This tour and the great Northwest continue to be the most popular for American Photo Tours. The region is often overlooked and is not part of many tours in the West, but it offers an abundance of water features, flowers, and even wildlife that make it a prime location for photographers, especially those who take the time to stay and capture its beauty rather than day tripping through it without picturing its wonderful abundance. Come with us and discover the green and watery world of the Columbia River Gorge and the remote and beautiful Olympic Peninsula. We have been traveling there for over thirty years and still find it as refreshing and exciting as we did when we first visited!

Highlights: Olympic National Park, Columbia River Gorge, Multnomah Falls, Horsetail Falls, Oneonta Falls, Ruby Beach, First Beach, Hoh Rain Forest, Cape Flattery WA, Neah Bay WA, Hurricane Ridge, waterfalls photography, coastal photography, Merriman Falls

The beginning of this adventure is in Portland, Oregon, and the end point is either Portland or Seattle, Washington, your choice. When we start out we will head east into the Gorge and spend time with several different exceptional waterfalls. Oregon, and to a lesser degree, Washington, is known for its water features both along its magnificent coast and in the Cascade Mountains. Our focus will be on the mountain water features, and the choice of which ones to visit is based on our experience as photographers, not just a map or tour guide directions. The waterfalls in this area are some of the finest we have ever encountered in years of traveling the world, and we will take you to them, and then assist you in capturing them at their finest. That is our goal.

After visiting the Gorge we will head out west and north and enter the Olympic Peninsula and its wild landscapes. Over the next several days, we will travel along the coast visiting the craggy headlands and filming the surf as a quiet presence or a beautiful full force of nature depending on the location and the wiles of nature. Access to these beaches and headlands can be as simple as a short walk from a trail head or a six mile hike through the coastal rainforest, but our standard tours only include the shorter walks. Private tours can include whatever you would like to do, and can be vigorous and involve more exploration if you care to go farther afield. The coast offers a very wide range of opportunities to see and capture the land-sea struggle at its best, and we will get you to the best places to photograph it.

Another even more unique aspect of the Olympic Mountain Range is its temperate rainforest. Most of the entire peninsula is covered with thick green forests, but certain areas are true rainforests and they are some of the best places to go to get incredible pictures of mosses, and ferns, and lichen covered trees as subjects for photographs. This aspect of the Olympics, the rainforest, is almost jungle-like, and even though it rains most of the year, it is often possible to be there in relatively sunny conditions. The challenge then is to negotiate the contrast that comes with these conditions. There are ways to compensate for that and we will share what we have learned to do to capture the best pictures of this gift of nature.

Finally, we make our way over to Vancouver Island for a day and visit several sites that afford us the opportunity to see flowers and butterflies up close, and capture them in ways we seldom can in more open settings. The blooms and insects are wonderful and very colorful, and with guidance and a few key pointers we can help you bring back the best images of each of these subjects – and the city!

Join us for an adventure to the great Northwest with its waterfalls, craggy coastline, rain forests and beautiful gardens and flying rainbows. Call us or send us an email and we can tell you more about this exceptional adventure, and with your paid reservation, we will send you a detailed itinerary of where we go and where we stay. Share the adventure!