An awesome weekend with a group of great friends at Whiskey Creek Beach on the Straight of Juan De Fuca...
Whiskey Creek Beach is an excellent little spot on the Straight of Juan De Fuca across from Vancouver Island, Canada. Lake Crescent is about a 20 minute drive away where you can hike into the Devil's Punch Bowl. Whiskey Creek Beach is a place where you pretty much have to turn your cell phone off because there is absolutely no service, which I was more than happy to do. It was an awesome weekend filled with friends, hiking, skinny dipping in a very cold lake, spilling liquids inside our cabin...a lot, making weird food out of candy and experimenting with some long exposure shots with steel wool. To elaborate on the steel wool, it is a seriously cool thing to try. You can find steel wool at any hardware store. Be sure to buy 000 to 0000 grade. Use a whisk that you don't mind damaging and after pulling the steel wool apart to create space for air, push it into the netting of the whisk. Get some rope or chain (which is what I used), about 2 to 3 feet of it and attach one end of the chain to the loop at the other end of the whisk. This will enable you to spin the whisk and create distance between you and the steel wool. Light it with a lighter or match all over the steel and start spinning really really fast. The faster you spin the bigger the result. It's important to do this in a wide open area and somewhere that is not dry so there is no risk of catching anything on fire. The two images above are 30sec exposures taken at f4 and ISO 200. You will also need a tripod for this. After playing with the steel wool I took more long exposure night shots that show the stars and some pretty fantastic clouds backlit by the moon. An excellent weekend indeed.