 I'm backpacking on the Oregon coast. Why don't you come along? My name is David Patton. When I started photography, I wanted to make art. I wanted to be a landscape photographer. But with a family to feed and bills to pay, I decided it would be better to be a working photographer than a starving artist. So I took a job as a photojournalist. 25 years and thousands of assignments later, it was time to go back to my first love. It was time to follow my passion. Come along on my journey to become the best black in my photography I can be. Whether it be film or digital, I will be sharing what I learned through my successes and my failures. In hopes to inspire and educate. This is my journey. This is Brighton Yash. Winter backpacking trip in the Sayusila National Forest. More specifically, in the Oregon Dunes Recreational Area, which is managed by the Sayusila National Forest. And I'm out testing out some old backpacking gear. We're just going to spend the night out here tonight. Weather looks to be pretty good. Might be a little icy in the morning. But I thought I'd come out and try out some of my gear. See if it's up to snuff. I haven't backpacked in a long time. And I've got some trips planned this year. My goal isn't to go to the beach. And really, with all this gear in my back, I'm not really looking to hike a lot in the dunes. I'll hike as much as I have to. But for today, my goal is to find a place to camp. Set it up. I need to look for something to photograph. I think tomorrow I'll do more photography. Today's more about the backpacking experience. Got quite a bit of flooding in here. We've been getting pretty heavy rains the last few days. And it's all clear off now. Now there's not a cloud in the sky. Which means it'll probably freeze tonight. Hopefully I can get around these high water spots on the trail. May have to backtrack. I'm not going through there. Let's see if we can get around this. Like a bowl on a challenge off of this weight on my pack. Hopefully I'm going to be to some location pretty soon because I'm kind of getting tired of walking. My packing legs aren't developed yet. I'm carrying way too much weight. Mainly because it's winter. If this was in the middle of summer, I'd probably have 5 to 10 pounds less weight on my back. But because I don't know what the weather's going to be like, how cold it's going to get tonight. I've got my winter sleeping bag. Extra clothes. A little extra food. Because I'm by myself. Maybe self reliant. One can make the mistake of thinking this isn't a wild place because it's not that far from civilization. You don't want that to kid yourself. You can't get lax. You can't get lazy. Nature can reach out and slap you if you're not pinned by the rules when you're out in the woods. And of course, if I wasn't packing all my camera gear, I could light my load to another 8 or 9 pounds. Plus another 5 for this. That 35mm start to look pretty good about now. I don't know, this might work. A little breezy in here. This might work. I got to look around in this area a little bit more. I think I found a little bit better spot. No wind here. Not much anyway. We've got a bank. Right there. Nice open with a windbreak. It's open sky. I put my tent right here. I think this is going to work. Grabbed my gear. Right here is a game trail. Looks like a lot of deer have been through here. Hopefully we don't get visited by the wrong kind of creatures tonight. I don't know how many stray into the Oregon dunes. It's not really that duny out here. I have cougar tracking deer on the edge of the Oregon dunes before. So I guess there could be cougar out here. And there's a lot of bear on the Oregon coast as well. I don't think it should be too much of a worry this close to the ocean. So far I really haven't seen much to photograph. With these harsh light. These guys. Pretty much thick woods. I haven't seen a whole lot of compositions on the way in. But I really wasn't expecting to do a lot of photography this evening. Just wanted to find a place to set up camp. I've never been this location before. I might set up camp and wander off a little bit. But I'll probably stay fairly close tonight. Make some tea. Relax a little bit. Make some plans for tomorrow. Not your typical backpacking cookware. Just some good old English breakfast tea. Find that the tea works a little better for me out in the woods. I don't really much care for instant coffee. I do like some tea. And it's pretty chilly out here. I mean it looks sunny and everything. But it's fairly cool. It is winter. You'll probably see the sun setting behind me. I don't think I'm going to get a lot of any photos done today. Kind of got here a little late. So tomorrow is going to be the photo part of this trip. I think I'm just going to enjoy being in camp. I'm going to eat a little bit of dinner. Maybe listen to a podcast. Maybe talk a little bit about what I'd like to do later in the year. What my plans are for this channel. This trip is kind of setting the stage for hopefully interesting stuff to come. Going by the map, it looks like there should be a lot more sand dunes out here. I've not seen any sand dunes. I mean I'm sitting in the sand. There's a lot of stuff growing in it. It's not what I envisioned for sand dunes. I'm hoping tomorrow I can find something a little more what I had envisioned for sand dunes. I just don't have time to find that now. I hate to get myself lost before it gets dark. But tomorrow we're going to find some sand dunes. Yeah, that's not sand dunes. It shows that we're on the edge of it or basically in it a little bit here. I'm looking in the direction that the sand dude should be and there's just no sand dunes. I might stroll over there and see if I can see something. I hate the idea that there might be an interesting photo just 100 feet away or 50 yards away. I'm going to go take a quick look. Well I guess you could call these dunes. Not really what I had in mind. I don't know if we have the right kind of dunes here in Oregon. A lot of vegetation on these dunes keeps them from moving I guess. Technically they're dunes. But nothing that I really want to photograph. I don't see. It's kind of messy. Not the kind of dunes that I really want to photograph. You don't know until you come. I don't think I'll spend a lot of time here in the morning. I think we'll check out some other dunes down a little further south. What I'm doing here today I wouldn't really call. I call it good backpacking and it'll probably be in the title as backpacking. But it's really dispersed camping I would say. I envision when I think of backpacking as hiking. And really I'm not all that big a fan of hiking. It's really a means to an end. For me hiking isn't something I really do unless it's laid back. I usually don't hike long ways. So for me backpacking isn't really about the hike. It's about getting back into areas on these public lands. And finding some solitude. Looking for new places to make images. To make photos. For me it's not about the hike. And so when I load up my gear in my backpack. Most likely I'm not going to be hiking long ways unless there's a reason for me to do so. My plan for this year. Is to take advantage of some of this public lands here in Oregon. We have more than I think I read it was more than 50% like 53% of the land in Oregon is public land. Either BLM or National Forest. I think the state also has land as well. But I can't do what I want to do there. I like to take advantage of these public lands and pack into some of them and photograph them. There's some wilderness areas especially over in eastern Oregon that this year I'd like to get into. And just to add some different ecosystems to my portfolio. I'm currently working on a book. I would like to get a good variety of locations for that book I'm working on. It's focusing mostly on this region. Well it's focusing on basically the state of Oregon. But I'm doing a black and white artistic study of nature. And so this trip is to just kind of get an idea of what I'm going to be needing for some multi-day trips out into the wild. Just to kind of get an idea of this tent's going to work. My sleeping bag's going to work, my mat, all that stuff, you know. It's been a long time since I've done any backpacking. Mostly I go out and do car camping and stuff like that. But I just want to get away from the campgrounds as much as possible. I just want to get out by myself. Our words quiet. I'm just finishing getting things set up and stowed away before it gets dark. It's getting dark pretty quick. I'm just going to push everything else up underneath the vestig pill. And after it gets dark I'll probably just crawl inside and listen to a podcast or something. This time of year it still gets dark pretty early. It was a good little hike in. Not a bad little spot. So we'll continue this tomorrow. Good night.