Plate No. 02. Mystic Waters · Sea-level long exposure of the Natural Bridges, Samuel H. Boardman Scenic Corridor — morning of the same Boardman trip that produced Edge of the World.
Vol 1.1 · Plate 01
Mystic Waters
Eight frames. Ten minutes. The best photograph I've ever made.
The Samuel H. Boardman State Scenic Corridor is one of the most remote stretches of the Oregon Coast. The Natural Bridges area — a series of sea arches the Pacific has been carving for ten thousand years — is the kind of place that makes you understand why some photographers haul heavy gear down unmarked trails. I was rushing down the trail to the bottom and not paying enough attention to the approach. By the time I realized I was on the wrong side of the arch, I had a 60-pound pack on my back and no good way back. So I climbed over.
The arch wasn't the dangerous part. The wet rocks on the other side were. I started slipping, made it sideways to the cliff face before I could really fall, dug in, stopped, and breathed for a minute. Not a place I wanted to fall.
The storm was rolling in from the Pacific — which on the Oregon Coast means you have minutes to decide. I set up fast. The light was that brief window between cloud and rain where everything goes saturated and you stop second-guessing.
"I had ten minutes. I got eight frames. This is one of them."
Eight exposures in about ten minutes. This is one of them. The print sells as a Panoramic — the format you're looking at, the full sweep of the bridges and the channel between them.
It's the strongest photograph I've ever made, and it remains the best-selling print of my career.
One coast. One morning. One window. This is what I came back with.
