How Low Can You Snow? - or - Epiphytes Never Sleep

Still buoyed by my success photographing the Gold Creek Trail in the snow, I ventured out last Saturday on another snow level hunt - this one in Squak Mountain State Park. The trailhead is I think about 300 feet above sea level, and the summit tops out at 2000 feet. Perfect.

The snow level was a bit higher than I had expected - I was thinking 1000-1500 feet, but it was sitting right at about 2000 feet. Thus, I didn't find any snow or ice until almost the top of the mountain. So it was a pretty long slog in exchange for a very small section of trail that actually featured what I was looking for. Still, I took some nice pictures there, and a couple other decent ones in the pleasant, non-snowy sections of the forest.

Honestly, though, it reminds me of why I don't do a ton of hiking in the Issaquah Alps. The second-growth forests of Squak were nice, but not unique or spectacular. The "summit" was also a bit unsatisfying - it consists of a bunch of radio towers, a gravel service road, and some fences. I can honestly say that, after hiking all that way, it was a bit of a let down. I like hikes that are more wilderness-y, have some unique features, or don't require as much work as Squak did for the level of payoff. This is especially true in the spring and summer when I have more options.

Before I found actual snow, I found an interesting ice formation on some hemlock needles. Melt was beginning as I reached this icy section of trail, so I only had a few minutes before it all vanished. The next three pictures are from those few icy minutes; the first is the best, I think.

And from the snowy summit, a picture of some snow that fell on a mossy tree trunk. I like it but am not sure if it's too busy and abstract. Ironically, given all my snow-hysteria, this turned out to be my only post-worthy picture from the truly snowy portions of the trail. Snow is difficult to photograph well; it is so bright that it almost automatically creates contrast problems. It also makes it more difficult to find compelling colors in a scene. Add that to the usual difficulty of isolating compelling subjects in a crowded forest, and you have a challenging situation. For this moss picture, I used an aperture of f/7.1 to make sure I had enough snow in focus. So little of the background behind the trunk is included in the composition that I was able to stop down to f/7.1 without sacrificing background quality.

Finally, one that does not involve snow or ice. In hindsight, I wish I had experimented with moving the camera further to the left, to include more of the sun's brightness. This would have worsened the glare, though; as it was, I had to stand in an awkward position to shield my lens from the sun; even the lens hood didn't cut out the strong glare. Despite all these difficulties, I enjoy the result.

Finally, this one of licorice ferns growing on a trunk (probably big-leaf maple...although I didn't actually take note!). I love how they just grow right on the tree. I used an aperture of f/7.1; in hindsight, I could have used less detail in the background, although I wanted a reasonable amount of detail in the ferns themselves. Oh well, I can always try again - it's not like there's any shortage of epiphytes in the Puget Sound region!

Discovery Sunshine

Discovery Park was quite the place to be yesterday afternoon. I don't think I have ever seen the parking lot as full as it was. Not that it was a problem - it was good to see lots of people enjoying the outdoors, and the large park absorbed the throngs without seeming crowded. It was just funny that it should be less crowded on so many warm, clear summer evenings, and overrun with visitors on one of the coldest days of the autumn so far.

Believe it or not, there are still a few flowers blooming. They are certainly in the minority at this point, but I saw a few yarrow, a Queen Anne's lace (or some other carrot-type flower; I actually didn't stop to look very closely) and even some California poppies on the drive. Their tardiness would have been forgivable back in October when we were having our freak warm/dry spell. Now, however, they're definitely living on borrowed time. Those little rebels!

This was my attempt to render that concept onto an image; it juxtaposes living and withered yarrow flowers. The soft evening sunlight, partially diffused by some grass out of frame helps. I was able to position myself such that I got the blooming flower in focus and the dead flowers just out of focus, which I think makes the image more effective.

I then perambulated down to the beach for the sunset. My result was this picture, which silhouettes grass and dried-up hardhack stalks against the sunset. I used f/25 to get everything in good focus. I like it, and think it doesn't look too cluttered; the beach, however, creates a diagonal black area at the bottom which isn't terribly appealing compositionally. Still, it's alright, and I like the color scheme - the strong blues reinforce the clear, cold nature of the evening.

Also, I have an announcement! I have just opened up a website! To the readers of this blog, fear not: I will continue to write this blog as always. The new website is more of an online gallery where I can post some of my best work - sort of a web-based portfolio; at least, that is how I am conceiving it. Eventually, I hope to have a separate website where I have prints and other things available for purchase.

