John Mikkelson

One of Oregon’s most iconic waterfalls, this is simply a magical place. The waterfall changes significantly with the seasons; in early summer, as soon as the road that leads to the trailhead has been cleared of snow and re-opened, the falls is a thundering, spraying, misty spectacle. Later in the summer, when the snowmelt is tapering off, it becomes more ethereal and delicate. The morning this photo was taken, I had come down McKenzie Pass after photographing the Milky Way over the Three Sisters, and arrived at the trailhead before 6:00 a.m. For over an hour, I had the entire area at the base of the falls to myself. It was unbeatable.

The amount and sheer sizes of the pieces of driftwood that line Ruby Beach in Olympic National Park is incredible. This section behind the large monolith that dominates the north end of the beach is nearly empty compared to sections farther south. I couldn’t resist capturing a sunburst at the edge of that huge rock as the setting sun’s rays turned golden on the sand.

As warm as the light makes it look, this was a chilly evening on the west coast of Washington, and getting cooler as the sun went down! Here, the wet sands of Ruby Beach at low tide reflect the rocky hills and forests of the Olympic Peninsula.

My first-ever visit to Mount Rainier did not disappoint! As I made my way up the road to Paradise, I came upon this little lake as the sky gained this wonderful purple-blue color at the end of the sunset. I enjoyed having the entire lake shore to myself, finding and shooting several different locations and angles.

This portrait of the monolith at Ruby Beach perfectly captures the juxtaposition of the warmth of the light with the cool autumn air! All lines lead to those fantastic tree silhouettes…

The Yaquina Head lighthouse stands over the cliffs that make up what was once called Cape Foulweather by early white explorers. Even with the relatively tame waters below, you can see why it would have earned that name!

The wonderfully changing low-tide sands of Cannon Beach form a set of reflecting pools to Haystack Rock. I had hoped the subtle pastel colors of the sky would intensify as the sun went down, but with that solid wall of clouds all the way down to the horizon, the color went from pink to grey pretty quickly!

In photography, you often hear the term “golden hour” that describes the light just after sunrise, and just before sunset. “Blue hour” describes the fleeting time between sunset and twilight, or early before sunrise. In this case, “blue hour” rapidly turned purple as the clouds to the west, post-sunset, spread their color to the huge banks of clouds above me. Sometimes you really just need to stay put and keep shooting, even if “sunset” has already passed!

Early morning at the Painted Hills in Eastern Oregon.

This flock of pelicans kept flying past the Yaquina Head lighthouse on this moody evening - very fast as they went with the southerly winds, then very slowly as they made their way back to the southern edge of the head before turning around and doing it all over again. I’m no expert on pelicans, but it seemed to me they were just doing it for fun…

This lighthouse has been a favorite of mine for decades, and one of the things I enjoy about it is that it’s still doing its job. No, there’s no more Lightkeeper, and the light technologies are updated from the original. But night after night, beaten by the weather, it does its thing. (Not long after I took this photo, the crew began the task of re-painting the tower. I find I preferred this weathered look, to be honest!)

The last rays of direct, warm sunlight light up the sinuous bands of clouds hanging over this little valley between the Coast Range and the Willamette River. As soon as the sun went down for good, that orange went purple in a stunning display of color ranges!

This day was a moody. stormy one on the Oregon Coast, and it was raining hard right up until a few minutes before this image was taken! I just had a hunch that the color was going to make one more attempt, and I managed to capture the sun’s rays during the few seconds (literally) that they shone through that opening in the cloud banks.

There are a few weeks each year, in late fall and again in early winter, when the sun sets directly over Marys Peak. At 4,101 feet (11250 m) it dominates the view to the west of the Corvallis area.

There are undoubtedly millions of photos of this rock and surrounding beach by now, and I alternate between yearning to take more, and wondering why I would even bother adding to that total!? It’s tempting to think that it’s only “worth it” if the sky will be super dramatic. But I find that this sort of subtle beauty works quite well to balance the 235-foot (72 m) high monolith! Rather than screaming “drama” these clouds just seem to be… happy.

Winters in the Pacific Northwest can be long and grey — especially at the coast! So when the days get longer and the sun’s rays linger at sunset, it can make a chilly spring day feel like something much warmer!

