Last Updated: February 15th, 2020

We had originally wrote up an article about our travels through Oregon on our Hand and Arrow Photography website if you’d like to check that out, but decided to we wanted to talk more about this journey with you here – especially now that we’ve had a few months to really let our experience there soak in.

Oregon has long been on our wish list of places to visit.

Sure, we’ve seen a million photos from there.

Cannon Beach seems to be a portrait photography 101 location for Instagram.

Even with these points being true, our lure is actually rooted more in our interests in the artsy side of Oregon (with Portland being a pretty significant hub), as well as the well of paranormal stories that seem to revolve around the Pacific Northwest (PNW for short).

There is a certain mystique that’s hard to nail down, but by watching a couple episodes of Twin Peaks you are probably on the right track of understanding why we wanted to get out there. Hiking through the natural environments filled with lush moss, tall trees, and moody weather was just the tip of the iceberg.

Our 3 days and 2 nights in Oregon was ultimately a trip that was expedited through finding another photographer hosting some shoots with lodging at an AirB&B on the coast, at a highly affordable cost. With a couple shoots lined up and new friends to meet, we booked our flights to Portland, OR and our car rental through Enterprise – then were off to get a feel for what this place had to offer.

Looking to go to Oregon yourself? Check out our Oregon Packing List!

Day 1 in Oregon

Our journey started in Portland. Immediately from the airport we drove into the downtown area just to get a lay of the land. We had read many horror stories about how Portland is one of the worst cities for drivers – but it turns out the reason is because people are slower than normal. We noticed this pretty quickly, but it didn’t bother us as we like to go slow when exploring new places anyways 🙂 It has been a point for laughter we like to make whenever talking about the city now.

We had no specific places we wanted to stop off, so decided to take the route of parking and walking until we ran into something that interested us. Of course, this ended up being a modern Mexican restaurant called Taqueria Villanueva. Taking in the other sites, some of them admittedly strange, and getting some joy from being so close to the Church of Scientology – it was an interesting city to say the least.

In many ways, we’ve been setup since a young age to be fairly intimidated by city life, being so close to Philadelphia and New York City respectively – both of which are not the most welcoming cities given us East Coasters have these rough exterior shells. In our travels, such as through Mexico, Iceland, and now the Western part of the US – we’re finding many other large cities in the world to have atmospheres that suit our personalities more – with Portland reminding us pretty heavily of the vibes felt when walking the streets of Reykjavik.

Anyways…once we were done with lunch, we got back in our car and drove a couple hours to the coast, to the little area of Arch Cape. This is where we’d be stationed the next 2 days, mingling at our shared B&B with a couple other photographers from around the States.

Come the evening hours, we set off for our first styled shoot. Beginning at Cannon Beach (you guessed it), we faced some pretty intense wind and rain, but it made for some stunning photography. Because of the weather, we didn’t stay here super long – instead opting to move to some other areas of the coast that at least enabled some more protection from the wind. Hug Point, a location just up the road, ended up being the perfect venue for the rest of our shoot – and added some elements we didn’t expect!! We’ll let some photos do the talking here…

After all this, we returned home and chilled the rest of the night..

Day 2 in Oregon

There is nothing quite like that feeling of waking up refreshed while taking time away from the normal routine we can so often get sucked into at home. While our first day spent in Oregon began by traveling across the United States and driving a bunch, plus our shoot on the coast, we had an energy that is hard to describe.

As might have been expected, we woke up to a pretty nice storm going on outside – but were cozy inside until the late morning. Our adventure took us on a drive back towards Portland, where we spent most of our day exploring some well known landscapes.

First, we reached Multnomah Falls – probably the most iconic waterfall you will see in any exploration of Oregon landscape photography due to the iconic bridge that sits in front of it. Little did we know, there is a small parking lot right next to it – making it the tourist hotspot. As beautiful as it was, and as great as our photos turned out, we didn’t spend much time there at all due to the large number of people crowding around. Plus, at the time of our visit, most of the walking paths were closed off due to recent wildfires – so our time here was short-lived.

Our next stop ended up being Latoural Falls, which is a little more off the beaten path and actually requires some effort (ie: walking) to get too. It’s here that we really started to get the feeling of what Oregon has to offer in it’s lush forest coverage, and this waterfall is phenomenally beautiful – and has some interesting formations that make it really attractive to both landscape and portrait photographers alike.

Our shoot here was more interesting – beginning with shots in the grass by the parking lot (with our model we picked up from the airport, no less!). We ventured into the woods, and had a really great time getting shots in front of the waterfall – by the end quite literally. Later into our shoot, a couple came along to be a part of the styled shoot, which allowed us to get a good deal of diversity at this location. Once we were done in front of the falls, we walked through the nice hiking paths and found a number of great spots too add to the diversity.

The general feeling while being in this locations felt very much out of a fantasy novel like The Lord of the Rings. It’s powerful stuff because the trees and the abundant moss give the feeling that they are ancient, and the moodiness in the air (sometimes literally with the light rain and fog) just added to this atmosphere. It’s something very distinct, and not anything we’ve ever seen replicated in our area of the East Coast.

Ultimately – this was a busy day like we had planned, and was extremely worth it in the end. The photos can do the rest of the talking for us 🙂

Day 3 in Oregon

Our last day in Oregon was the one we ultimately spent by ourselves. While much of our schedule was planned out due to the group of photographers we were with, we did more to “go with the flow” on this day. Upon waking up and checking the weather, we made the decision to explore Oswald West State Park, which was fairly nearby and looked like a cool stopping point. Needless to say, it was! We got a little lost in the woods, but ended up coming out to an interesting stretch of coastline that was quite photogenic. This was a very neat and authentic experience, as we had no idea it existed before finding out about it 30 minutes before arriving.

Of course, due to our limited time at Cannon Beach on our first day, we decided to head there again to retread place and take it in. We found a beautiful vantage point of Haystack Rock (and other rock formations in the ocean) from Ecola State Park, and our shots of the coastline are some of our favorites from the trip.

It was a simple day, a quiet day, and one that ultimately led us back to the airport to board our flight to Las Vegas for more adventure to come.