Cannon Beach Tide Pools

Author's Comments

I time these visits by the tide chart and not by my own preference, which is the first thing the tide pools teach you. A minus tide in late spring, ideally at sunrise or just after, is when the pools at the base of Haystack Rock become what you came for. The water pulls back further than seems reasonable and reveals a world that is almost embarrassingly colorful - ochre stars in deep orange, anemones in green so saturated it reads as artificial, the small purple urchins tucked into crevices you have to kneel to see. This is macro work. A wide lens will not save you here. The compositions are tight and low and slow, and the light you want is the soft directional kind that arrives in the first hour after sunrise, before the sun clears the headland and turns everything flat. I shoot from my stomach more often than not. The wet rock is unforgiving on knees and elbows and entirely worth it. A few honest notes. The pools are protected, and the volunteer interpreters in their blue vests are there for good reason. Watch where you step. The mussel beds and the barnacle-crusted rock are alive in a way that does not always read as alive, and the etiquette here is not optional. Work around the creatures rather than moving them. The photograph you want is the one where the animal is in its actual home, doing what it does when no one is watching. Come on a weekday if you can. The crowds at Haystack are real, but at six in the morning during a minus tide, you will mostly have the company of gulls and the occasional heron working the same edges you are.

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