High Surf Advisory

23-28 foot swells around high tide today. That means: do not stand on the rocks! 2 young people died in our town last year--college students throwing a ball around on the rocks. A wave larger than most--called a "sneaker wave," because it sneaks up on you--hit them mid-thigh. Though the water was not high, the strength of it made them lose their footing, fall in the deeper water, and be smashed against the rocks. Please, please--be a fuddy-duddy, and don't allow your kids so close to the ocean along the Oregon Coast! This morning--3.5 hrs away from high tide--I snapped this picture. Didn't mean to have someone in it, but that's who stirred my despair: a 14 or so year old boy, tossing logs into the surf, while his father or grandfather stood by, filming...

The ocean is beautiful, and wild, and exhilarating, and fills your soul with passion. But it will swallow you up as quickly as you can draw your last breath...

Some Weekend Photos

We got some lucky weather, and some huge seas! Everything shot with my 70-300 mm lens.

ISO 100, 1/4000s, f/4.5

ISO 100, 1/800s, f/11.0

ISO 100, 1/800s, f/9

These are Stellar Sea Lions, and this was in a big, unlit cave btw. ISO 3200, 1/15s, f5

Challenges

I really love challenges. For some reason I can always come up with stuff I'd never think up on my own in a million years! I've done lots of card-making challenges (I guess you could consider a swap somewhat of a challenge too), where somebody sends you a pre-stamped image and you have to make a card with it, or a background that you have to incorporate into one of your own designs.

In digital scrapbooking it's even more fun--not only do you get to create fun and unexpected pages, but on top of it, you get some remarkable loot!

Here's the result of Kellie Mize's Ad Challenge at Designer Digitals, with her great template:

(Font: New Gothic Standard. Template by Kellie Mize. Japanese kamon.)

The frame I made the other night by smooshing some white acrylic paint on a piece of black cardstock with a scrunched-up paper towel (yes, those are the technical terms!)--then inverting it for this layout.