#FineArtFriday: Wind, Waves, and the Monarch of the Beach

Today we are looking at a series of photographs taken over the space of several years. All but one are my own work.

The first image is a sunset shot of what I think of as the Monarch of the Beach, the God-Rock dominating the shores of Cannon Beach Oregon. I took it in 2021 from the south end of the long stretch of sand. I have always loved the silhouettes of the sea stacks against the sky.

sunset-cannonbeach-08192020LIRF

The following image, Haystack Rock, is not one of mine. It was shot and uploaded to Wikimedia Commons by Tiger635. They perfectly captured the sky, showing the amazing shade of blue with stratus clouds overhead and sea below. All the world converges on Haystack,the king rock, the monarch of the beach. The photographer did everything right to capture the beauty of this place.

This year we are in the condo we like best and have a great view of Tillamook Head. When the fog lifts. I will see my favorite lighthouse, Tillamook Rock Light. I wanted to capture the pelicans and seagulls in flight, but the haze in 2020 made getting clear images difficult even with my cannon digital camera. But I managed to get this image with the aid of my tripod and a telephoto lens:

Terrible Tilly August 2022

The next image is one I shot in 2018, an unusually hot year, when we were plagued with massive wildfires here on the west coast of America. The sunsets that year were unbelievable.

The following image is of the Needles, those acolyte sea stacks gathered around Haystack’s knees. They are slowly disintegrating, more and more every year.

I shot it at low tide on Monday August 5, 2019, with my cellphone. Little did I know that it would be the last image I would ever get of that particular sea-stack. The two final images were also shot on my cell phone.

The sky that year was a shade of gray that is impossible to describe. I particularly love the way the tidal pools came out in my photo, the green of the sea moss, and the reflection of the spires across the shallow sea.

Now that sea stack is only a low hump, not too different from any other lump of basalt cresting the waves in the shallows. Where once there were three, now there are only two and a half.

Time eventually wears everything to sand. All these sea stacks, even the God Rock, will one day be gone, shattered to rubble and ground to sand, a testimony to the violence of the wild Northeast Pacific winters. That is the way life is, and I find it reflected in myself.

North View of Cannon Beach in the Fog July 06, 2023 © Connie J. Jasperson 2023

But no matter how fast our human lives change, pelicans, puffins, terns, seagulls, and rare wide-winged wanderers from far out to sea still come to nest on the Monarch of the Beach, Haystack Rock and his attendants.

Tidal pools change from day to day, but still they shelter starfish, anemones, and a multitude of other small creatures. These tiny water-worlds remind us that we are part of something larger, something deeper, a mysterious world far more bountiful than we who walk the land can know.

The sea is never the same. Untamed and dangerous one day, it is calm and serene the next.

The most important thing I’ve learned from my many walks among the tide pools at the foot of the Monarch is this: we humans are not islands—we are part of a world that extends below the surface and conceals secrets and lives we surface dwellers can only dimly imagine.

Above the eternal sea, on the strand below and around the God Rock, the Monarch of the Beach, my husband and I rediscover who we are, and we are made stronger.

The bonds my family forges each year in this place bind us together. These ties will always remain, no matter how far apart we are or how long we are separated, even after the Monarch of the Beach crumbles into the sea.