved perfect for reflective photography.

I discovered that I had chosen poorly for my exercise for the day.  The plan was to set the camera on a slow shutter speed and swing it with the timer on until the shutter tripped, but with 400 film it was impossible for me to get to a slow shutter speed even with the aperture cranked to f16.  So instead I just concentrated on taking shots of the surf, of the sun, of the sea stacks, and of course of the metamorphic rock so common in this area.

Coming back near sunset I met a Yurok woman heading out to Mussel Rock (which, I discovered, is the name of the headland) to gather – mussels.  That was my only human contact while I was there.

I shot a roll of the fujifilm, and a roll of color 120 film from the Holga.  I also got a bunch of camera phone shots, which I have put up on my flickr site.  You can find them here.