This evening at Cannon Beach didn’t promise much for color, and indeed it didn’t deliver much for color… until the very end, when the sun briefly illuminated the distant cloud bands before dipping into the ocean. The best color, from my vantage point, was not behind the iconic Haystack Rock, but these two large stacks named The Needles just to the south.

Sometimes Mother Nature is subtle in her messages, and sometimes she makes things pretty obvious. In this case, it’s either listen to her and head to the parking lot, or stay and get really really wet.

The light at Smith Rock State Park in Oregon is magical. Intense and yet soft and dreamy. It just makes you want to keep seeing what’s being lit up around the next bend in the trail.

This sunset started to develop while we were still driving back to our campsite from Jackson, and I had to evaluate on the fly, where I could best see the entire scene with the short time available to get there. A hurried dash across a field and up a steep bank led me to this sagebrush-dotted prairie - in my mind the perfect, unadorned foreground for such a dramatic scene beyond!

These magnificent clouds appeared on a drive across Idaho, and I wanted to get a photo but wasn’t sure there was enough interest in the scene. Then we came upon the silo, and the composition was complete!

This was from my first day ever in Death Valley National Park, after I’d spent a couple hours photographing the sand dunes. I wanted some photos of the iconic salt flats, but wasn’t completely sure where to go (or even where to park for the best walk-in options!) I made a quick decision, as the light wasn’t going to last much longer, and started off towards the flats. After a good five or ten minutes of walking, it looked like I had made a poor choice, but I knew there was no time left for another search, so I kept following my intuition. Finally, a myriad of little rivulets branched off into the white mud flats, covered in salt crystals, and I came up with the best compositions I could find in the remaining time before the color faded from the sky. This was my favorite.

I had never been to Steens Mountain (commonly referred to in Oregon as simply “The Steens”) despite living here for fifteen years. It’s a long drive to the remote southeast corner of the state - and the final 60 km or so is all gravel as well. I knew I wanted to get out on the mud flat “playa” that forms the Alvord Desert just to the east of The Steens. Not long after driving to the place we would spend the night, this scene started to develop to the north, as clouds filled what had been a clear sky just minutes before. These are the moments you’re glad you brought all your photo gear! I set up a tripod, and continued to enjoy my beer - interrupted every minute or two by another press of the shutter as the scene got ever more dramatic! This is but a one-shot sample of a scene that played out over half an hour.

Well, the title may be more of a play on words than an accurate description, but there was definitely a storm that afternoon, and the sun blazing between the layers of clouds looked a lot to me like that eye atop the pyramid on the back of a dollar bill! I just couldn’t get enough of how the light shone through the dust rising off the valley floor, while the rain clouds lurked darkly above. (And yes, it even rained a few drops in the desert, in May!)

With a strong nod to an iconic Eagles tune, this title is self-explanatory! The roads had just been re-paved and painted, so the lines were exactly as bold and bright as you see them here! The ultimate appeal to the road-trip minded traveler!

As warm as the light looks, this was a chilly morning on the east side of the Sierra Nevada mountains! I’d been up late (or early) the previous night/morning, and yet I knew I needed to be in place early to catch the first rays of sun on that mountain! It was nearly cloudless, but at least the one big cloud we had was in the right place when the light hit! The rugged-but-rounded rocks of the Alabama Hills dot the foreground.

After shooting what was a pretty ordinary sunset by Oregon Coast standards, I made my way back to the parking lot without another shot in mind, really. Then when I reached this little stream making its sinuous journey across the beach to the ocean, I happened to look back to see what kind of reflection it offered in the wet sand. And that’s all I needed to set up for more shooting!

I had made a hurried drive to this overlook of Mount Saint Helens, following a sunset shoot the night before several hours away. I had planned to shoot the Milky Way rising out of the crater left by the 1980 eruption, but my timing was off and I missed that alignment. However, I knew there were a few early wildflowers dotting the hillsides, and I hoped for a colorful sunrise to go along with them! The clear sky wasn’t exactly what all the photographers that were gathered there that morning were hoping for, but it just puts more emphasis on the landscape, I think!

This rain storm developed rapidly as a front moved through the mountains of southwest Montana. It moved on over the plains towards the Yellowstone River, but not before leaving behind some big heavy raindrops and some great moody colors!