If you're reading this blog, you've probably seen these images before. Ultimately, though, this website will also be a place to keep track of any contests or events I'm participating in; plus, I just think it's cool. Here it is! http://www.zhibit.org/jdanderson

Old Growth Autumn

When you think of Puget Sound forests, "spectacular autumn foliage" understandably doesn't come immediately to mind. Trees are predominantly evergreen; alder leaves never turn color, they just die and drop; other deciduous trees' leaves can get brown and/or splotchy; and the weather is often a bit sloppy. Still, if you look carefully and patiently, there is a subtle beauty to be found.

I decided to spend yesterday in Rockport State Park, one of those relatively rare low-elevation places in the Puget Sound lowlands that features old-growth forest. I am interested to learn more about the history of this park, because it is not clear why the area was not logged. There are no steep slopes or other geographic features to discourage logging; the Parks website simply states that Sound Timber Company "refused to log them" and sold them to the State. Hmm.

The day was quintessentially Northwest autumn: mild temperatures, fog, and an intermittent drizzle. Although the drizzle was a nuisance, because I had to keep the camera and the front of my lenses dry, the fog was an asset. It cleared up the one time I needed it to; the rest of the time, it gently filled in the forest, making ordinary scenes romantic and mysterious. God's free diffusion filter!

This was my best of the morning, a classic shot of some foggy trunks with some autumn foliage in the background. If you look closely at the trunks, you can see that there is a bit of distortion ("barrel distortion" - lines are bowed outward). It's not as bad as it seems - the foreground trunk actually was bowed like that in real life. There's nothing I can do about that except try to fix it in Lightroom. We'll see. Also the lighting obviously needs some work.

This was from a viewpoint on the "Skagit View Trail." The fog, which was thick at that point, obligingly cleared up enough to facilitate a clear view, while still hanging around enough to make things interesting. After I got this picture, the fog filled in again. The autumn oranges in the trees came out better than I had expected, but I'd still probably need to give a bit more zip in post-processing.

Here is a cool foggy forest scene. If I had photographed this under normal conditions, it wouldn't have been as interesting. But the fog gave it some depth, veiling the yellow maples in the background.

In the next one, the moss provided some natural framing. The vine maple in the background doesn't come through as strongly as I would have liked, compositionally speaking. Still, it's alright, and certainly a compositional idea to remember. I shot it at f/20, which brought both the moss and the tree in focus pretty well.

The autumn star of this next picture is again a vine maple. I used f/22 to get everything in focus. The fog helps keep the background from getting too cluttered or intrusive. I would have liked it if there hadn't been a trunk behind the young tree in the center; there was no way I could have moved enough to make that happen, though, without ruining the rest of the composition.

For this picture, I used my wide angle lens to get a feeling of closeness to some ferns while still including the autumn foliage in the background. This one ended up looking a bit "messier" than I like. Interesting, though.

A final scene juxtaposes some still-green shrubs with some gnarly yellow maples. This one's not that amazing/fantastic but I still kind of like it.

I will definitely be returning to Rockport at some point, probably during the spring - there were a few portions of the trail that featured a lot of withered trillium plants, which led me to believe that there will be some nice floral displays in the spring!

Do you feel lucky?

My answer to this question on Saturday was yes. Low snow levels - about 3000 feet, the level of Snoqualmie pass - and intermittent showers. So potentially enough snow to make things interesting without complicating driving. With snow at marginal temperatures, through, there's a lot of variability, with a high chance of either a depressing rain-out or a snowy nightmare. At 6am, I checked online and saw that road temperatures were above freezing. I decided to go for it! Fortune (God, to be more precise) smiled down on me with a light snowfall in the morning that did not stick on the roads much at all. It melted during the day in the valley where I was hiking (Gold Creek) once it stopped actively snowing, faster than I would have liked, but all in all conditions were pretty close to exactly the way I had envisioned. I had wanted to take some snow pictures with autumn leaves still around, and was able to do so.

Interestingly, the most harrowing part of the trip by far was the drive back, during which I drove through (more like slammed into) some serious rain and hail storms. It's not like the hailstones were big - they seldom are in western Washington - but they and the rain were falling very thickly and at freeway speeds I could barely see through the windshield. I slowed down a bit (but not very much, since I didn't want to be rear-ended by someone having the same problem that I was), clenched my teeth, glared out the window, and battled my way through those gut-wrenching few minutes.

