Face Rock sits offshore at Bandon, in the homelands of the Coquille (Nasomah) people. The local legend, passed down and reshaped over generations of both Native and non-Native storytellers, says the rock is the face of Princess Ewauna — a mountain chief's daughter who came to the coast for an intertribal feast and slipped away one night to swim under the moon.
When the ocean spirit rose to claim her, she refused to meet his gaze and kept her eyes fixed on the light above.
By dawn, the story says, that moment was frozen in stone. Her upturned profile is the face you can see in the sea stack, surrounded by smaller rocks said to be her animal companions still keeping watch.
I wanted to photograph the legend, not the sunset. The morning warmed the rock from the east while the sky was still going through its full color shift — and you can feel the upward turn of the face holding fast to the light.
