We spent most of our time in Bend in the mountains and forests, however we did head out to the desert side to visit the Boyd Cave. The cave is actually a lava tube. It is located down a dirt road and the entrance has a small wooden sign, fence made out of old railroad tracks, and a rather shady looking metal ladder descending into a very deep, very black hole in the ground. What’s the worst that could happen?
So as you can see, not a lot of light down here. We brought enough headlamps for everyone. Unfortunately one was completely dead. I had a flashlight in my backpack that I bought for photos, but it was a complete pile of crap. (thanks, Amazon!) So everyone went ahead to explore the cave and I stayed by the light and took photos. I’m not exploring a lava tube by the light of my iphone. I like my phone, but don’t feel like trusting my life to an Apple product. 😉
So since I did finally drag my tripod along on an excursion and we were all alone in a crazy cool dark cave, we decided to play around with long exposure photography and light painting! If you don’t know what light painting is, it’s where you set up the camera to a super long exposure time (like 15-30 seconds!) in a really dark place and then take a flash light and “paint” whateveritis with light. It’s a ton of fun!
This was a ton of fun to explore and I’m glad that I brought my camera! There are so many options for cool photos here and we didn’t even go that far into the cave! Can’t wait to come back with waaaay better lighting!