Second Beach, Olympic National Park, Washington

This last weekend was spent in Olympic National Park on Washington's northwest Pacific coast. With a weekend of warm weather in the forecast, and an imminent bridge-to-Olympic closure on the horizon it was a great time to make the trip.

Saturday evening we went to Second Beach to catch the sunset. Despite it's unremarkable name, it is a remarkable beach, with some of the most striking sea stacks I've seen yet. Of particular note is this seastack, with its slanting face.

The weather on Saturday evening was fine, but not cooperative for producing a richly colored sunset. Despite this, the overcast skies turned out to have a surprising amount on inherent contrast in this view, as the sun was getting to be low in the sky and did provide some lightness and contrast behind the seastacks. I often find shooting on sand to be difficult as tripods are prone to shifting, and this photo was no exception. I shot it with an ND400 filter (nearly solid black) to allow for a long exposure to produce the smoother look in the water, but the added exposure also allowed for a bit of settling during the shot. At 100% scale it created a little bit of a blur or halo on some edges, but not enough to really bother me or detract from the shot.

I'm hoping to make it a week of Olympic shots if I can keep up, so check back if you'd like to see more.

Nikon D90 | Nikon 18-200VR@26mm | f/9 | 25s | ISO100 | Tripod

Tyler Westcott Photography on Facebook