Denny Creek

Denny Creek runs through a couple parks in Kenmore, O. O. Denny Park and Big Finn Hill Park, before it reaches its terminus in Lake Washington. There's a trail, accessible through O.O. Denny Park, that more or less follows its ravine, and I explored its lower reaches yesterday. It's not a place to which I'll be returning terribly often - there are bigger creeks and more interesting forests in the local area.

Nevertheless, and even though I was mostly exploring, I got a few interesting pictures. Here is one I took of some ferns (lady ferns?). In hindsight, I wish I had gotten out my macro lens so I could get in closer. Even so, I think this shot works, or at least is interesting, even if I wouldn't enter it in a contest or frame it necessarily. Also, for this shot I did something I usually don't do, especially in forest shots - I backed off the polarizing filter. I used it, but did not polarize the scene as much as I could have. When I did, there was too little contrast between the fern in the foreground and the ferns in the background; it was just a green mess! Reducing the polarization made things a bit more distinct, and less monochromatic.

There was a large rhododendron bush in the middle of the park, and it was in full bloom. Needless to say, this made me very happy. Rhododendrons have always made me happy; first of all because they are just big and bright and colorful, and secondly because they usually start blooming around my birthday, so they're sort of my special flower. When I was little we had a purple rhododendron in our yard that always bloomed on my birthday. Anyway, enough talk:

Finally, one more worthy of note. My instinct was not to try this, because the contrast was too great. But in fact, the contrast was so great that the tree in the foreground became almost a silhouette. This picture has a jungle-like aesthetic that I kind of like.

The grass is on fire!

...Not really, but I had to get you to read this post somehow!

The other morning, I made a sunrise run to Magnuson Park - and I barely made it in time, since I slept in! I had set my alarm for the right time - but, whenever I set my alarm clock, I had switched around a.m. and p.m. So, my alarm was set for 4a.m., but at actual 4a.m. my clock read 4p.m. But, in a terrific hustle, skipping breakfast and neglecting to pack water, I got to sunrise in time. And good thing I did:

One of the peculiar characteristics I've developed in my photography, I think, is my propensity to frame sunrises and sunsets with other objects, especially plants; using a narrow depth of field, I focus on that object and throw the sunrise/sunset out of focus. I don't see it done very often, even when looking through other photographers' work (although I can't say I've made any kind of a thorough search). But I think it can be a very expressive and interesting way to depict a relatively common subject (a sunrise or a sunset). There it is, I just gave away one of my trade secrets.

Later, when there was a bit more light, I also took some closeups of grass. The grass, interestingly enough, reminded me a bit of a Christmas tree, with green and red parts. Grass, like a flower, is difficult to photograph at close range; perhaps even more so because there are more potential points on which to focus, and it mores more easily in the breeze. Most of the pictures I took ended up blurry, even with a tripod. The important thing, though is that some of them did not. The breeze was light enough that, with patience, I could usually wait until it momentarily stopped to get a sharp picture. Anyway, here's my favorite:

And, as I've mentioned before, Magnuson Park is exploding with flowers (and pollen, unfortunately for my nose). Here are a couple good flower shots I took:

I'm not sure if these daisies are native. They might not be; I know that there are invasive daisy species in Washington. I also know that Magnuson Park is home to a lot of other invasive non-native plant species, such as large stands of Scotch broom and Himalayan blackberry. Some parks try to remove these sorts of plants, but I've read in different places that some parks are reluctant to do so as these weeds become so entrenched that their removal would disrupt the ecosystem. This isn't the case with daisies, but in the case of larger non-native shrubs, native birds have sometimes adapted to them and now nest in them. And the thing is, you have to remove these plants quickly and completely to prevent them from spreading back, so my guess is that it's hard to remove them in that manner while also taking care of displaced birds. It's a dilemma!

Well, until next time...

Wildflower Wonderland

This is the big one - a trip I took to Ebey's Landing the day before yesterday. It's nice, but it's not for the faint of heart. You should only visit the Ebey's Landing National Historical Reserve, and the adjacent Robert Y. Pratt Preserve (owned by the Nature Conservancy), if:

1. You like wildflowers
2. You like sunshine
3. You don't mind strolling through the quiet countryside

If any of the above sound disagreeable to you, you should avoid walking in this area. Here is a picture from a vantage point toward the north of the reserve:

It's not terribly remote - it's on Whidbey Island, just off Highway 20 - but it's surprisingly quiet, and there were a lot of moments when the only sounds I could hear were the chirping of the birds, the breezes in my ears, the buzzing of bees, and the crashing of waves when I was close to the beach.

A nice trail runs along the top of the bluff, into the Pratt Preserve. There are a lot of nice flowers along the trail and some great views.

The real highlight of the park was the diverse wildflowers. I was disappointed that I didn't find any golden paintbrush - an endangered flower species that supposedly calls this area one of its few remaining habitats. Nevertheless, there are a lot of other cool-looking flowers, some rare, some not. I'll see if I can cut the gab here and just post some of the pictures:

You can always see more on my Picasa, of course.

