I have a love-hate relationship with sunrises. I’m definitely not a morning person so getting up at 4 a.m. after closing my eyes at 1 a.m. is not my idea of a good morning. I work late into the night and I usually enjoy the limited sleep I do get. The trade off? A sunrise can produce some of the most insane lighting you’ll ever see or get to work with. Our trip out to Larch Mountain was a perfect example of this.
We made plans to go on this adventure the night before. After we settled on a location, I messaged my friend Brandi immediately to see if she wanted to tag along. I love Brandi’s look and always enjoy shooting her so I was excited to see what we could come up with. Nick and Chloe picked me up from my house around 4 a.m the following morning. After I packed my things into the car we headed over to SE Portland to pick up Brandi. After getting on the road, we had just enough time to catch the sunrise. We booked it out to Larch Mountain, which is about an hour away from my apartment in Portland. We pull into the parking lot and take a short hike up some stairs, staring into the rising sun, to reach Sherrard Point. From this point you have an absolutely breathtaking view of the Cascade volcanoes. This view had quickly put it at the top of my list for must see spots in the Gorge. If you've never experienced a sunrise, I highly suggest that you do sometime. After taking it all in and snapping a few photos we headed back to the city to grab some much needed coffee and breakfast from a local spot in my neighborhood.
Larch Mountain has got to be one of my favorite locations in the Northwest to date. I hope my visuals can do this place some sort of justice. I also hope you enjoy some of the portraits I got of my friends.
Thanks for reading!
