376 - Ghost Forest
The Ghost Forest blessed us today with a blanket of creepiness. And by that I mean buckets, buckets, and more buckets of fog.
I'd heard about this place vaguely through Atlas Obscura, and it seemed like an Oregon hidden gem at first glance. For one, it had less than 70 reviews on Google Maps, and most of them from locals. The photos of the place looked just underwhelming enough to hold off the masses, but just epic enough to draw in someone who knows how to use a camera.
In order to get there, it took a bit of a walk. You start at Neskowin Beach, then hike across a mini river to get to the southern part of the beach, where the Ghost Forest lays. If you're wondering what a Ghost Forest is, it's basically a bed of 2,000 year old trees that somehow haven't given way to wave erosion.
Seriously. I have no idea how these trees are still standing. Granted most of them are just stumps, but it was ridiculously impressive.
We'd heard the trick was to show up at a low tide, so upon arrival we saw a couple dozen stumps laying around the waves. The name of the game quickly became long exposure shots, via timing waves hitting the tree trunks.
The shots I was vibing with were *fast* waves. The type where I'd get a solid long line from the water right before it smashed into me and my tripod. The ocean was freezing and the ground was covered in jellyfish, so my bare feet were burning and frozen at the same time. I'm not going to lie, I got lost in the moment for a bit with each crashing wave.
I spent some time shooting with the foggy backdrop, and it wasn't until the fog cleared up a bit that these cliffs behind it began to emerge as a nice backdrop. From that point on I began using them as a background, and settled upon a composition that had several tree trunks leading to the cliff.
Now I just had to time the perfect wave. Using the trick I learned back at Wreck of the Peter Iredale, I set my tripod on a two second timer to shoot ten shots all at 1/3 seconds. I restarted this whenever a new wave started coming in. That way I didn't have to "time" it, but just hope one of the ten shots came out looking fancy.
My favorite shot ended up being this one right here, where I got a glimpse of the sunset happening through the mist:
I'm pretty sure I got absolutely drenched after that wave in particular. I'd loosely hold onto my tripod so it didn't get knocked over from the force of the wave, and lift it up after the area filled with water.
I had a great time shooting this place. Relaxing as anything, and the cold water made me feel alive. Definitely a great spot for a small scale shoot, I'd recommend going in the fog, if available. You might even see some ghosts ;)
I’m on a mission to explore as much as humanely possible.
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