Olallie Adventures

The obligatory trail in the Cascade foothills with next to the obligatory river with an obligatory waterfall and lots of obligatory moss on the trees...I love this state! This time, it was Olallie State Park, close to North Bend. It's a pretty short hike from the trailhead to the waterfall viewpoints with some moderate hills; the trail goes on quite a bit farther but is less interesting after the falls.

I could have just posted a picture of the falls...but everyone does that! I think the waterfall is much more interesting in the context of leaves.

Toward the beginning of the hike, the trail hugs the river for a while:

This might be one of my favorites from the evening. I think the blurred water in the background creates a sense of motion.

The forest, although a bit second-growth-y, was still very nice and quite lush, especially closer to the river, with lots of alders and maples; there are more conifers up on the hills.

As with many parks around here, water is everywhere!

That's all for now. Ebey's Landing is coming soon, as soon as I sort through the 254 pictures I took...!

The Lovely, Sweet Banks of the Skagit

The next few posts are going to be chronologically out of order - I will be posting about my recent photo adventures in the order in which I sort my pictures, rather than the order in which they happened.

Yesterday, I visited Rasar State Park on the Skagit River. It was sunny elsewhere that day, and I was hoping for sun at the park; alas, however, orographic cloud cover over the North Cascades extended to this park. But since I don't often find myself that far north (also visited Ebey's Landing - coming soon), I decided to take what I could get.

Rasar State Park isn't very well known - I don't even remember how I found out about it, since it didn't show up on Google Earth or Google Maps when I was figuring out how to get there. But it is a nice park, if a bit small, with some trails along the river that occasionally drop down to the banks.

Everything is very green right now, as you can see - even the river.

Another highlight of the park is expansive grassy meadows in the middle, with some nice views of the North Cascades. Once again, these might have been cooler to photograph in sunny weather. But I suppose the cloudy weather connotes a more spring-like feel, whereas sunny weather would have made it seem more summery. So I suppose it's not necessarily bad.

Finally, one interesting shot with some dead trunks and very not-dead grass. I liked the contrast, and even this picture does not pick up the vivid, almost luminescent green of the grass.

Variations on a Theme of Grass

I recently went to Magnuson Park again, this time in the afternoon. Paritially I was motivated by some interesting clouds I saw off to east, and partially because I knew the grasses and wildflowers would be in full bloom. Indeed they were - unfortunately, I forgot how bad my grass allergies can get, so I was sneezing compulsively almost the whole time I was at the park. I must have been quite the spectacle. (Interestingly, I don't seem to have much of a problem with flowers; only grasses and some weeds, so my allergies are only bad in the early summer).

Anyway, here are the best of the grass pictures. It wasn't very breezy that evening, which was good for taking pictures of grass and flowers.

Additionally, I took some pictures of the daisies and vetch that are blooming. Flowers like daisies are hard to photograph because they are somewhat complex in structure. To illustrate by way of contrast, vetch flowers are fairly two-dimensional; it's easy to pick a point to focus on. But daisies are more three-dimensional. I don't know the names of the parts of the flowers; but which part of the yellow middle of the flower, and which petals, should be in focus? It's hard to judge, especially while in the field, which part will look better in focus. and after that, it's hard to get it right. In this case, I think I generally tried to get the middle of the yellow part in focus.

Lupine - not just for mountains

Sorry I haven't posted for a while. I've been a bit busy lately - finishing the quarter, doing finals, finishing my senior thesis. You know, just little stuff like that. And I've also been working a bit.

I did manage to get out a couple of times. Recently, I made a sunrise visit to Magnuson Park. For the first time, I used my macro lens to take pictures of a sunrise. This one is my best, I think, because it has the simplest composition. I guess "simple" is a bit of a loaded term; but the picture has the clearest subject, fewest distracting elements, etc. Just a basic silhouette of grass against a sunrise:

The lupine were also full bloom in Magnuson Park (the place is a mosaic of flowers and grasses right now; in my next post I'll show the pictures of daisies and grass I took in a more recent trip). Here is a lupine plant catching the first light of day. Lighting like this only comes for a few minutes at best:

Most wild lupine, at least around here, seem to be purplish-bluish, but there were a few at the park that were white, and one plant that had this interesting color scheme:

The plants above were clean, but some plants were absolutely covered with aphids. My dad says that there is a specific variety of aphid that specializes in feasting on lupines, and I believe it. If you look closely at the lupine in the next picture, you'll see what I mean (the yellow flowers in the background are Scotch broom):

Finally, the clover flowers are finally coming out. They are pretty ubiquitous, but I think they have a certain beauty to them, especially the pink ones.

Here are a few other random ones that I took, mostly involving grass.

And then this shot, with grass and Mount Rainier. I tried out two focusing schemes, one with the background (i.e. the mountain) in focus, and one with the foreground (i.e. the grass, or some of it) in focus.

This is getting a bit lengthy; my apologies. I also went, at the end of May, to the Arboretum with my family. Most of my pictures didn't really turn out, but I got an interesting picture of the hanging wisteria, which they grow by the visitor center and was looking very nice: