A little less than four hours south of Salem and a few light years from the traffic congestion and noise of Portland, there is a small coastal community you should visit. If you love photographing the Oregon coast, it’s amazing sunsets, sea life, birds, sand dunes, light houses, crashing waves, and a thousand other image worthy subjects, plan a trip to Bandon. You won’t regret you’re decision.
Although a small town, Bandon and the surrounding area is a destination in and of itself for photographers. There are myriad subjects to photograph within an hours drive of town. It’s also a great base of operations for your photographic exploration of the Southern Coast of Oregon. To give you some idea, there is a lighthouse in Bandon, (several more nearby), one of the most photographable beaches in the state, a state park with another great beach, and a national wildlife refuge, all within a few miles of town. Port Orford is about a half hours drive south, Gold Beach a little further on. The ocean vistas and beaches on the drive between those two towns are not to be missed, Sisters Rocks State Park in particular. To the North, you’ll fill a memory card at Shore Acres State Park if there are big waves running and you include a visit to the garden in the park. You can easily reach these places and much of the Southern Oregon Coast from Bandon.
Starting in Bandon, there is Bandon Beach with it’s other worldly sea stacks, rock formations, and spectacularly colorful sunsets. A great walking beach, one that seems rarely crowded except perhaps at sundown in the summer. Bandon Beach is easily one of the most photogenic beaches in Oregon.
Photo Heads-up: The sea stacks offshore are out a pretty fair distance. I like the distance compression a longer lens gives in imaging a scene like this, pulling the rocks and the sky together. There’s really no mistaking Bandon sunsets for anywhere else on the coast. This image was made with a Nikon D800 on a tripod, and a Tamron 150-600mm lens, shooting almost directly into the setting sun. I also take along a 24-70mm lens for photographing the huge boulders and stacks of driftwood on the beach. A polarizing filter and a small lens cleaning kit go with me as well. Head for the beach a little early as the light changes rapidly at this time of the day.
Bullards Beach State Park and the salt marshes of the Bandon Marsh National Wildlife Refuge are both very close to town. They give the nature photographer plenty of opportunity to grab some shots of shore birds as well as other animals. Bullards Beach is backed by low dunes that block the view of the ocean from the road leading out to Coquille light. The beach is amazing with so much to photograph, driftwood, birds, the lighthouse, sand dunes and of course the ocean. Except for areas of the beach where there are agates, and so agate hunters, this beach also rarely seems crowded.
Coquille River Light, built and commissioned in 1895-6, is located in Bullards Beach State Park. The lighthouse was built to guide ships over a dangerous bar of shifting sands that is formed at the mouth of the river. The lighthouse can be photographed close-up from the park or from a short distance away, across the river in Bandon. 
You can take some good shots from either location but to my mind the most interesting backgrounds for a photograph are those seen from the Bandon side of the river at sunset or a little before.
Safety tip: there is a great deal of driftwood along both Bandon and Bullards Beaches. If you are new to the coast you may not be aware that at high tide, especially after a storm, incoming waves can pick up huge driftwood logs and toss them around like matchsticks. Consult the weather and tide tables as part of your planning process. Use caution and common sense when climbing around driftwood which can shift and crush you. Also, large “sneaker” waves can and do come ashore unexpectedly with tremendous force. It’s easy to get wrapped up in your photographic work in such a beautiful place completely forgeting about your personal safety.
Bandon Marsh NWR is divided by US 101 as it passes through the Bandon area. Part of the refuge is on the west side of the highway and part on the east. It’s easy to miss the eastern part of the marsh as you tend to be looking west towards the ocean when driving through the area. The salt marshes on the either side of the highway sometimes become awash at high tide. The influx of seawater from the ocean acts as a dam that backs up the Coquille River. The flow from the river is faster than the water can escape into the ocean so the mud flats and then the marsh begin to be covered with water. I’ve never seen that happen during any of my trips to the marsh unfortunately. I’d like to be there sometime when it occurs to see if the opportunity for bird photography is as good as I imagine it is.