"Enough stories," you say. "Isn't the point of this blog supposed to be pictures?" It is indeed.

We'll start with one of the most interesting of the lot. The leaves you see are vine maple, and I wanted to juxtapose them with the snowy ridge in the background. It was hard to get the leaf stalks positioned in a good way, and it wouldn't look good if I cropped it to a standard size (like 8x10 for instance). Still, it's interesting.

This next one I also really like, or will like once I edit it. It might even be my favorite. I kind of blew out the highlights on the top left, but probably not so much so that I won't be able to recover them from RAW. The snowy ridge stands out well with the vivid colors in the foreground, and the bits of snow on the rocks enhance the effect, I think.

We'll continue, for the time being, on the theme of the snowy ridge. My densely textural/patterny shots don't always turn out terribly well, but I think this one does, possibly because there are still some clear contrasts, and the red leaves stand out pretty well. I also think it would look better if reproduced at a larger size.

A couple other shots of the ridge, with autumn colors still evident on it:

Now onto some shots from other locations along the trail. I like the contrast of the hemlocks' solemnity with the bright yellow leaves. This is also one of the best from the trip.

This one came from the beginning of the trip; I was able to set up my tripod in the shade of a favorably placed tree, allowing me to keep my camera dry! 1/25 sec, the shutter speed I used for this, was the best I could do. I would have liked a quicker speed, but didn't want to push the ISO up any farther than 500. Maybe next time, if I'm ever in a similar situation, I'll just bite the bullet and do it. In post processing, I'd want to bring out the leaf colors a bit.

I like my compositional idea for this last one, but don't think it works because too much of the snow had already melted; what's left is a bit splotchy. The same was true for my other pictures from this point along the trail.

No snow, and no gems!

Yesterday I visited two lakes, the names of which created a great deal of disappointment. There was only a tiny bit of snow on the edges of Snow Lake, and none whatsoever where the hiking trails were. Nor were there any gems at Gem Lake, a bit farther down the trail. Whoever named them should have called them, respectively, Lake Blowing Dust and Lake Sweat. These names were much more appropriate to my experience. Even though it's October, the trail is very dusty due to our ridiculous dry spell. And sheltered areas were cold, but sunny slopes (like the one you have to climb to get to Gem Lake) were quite hot.

As usual, I'll begin with my favorite compositions. For this first, I must admit that I stole an idea from Ansel Adams. I saw a picture of his that featured some trees and things with a mountain in the background, and the top of the mountain was not in the frame. I liked this, thinking it gave the picture a sense of scale. Ansel Adams' picture took place in mist; mine highlights sunrise light striking the mountain. I like how it ended up.

For this next one, I was looking for a way to portray the beautiful fall colors of the ground cover at high elevations. I found this lone green conifer (not sure what kind) growing among the leaves, and figured that focusing on it would bring attention to the contrasting foliage colors around it. A bit of diffuse sunlight was coming through some trees overhead - perfect! I used f/4 to minimize depth of field and keep attention on the tree.

Now for the partial successes. This one comes from Gem Lake. I'm not 100% pleased with how I positioned the berry bush in the frame...but honestly, it was blowing around a lot so I had a hard time doing so. I think the autumn colors in the background came out pretty well, better than I was expecting. I used f/10 to get most of the bush sharp and keep a bit of definition in the background.

This one looks up what, at some point during the year, was probably a streambed. The sky is a bit washed out, but I like the exaggerated wide-angle perspective.

This view of Snow Lake took some doing to expose properly, and I'm still not satisfied. Even at f/29, I couldn't get quite enough depth of field, so I had to settle for the mountains being slightly out of focus to get the foliage sharp (you can't tell at this size). That said, I kind of like the composition; ironically, this picture looks better compositionally at a larger size.

...Finally, this one I took near Snow Lake. I was attracted to the way the light was beginning to emerge over the hillside. I used a graduated neutral density filter, and tilted it to match the sunlight in the frame. In postprocessing, I would probably want to lighten the foreground and perhaps saturate the colors a bit.

Autumn Advances

So I finally had some time to take some pictures the other day (in good lighting, that is) and by chance found myself at Discovery Park. A few of the trees have fully turned color, while many others still have yet to do so (or never really will, in the case of alders). This led to some interesting color contrasts.

