My headlamp died 5 minutes after leaving the truck. It took a few minutes for our eyes to adjust, but enough blue light from the nearly full moon filtered through the thick canopy of old growth coastal cedars and spruce for us to navigate our path. Caroline and I made our way down a line of bare wood in the center of the old boardwalk, moss colonizing the flanks and cracks between the rotting planks, the forest reclaiming what was rightfully theirs.
The low tide beach was bathed in silver moonlight with gentle whitewash imbricating synchronistically up and down the shoreline. Traversing the open expanse of sand, an unsettling, fresh set of wolf tracks carved their way down the beach. Violent turns, impossibly long strides, and claw marks skidding to a stop told of a frantic chase. The paws were the same size as Caroline’s hand, so we hoped it had already caught its dinner.
Clouds raced past, obscuring the moon only to unveil its luminosity again as we set up for the shoot. Caroline climbed up to a tiny volcanic tidal island topped with waxy salal and a single stunted spruce tree permanently directed east from relentless North Pacific winds. The shrubbery proved to be an annoyance, blocking out crucial light, so it took a few different angles to achieve any decent results.
Happy with our tree island, Caroline spotted some interesting composition near a deeply cut channel rushing with foamy water. As we began to shoot, a large set of waves crashed onto the rock pillars behind me and heaved into the surge channel beside Caroline. Only barely, we managed to stay out of harms way and made it out mostly dry with some cool photos.
Our last set up took us back to the expansive beach from which we came. The rising tide had appropriated a decent amount of real estate, but still left us with lots of sand to continue experimenting with the different forms of yoga. Some of the creations which appeared were a salmon head in a bubble, a uterus with legs, a Japanamation superhero, and my favorite pictured here - the sauntering elephant.
- April 2016
*Painting With Prana is an ongoing personal project documenting the movement of yoga through light painting in beautiful outdoor spaces. A gallery of images from the study will be appearing on my website in the coming weeks.