The Port Orford Historical Photos Archive is a useful resource for independent researchers as well as creative artists. Here we share some examples of historic photos used as reference or inspiration in other creative works featuring a favorite medium: The Poster.
The 22nd Annual Jerry Can Races Poster was informed by several photos of the Port Orford Lifeboat Station and its grounds, a favorite being this photo of the dramatic drop into Nellie’s Cove via the 532 steps to the old boathouse. This public domain USCG photograph, estimated to have been taken in the 1950s, shows the station that was built in 1934 and operated by the U.S. Coast Guard until its decommissioning in 1970. By 1939, the two-bay boathouse seen in the photo had been completed.
The 2024 U.S. Coast Guard Day Poster features an iconic photo of the Port Orford Lifeboat Station from the Nix Collection taken by Lance Nix in 2014 (see “Architectural Details”). It was photo-composited with an art print of Lifeboat #36498 by Don McMichael, one of the last surviving officers when the Lifeboat Station was still in service, to create a very memorable poster for the event. The Lance Nix photograph and art print by Don McMichael were used for this purpose with the artists’ permission.
The 100/150 Poster was created in honor of the 100th Anniversary of Oregon State Parks and the 150th Anniversary of the lighting of the first order Fresnel lens at the Cape Blanco Lighthouse. An elegant banner designed by Pacific High School was used as a central focal point for the collaborative partners at Cape Blanco. This banner was first designed for the unveiling of the Cape Blanco Lighthouse diorama currently in the Interpretive Center at the Cape Blanco Greeting Center Gift Shop. Photo Note 🎵 the shoreline in the photograph was manually altered using GIMP (an open source image editing program) to create more space for the text in the design.
The 2025 Hughes House Christmas Celebration Poster, “Peace on Earth”, features yet another beautiful photograph from our archive. First captured in 2023 during an evening photography event, the Hughes House underwent exterior renovation in 2025 so the roof was colorized to match the new red metal shingles. This is the only enhancement made to the original photograph witnessed under a crystal Cape Blanco Blue evening sky.
Another classic photograph by Lance Nix was selected in 2019 for the Fourth of July ARTWALK Poster. This HDR photograph was imaged to mylar using HDR archival pigmented ink and installed in a vintage 1920s art deco theater marquee which was converted into a lightbox for display during the Port Orford Jubilee festivities. The photograph is a unique vision of pyrotechnics; the combination of a slow shutter speed, HDR layering and the artist’s eye gives its ephemeral nature a sense of permanence.
The Retro Rainbow ARTWALK Poster from 2019 features another Port Orford Historical Photo by Alan Mitchell captured with traditional film in 1999 of a rainbow over Port Orford and the Pacific Ocean. It was the perfect touch for the first art event of the year. Aside from a slight enhancement in brightness and contrast, the scene is as it was first seen 27 years ago. This published newspaper article from the Port Orford News provides a back story of how the ARTWALK tradition first began in Port Orford.
We hope you are inspired by the creativity available in our archive and we will add more works to the archive (as well as derivative works) as time allows. If you create something, let us know!
The photographs and objects published in the Port Orford Historical Photos Archive are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Feel free to remix and reuse in your own creations ~ we would appreciate a mention of (and a link to) the archive (and the artist or photographer if known). Thank you!
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