Consider making Bandon your base of operations as you explore the south coast of the state. There are comfortable and quiet places to spend the night in Bandon as well as great places to eat. I recommend the Bandon Inn for your hotel. The Inn sits atop a small hill above the Old Town section of the city. It’s an easy walk into town from the Inn for an early breakfast at the Minute Café (A fun collection of coffee mugs). Pack a lunch before you set out for the day. There is plenty to photograph within a short drive from town and you’ll want to picnic on the beach somewhere in the course of your travels. After a long day of schlepping your gear around there’s nothing like a late dinner at Foley’s Irish Pub, also a short walk from the Inn. You should have the Gorgonzola Burger and a pint of Guinness. Forget about counting calories for just one night, you’ve earned this one.
Branching out by heading south from Bandon you can easily make Cape Blanco (a lighthouse high above the ocean with wind all the time, sometimes hurricane force), Port Orford,Sisters Rocks State Park, Gold Beach and back in a day. Cape Blanco is the second westernmost point in the continental United States. The ocean views and beaches along this stretch of 101 are nothing less than spectacular. Push a little harder and you are in Northern California among the Coast Redwoods, the tallest trees in the world.
Heading North from town, Reedsport, Florence and the Oregon Dunes are within fairly easy reach but don’t miss Shore Acres State Park along the way. Try to time your visit to Shore Acres when there’s been a storm at sea and big waves are pounding the cliffs. You can feel the ground shake under your feet when huge rollers crash against the rocks. The splashing spray from the waves will sometimes reach you as you stand a hundred feet above the ocean surface. Larger waves crash with a boom so loud they sound like thunder. In a word, awesome!
If you get back to town early one afternoon and have a little time before dinner at Foley’s or Edgewaters, go for a stroll along Second Street, visit the shops in Old Town and be sure to take in the Second Street Gallery. Some of the finest art to be experienced along the Oregon coast is there, all of it created by area artists and crafts people. Also take a few minutes to walk along the boardwalk atop the breakwater for the inner harbor just for fun. Bandon doesn’t have a casino or a bunch of tourist traps and is, in my opinion, so much the better for it. Bandon is a small community with all the essentials and then some. It is perfectly situated for you to explore the Oregon coast with your camera.
I’ve only been able to touch on a small portion of the things to see, do and photograph in the Bandon area in this blog post. As inspiration strikes and time permits I’ll add more related posts. I hope though, you’ve found something of interest here and that you are thinking of doing some photography of the Southern Coast of Oregon. You’ll have a difficult time finding a better place from which to start your exploration than Bandon.
An album of some of my images from the Bandon area: Bandon Album
Resources
Bandon (Really nice site about the town with tons of information):
http://www.bandon.com
The Bandon Inn (Wonderful people, very comfortable, excellent service, great location):
http://www.bandoninn.com/
The Minute Café (Good food and plenty of it, great service, friendly place)
145 Second Street SE
541-347-2707
Opens for breakfast at 5:30 AM
Foley’s Irish Pub (Great food and service, fun and lively place, easy walk from the Inn)
http://www.foleysirishpubbandon.com/
Edgewaters (A little fancier atmosphere than some, good food and service, generous portions,nice view)
http://www.edgewaters.net/index.html
Second Street Gallery (High quality art created by area artists, fun and inspirational)
https://secondstreetgallery.net/
Bandon Area Beaches
http://www.bandon.com/beaches/
Bullards Beach State Park (Access to Coquille Light, great beach, lots of birds)
https://oregonstateparks.org/index.cfm?do=parkPage.dsp_parkPage&parkId=50
Bandon Marsh National Wildlife Refuge:
https://www.fws.gov/refuge/Bandon_Marsh/
Shore Acres State Park
https://oregonstateparks.org/index.cfm?do=parkPage.dsp_parkPage&parkId=68
Cape Blanco State Park
https://oregonstateparks.org/index.cfm?do=parkPage.dsp_parkPage&parkId=44
Port Orford
https://www.portorford.org/