These next two compositions are a result of one such juxtaposition. In retrospect, the green tree in the left half of the frame does not have a strong enough shape to really make the first composition work; it actually would probably look better cropped. The second picture is better. It would have been ideal to include more of the orange tree's trunk in the frame, but the two trees weren't close enough to do it properly (even with my widest lens!).

It was this final picture, though, that turned out to be the most interesting composition of the evening. I'm still not completely satisfied with it...it perhaps could have used a bit narrower depth of field. I was limited in my ability to do so due to the positioning of all the elements (moving or zooming up would have messed with this) and due to physical constraints (i.e. I didn't want to trample off trail). It comes close, though, to what I was envisioning: a moody shot of plants gone to seed with sunset backlighting. I'll have to play with this idea a few more times this autumn.

The Big Rock Candy Mountains

The Big Rock Candy Mountains are not just a symbol of folklore, nor are they a somewhat depressing metaphor for unattainable dreams. They actually exist, and can be viewed just north of Snoqualmie Pass on the Gold Creek Trail. They don't have all the attributes mentioned in the song, but they're certainly big and they certainly look like they could be made out of candy.

This marks my first ever "autumn" hike in the Cascades. Until now, both this summer and last, I've generally been chasing wildflowers. This time, though, I had a different objective in mind: emerging autumn colors. Since this was my first autumn hike, it was a bit depressing to see all the shrubs withering and the wildflowers gone to seed. Still, there much to enjoy. A few defiant blooms were hanging in there. More importantly, some of the vine maples and other plants were turning beautiful fiery colors, and the mountainsides were a mosaic of green, red, orange, and yellow.

Also, the trail conditions were the best I've seen there. In early July, the trail was a quagmire of running water and lingering snow piles. In late July, the trail was still muddy in a couple places with the streams still iffy for crossing. Now, the trail is almost entirely dry with the creeks and streams mere trickles of their former selves. Even the main crossing of Gold Creek was no sweat at all; I barely even got my sandals wet.

First things first. I would be remiss not to begin with my favorite plant, fireweed. They are no longer blooming, even at Gold Creek's elevation. But some of the plants' leaves are turning red!

This first picture is probably my favorite from the whole trip. F/4 ended up being the best aperture for this shot. I tried f/6.3 but the increased depth of field brought out too many shapes in the background. F/3.3 was better but I wanted a teeny bit more of the leaves to be in focus. As it is, the background is still a bit uneven, but I think the composition turned out quite well otherwise.

This next one captures more of the general sweep of things; I wanted to capture the reddening fireweed stalks in their context. I used f/22 to get everything in focus, and moved the camera down a bit to get a more intimate view of the stalks. I think it turned out well, and the contrasts between the reds and greens comes out nicely.

I'm not sure what sort of plant is featured in this next picture, or whether its buds or seeds are showing (I am assuming seeds due to the time of year!). I used f/5.6 because I wanted to make sure I got enough definition in the front seed head that a viewer's eye would have something to lock on to. Narrower depths of field produced smoother backgrounds but, due to the decreased foreground focus, weren't visually appealing in this case.

The next picture is perhaps more interesting conceptually than it is visually. There's nothing striking or out of the ordinary about the foreground flower stalks. I actually wish the front one were further to the left, to keep it separate from the middle one (I had no way of doing so without sacrificing the background). The red color of the background, however, gives this picture an interesting context, juxtaposing the still-blooming flowers against autumnal foliage. I'm not sure if that context is enough to make it work as an image; I'll have to come back to it. Still, I thought I'd post it.

I like how the backlighting turned out on this one. There is a snag on the right side that messes the composition up a bit, but it's still alright.

The next two are related only in the fact that they didn't turn out to quite as sharp as I'd have liked, in the first one due to the aperture (f/25 - it seems like image quality starts to visually deteriorate at about f/22 and much more so thereafter) and in the second one due to the aperture (f/22) and the fact that I was using my small tripod as a monopod to get the right height...so there was probably a bit of camera shake. At any rate, I liked the compositions. They could both use some lighting/contrast tweaking, and neither is blow-me-away amazing, but I think they work.

And now, as promised, the Big Rock Candy Mountains. I saved my pictures of them for last because they were taken under midday lighting conditions, so they don't do the views or the colors. justice at all. But the reds, yellows, and greens made me think that the mountains were made of candy, or fruity pebbles, or something.

