<p>"Oyster Bar-B-Que" by Diane Beeston.</p>

Only a certain sort of free-spirited photographer would walk away from a 30-year career at the top of her game.

By the 1980s, Diane Beestons striking photographs, mostly black and white, of San Francisco Bays sailboats often racing and driven hard by the Golden Gates fair, relentless westerly winds graced sailing magazine covers, hung in a thousand dens and yacht club trophy rooms, and had been collected in Of Wind, Fog and Sail: Sailing in San Francisco Bay (1972 Chronicle Press). Yachting magazines Bill Robinson called her the best marine photographer in the world.

In 1988, she sold her cameras and darkroom equipment, moved from San Francisco to Astoria and took up painting.

I was tired of photographing sailboats, she explains simply.

Today theres hardly a photograph in Beestons house. Her walls are hung, instead, with her own vibrant paintings, reminiscent of Van Goghs bedroom at Arles. The Columbia rolls by just outside her windows. Like Cezannes at Aix-en-Provence, they face north and invite into her studio plenty of soft, diffuse, shadowless light. Her paintings of the working waterfront, of Astoria and of the neighboring countryside are assertive and optimistic. I like color and I like contrast, she says, which wont surprise anyone familiar with her photos. What is surprising is how few sailboats appear in her paintings.

The only sailboats Ive painted have been commissions, she remarks. Nor did she follow the recent Americas Cup competition between enormous, high-tech, kevlar-winged catamarans on San Francisco Bay. Why does everybody have to go so damn fast? Why dont they have a race for who looks the best? she wants to know.

Astorias less frenetic pace has long agreed with her and the Columbia House now more than suits her purposes. Im in seventh heaven here. Every working boat on the river goes right by my window. Talk about opportunities for painting. And I dont even have to get wet.

Staying dry was a luxury during Beestons career photographing sailboats. She began while she was a medical photographer at the University of California Medical Center. One Saturday on the waterfront, she was taken with the spinnakers of racing sailboats as they rounded the weather mark at Crissy Field. Though she knew nothing about sailing, the next day she returned with her camera. A lot of UC doctors, particularly surgeons, she says, owned sailboats, and she found they would buy her photos. One doctor lent her a 15-foot skiff so she could get closer to the action. Ultimately she owned her own chase boats, finally one with a flying bridge, an inboard motor and a head.

She never photographed sailboats anywhere but in San Francisco Bay. All the best boats came to San Fransico Bay, she says. There was no reason to leave. She photographed classic boats like Hank Easoms Yucca, Humphrey Bogarts Santana, Sterling Haydens Wanderer and she photographed feisty small sailboats, the Pelican, Golden Gate and Bear class boats of local everymen.

Because of her honed artistic habits as a photographer, Beestons early paintings werent the loose and colorful ones shes known for today. I was so photographic when I started, she says. I had a painting one time of three fishing boats tied up in Richardsons Bay right off Sausalito, and I had it right down to every last block and line. Beeston winces a little at the memory. But, I thought, I didnt want to paint that way. I wanted to get looser and looser. Youre better off to have a drink.

In that playful spirit she once painted the dumpster, now legendary in some circles and disappeared, at the foot of Sixth Street in Astoria. Just to liven town up a bit, she says, though a months work painting the whimsical underwater scene left her disinclined to paint another dumpster.

Beeston, who likes to finish what shes started and doesnt typically work on more than one piece at a time, tends to paint smaller now. Shes turned, too, from oil to acrylic paint, concessions to her limited studio space and limited patience. She uses a digital point-and-shoot camera to capture images to translate to paint. The tedious hours she never enjoyed in a darkroom are history. I paint because its fun, she says. Old Town Framing in Astoria shows her work. Shell also show those who are curious her studio, by appointment; call 503-325-8622 if youre interested.

Though its not crisscrossed with sailboats, the Columbia River has waterfront traffic enough for her imagination. I love to sit in that window and see boats pass by. Ive always got a camera ready. And a painting to start when this one is finished.