Manzanita Beach: a quiet stop along the Oregon coast

January 17, 2020 at 1:30PM
Can I have your name as you would like it to appear in print, and the town in which you live? Sharon Allexsaht- St Paul, MN Where were you when you took this photo? What does it show? Portland, OR--- The beach at Manzanita What equipment did you use—a phone or a particular camera? Cell phone- Android – nothing special How did you get this shot? Did you employ any particular technique: did you get low or high to change the angle, or wait just for the right moment? I pointed the phon
Beach at Manzanita, Oregon. (The Minnesota Star Tribune)

THE Traveler: Sharon Allexsaht of St. Paul.

The scene: The setting sun silhouettes the photographer's husband, Bill Allexsaht, her daughter Becky Allexsaht, Becky's fiancé Alex Hale and Rook the dog during their walk along the beach at Manzanita, a village on the Oregon coast west of Portland.

The destination: "Manzanita was a great place to experience the coast. It is beautiful all up and down the coast, but Manzanita is a little bit less bustle," Sharon Allexsaht wrote in an e-mail. Though there are other people on the beach, it feels peaceful, she explained.

Photograph details: "The photo captures something of how special the changing light is on the Oregon coast. It was taken just before sunset in early October. The light changes constantly, Allexsaht wrote. She used her Android mobile phone to snap this photograph of her family. "I pointed the phone right into the setting sun," she wrote. "I employed the basics taught by my high school journalism teacher, Benjamin Allnutt, in 1973: 1. Rule of threes (the horizon should be about one-third from the top or two-thirds from the bottom) 2. The light is always best at sunrise and sunset 3. Film is cheap — take lots of pictures and toss the bad ones (OK, film isn't cheap anymore. But it is much easier to toss the bad ones!)."

Share your photo: To submit your travel photo for consideration to Viewfinders, share it on Instagram tagged with #STtravel, or e-mail a jpeg to viewfinders@startribune.com.

about the writer