I survived a Marc Adamus Photo Boot Camp!
My cell rang last spring and it was my new friend Perri saying I had to book a trip with Marc Adamus cause he's amazing! Perri and I had been to a trip with Darwin Wiggett in feb and I enjoyed her and her husband Tom's company as we drove around chasing light and dodging snow squalls and just having fun until Tom and I heard Perri yelling for help as she had gone off on snow shoes to get "the shot" but she had gotten too close to a tree well and fallen in to the point she could not move! Lol! We had a mountain rescue guy on the trip and he strapped on his snow shoes and 10 minutes later Perri arrived a little worse for wear!
But on to the phone call! She said here is Marc's cell phone, call him cause if you email him it will be too late! Ok I say and 10 minutes later and a google session to check him out I am now committing to send him my deposit! The trip out line says be prepared for some 4 to 5 mile round trip hikes so after 3 months of figuring out how to live with my new diagnosis of being diabetic and a couple of 5 mile warm up hikes I figure I am ready to roll!
Feeling confident I meet the group in Newport Oregon at 5 ish for dinner and orientation and by 6.30 we are heading down 101 heading south and the whirlwind starts! An evening shoot at sunset scrambling over wet rocks at Seal Rocks with Sea Pines in the foreground we are literally under the gun! With 6 paticipants and Marc we are a small mobile group and wake up calls at 4.30 am for sunrise shoots and processing mid day and driving to our dinner and then sunset spots tucked away I'm amazed Marc knows where we are going each day! From Newport Oregon up to and through Cannon Beach to a Cape Kiwanda with a 4.45 wake up call to go climbing a 400 foot sand dune to a drop on the other side of 600 feet into a sea cave as the tide is just right! Shocking most of us Marc is now urging us to get in the water with waves coming over our knees and tripod into the sea bed we struggle to stay upright and at this point I begin to wonder about the rigors of this trip! But I have to try take some images which I do not do very well with this spot. But an amazing experience only I now have to go up the 600 foot drop! I start ahead of everyone but it does not take long for them to catch me up! But I make it! Legs shaking from the effort but pleased I made it up and down and back again! Now into the car to drive to our next location! Then we leave the shore and off to the Gorge! We get to the Gorge and have 2 pm meetup and then off to our afternoon where we end up in a stream! I found my waders and am a little happier that I'm not soaking wet but still have concerns wondering around knee deep in a stream traipsing over moss covered wet rocks with my cameras and gear! The brochure said a 4 to 5 mile hike! No where did it say it would help to be a mountain goat as well! To get to what Perri and I would end up calling the "garden of Eden!" it was two miles and switchbacks and lots of up! Then down a field of moss covered rocks then after a small tree lined area we had to be careful not to kill the person below as we had to carefully make our way down a steep slope of loose shale rock! The end goals where amazing areas and I am thrilled to have had the opportunity to take some of the best images of landscape I have ever taken! From the Gorge to Forks and finishing in one of my favorite places on our little planet! The Hoh and Ruby beach!
While arduous and strenuous to at times I did not think I would make it this trips will make the biggest impact on my photography for every image I ever make for the rest of my life! An incredible insight to what it takes at times to make stunning landscape images the real difference was the training Marc gave us for his philosophy of photoshop! I have to thank Marc for dragging my ass all over the Northwest and I'm sorry for being the group anchor but I am thrilled with the images we were able to create! As to Marc's vision the first person I showed my new images to gasped on the second image and said "Wow, these look like paintings!". Lessons learned! Big thanks to Marc for changing a lot of what I will do with my photography for possibly the rest of my life!!
