Ruby Beach Inukshuk, Olympic National Park, Washington

This is a bit of a departure from my usual posts, but I enjoyed these photos and wanted to share them. After shooting at Ruby Beach and capturing the long-exposure I'd hoped to, my wife and I had a good bit of time left to just enjoy the beach. Each of the beaches we visited along the Olympic coast seems to have its own character, right down to the shapes and sizes of the rocks the make up the beach.

Ruby Beach was primarily composed of well-polished flat rocks, so while we sat on the beach we just started stacking and playing with the rocks a bit. The idea of Inuit Inukshuks (technically the plural is Inuksuit) immediately came to mind and that's how we referred to them. This top photo os of the first one my wife made which inadvertently took on the look of a tubby surfing Inukshuk. The second was also made by my wife and the simpler stack of stones was my only personal creation.

Also of note for these shots, they are my first posted images with my newest bit of kit - a Nikon 105mm f/2.8 Macro lens. This is an absolutely wonderful lens and I'm really loving it (especially as it was essentially gifted to me, but that's another story). Since there was so little to distinguish the stone figures from the background stones (they were difficult to spot after stepping only a few feet away) I got down at eye-level and shot at the widest aperture I could to at least create some textural contrast with the background.

Nikon D90 | Nikon 105mm Micro | f/3-3.2 | 1/400s | ISO200 | Handheld

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