Cannon Beach in northwest Oregon is truly a land of magic and beauty. If you ever have the immense pleasure of visiting this outstanding location, while driving the Pacific Coastal Highway, you’ll find that Oregon, as a whole, is special. California is all about refinement and has a huge focus on what mankind has done. Driving over the Oregon state line, the air changes and almost, as if in a teenage movie about vampires and werewolves, you fall under the spell of one of the most beautiful places in the world. That’s why Cannon Beach is the perfect place for an adventure portrait.
Katie and Jody are two Instagram friends that first found me through another set of clients I had in the past. What I love about Koko and Jojo, their Instagram handle names, is that their story of coming together isn’t an easy one nor was it something out of a fairy tale. Both their lives had many ups and downs before finally meeting one another. Thankfully, they have had each other for the last few years and life continues to get better and better!
Katie and Jody love each other. Hands down. It’s truly as simple as that. Their love is a kind of love that IS in fairytale books. A deep kind of understanding and listening that many couples today don’t seem to have. It’s like they both vibrate on the same wavelength and even though they have different hobbies and interests, what is most important to them, is one another.
So, Katie began following my work almost 2 years ago and I’m so glad that she did because it took me out to the Oregon coast to Cannon Beach to photograph their adventure portraits. Neither Katie or Jody had ever had professional portraits done together and so it was a little bit of a nervous experience for them but you’d never know in their adventure portraits in Cannon Beach.
We began our adventure portraits in Cannon Beach with of course, brunch! Two bottles of champagne and freshly squeezed orange juice carafes later and we were all ready to head to Cannon Beach for their adventure session.
Cannon Beach is famous for one thing. Haystock Rock. If you’ve never seen Haystock Rock, you might wonder what’s the big fuss about? Well, I’ll tell you. It is HUGE! Haystock Rock is basalt formed sea stack from ancient lava flows about 15 millions years ago. It’s one of the largest sea stacks in Oregon and is essentially it’s own universe and biome. It houses hundreds to thousands of migratory birds and who knows how many millions of fish and ocean life that swim near it or cling to it.
To make Katie and Jody more comfortable during their adventure session in Cannon Beach, I kept them moving a lot. Plus, the Pacific Northwest is never like really WARM WARM WARM like we’d see in the south or the Midwest. So, it was nice to keep the body moving while we walked through the brisk Pacific Ocean waters.
After this location, we ventured to Gold Beach and the famous kissing rock. While we didn’t spend any time smooching granite or basalt, we did get kissed very heavily with a surprise wave that soaked sweet Katie up to her waste while Jody stood on a rock over her, looking regal. Even though we were all surprised by the wave that just came in suddenly and soaked us all, we kept our adventure portraits moving and soon dried off because the sun had come out to greet us. We scurried up rocks, enjoyed a mini-waterfall, and then ungracefully scooched our asses back down the rocks for our next stop, wine!
Our next stop was at a local winery south of Cannon Beach in Manzanita, called The Winery at Manzanita. This local small town winery was hosting a wedding reception and also a handful of patrons. We were able to score a seat and I opted for a Pinot Noir flight which blew my socks off. If you’re not familiar with Oregon, it is famous for Pinot Noir, and I’m so glad I got to try so many of their delicious wines.
After our adventure to the winery, we ended our session on a local beach with a small trek down to it. Oregon, like I mentioned earlier, doesn’t rely on the glitz and glam of California. People of Oregon are salt of the earth and even though the ocean was brisk and cold, we were greeted with over one hundred surfers and their companions on the beach. Thankfully, there was plenty of beach and a variety of locations, light, and backdrops for us to finish our session.
When Jody and Katie found me and had shared interest in being photographed by me, I thought, great! Let’s do it! I was never pushy and we kept in touch for over a year before beginning to plan their epic adventure portraits.
Now, Jody and Katie are family. Like all my clients, we quickly became friends but Jody and Katie are family now. The connection I felt with these two makes me so grateful to get to have this job and to help people document their love stories. But more than that, getting to empower couples to share their truths, their love, and to meet them where they are is really what brings me so much joy.
Thank you both, ladies, for trusting me as your first professional photoshoot! I cannot wait to do it again and to hopefully meet you both in Hawaii in January!
Much love to you both!
For those of you wanting to set up some epic Coastal Oregon shoots, send me a message here! And be sure to read about our Big Sur engagement too!
Follow along with their Instagram adventures here!
Book an adventure session with me here!
New Adventure Productions is owned by Nate Dale, a Lafayette, Indiana wedding and elopement photographer. We travel nation and worldwide to capture beautiful and intimate weddings and elopements while providing a guidance, love, help along the way.
He is married to the love of his life, Felicia with their two doggies, Pika and Princess.