...Maybe I could get some good shots of these peaks in the future. When I hiked back from this spot, the distance of slightly more than 5 miles took me exactly three hours to hike, including a snack stop and a stop to change shoes and purify some water. So if I started up the road before dawn, I could make it there a couple of hours after sunrise, while there is still some interesting light. My next chance to hike will be in a couple weeks, probably; the autumn foliage should be even more intense by then! Stay tuned!

Let's try that again!

Diligent followers of this blog will remember the pictures of the flowers and sunset from my last post. I returned to Richmond Beach last night to get a second crack at that subject. I chose that night in particular due to the haze made up of wildfire smoke blown into the Puget Sound area by easterly winds--as I predicted, it lent un unusually rich orange to the sunset.

This time, I went ahead and positioned the flower above the sunset. Despite the apparent narrow depth of field, I actually shot this at f/14. I was so close that I needed to stop all the way down to f/14 to preserve a bit of shape in the background flowers and the Puget Sound. I don't like the leaf tip intruding from the left; other than that, I like the way this turned out. I think it's more compositionally compelling than the picture from the last post. Part of this is because the flower is higher and closer in the frame, lending a greater deal of intimacy. Another reason might be that, since the sunset itself was a bit darker, the contrast was lower and I preserved more color in the foreground. A third reason is that the background of the Puget Sound itself is clearer and more continuous than in the last picture. I dunno. Do you think it's better?

Back in Business

It's cool outside, and was recently wet. Although temperatures may end up rebounding into the 80s later this week, the Puget Trough has dropped all pretense of summer. Leaves are dropping; the yarrow flowers are mostly brown and spent; even some vine maples, here and there, are fringed with crimson.

Despite a recent lack of time, I did make it out on a couple photo trips. The pictures weren't my best ever; if nothing else, though, they gave me a chance to try out some ideas that I might be able to realize more successfully at a later time.

This first one is from Richmond Beach. I wanted to juxtapose the blooming yellow flowers against the sunset; I took this basic composition at several different stages of the sunset and this was the best. The flowers need some lightening; I might also consider cooling off the white balance a bit (the colors are a bit warm). If I were to try this idea again, I might try to situate myself such that the flowers were higher in the frame, closer to the sun. This would necessitate getting the camera lower. It would probably also necessitate finding a different group of flowers, since getting lower would have made the foreground flower rise too far above those in the background. At any rate, I'd give this picture a B.

This morning, after the rain was safely gone, I traipsed around Magnuson Park for a while, hoping to find some flowers and plants with water still on them. Although I had a more difficult time than I had anticipated, due to midmorning sunshine and a strong breeze, I was able to eke out a few compositions when lulls in the breeze and passing clouds coincided.

This is an aster flower with a bit of lingering rain on its petals. Upon computer examination, I don't think the water droplets are prominent enough in the composition. Maybe some rain or dew will be kind enough to descend on us in the near future, allowing me to try this again.

Lastly, I took a similarly conceived picture of some grass. It needs some lighting/contrast work to make the blades stand out a bit more; I think that these add a crucial linear element to this composition. I would also consider cropping out the bottom just a bit.

My First PCT Foray

On Saturday, I visited the Pacific Crest Trail going north from Snoqualmie Pass toward the Kendall Katwalk (I didn't make it all the way to the Katwalk...I had other objectives in mind). This post is a bit bittersweet because it probably marks my last long summer hike. The next two weekends are busy; after that, if I have time to hike, summer may well be gone from the mountains. This is not to say that I don't enjoy or appreciate autumn. I do. But summer has always been and will always be my favorite, and I'll miss long, warm days and wildflowers.

The weather and scenery were echoed this sentiment on Saturday. Skies were crystal clear but the air was very chilly early on, and there was a stiff breeze; it definitely felt a bit like autumn. Some of the wildflowers along the upper slopes were still blooming, but most had begun going to seed, or were at least looking old and disheveled.

...I say most because the numerous fireweed stands all along the trail were in full bloom, and thus very impressive. This first picture, made early along during the hike, was my favorite of the whole trip. The polarization of the sky is a bit uneven, but it's not too striking. Mostly, I am pleased that the lighting turned out well, with good tonal definition in both the foreground and the sunlit mountain. I tried a wide variety of apertures, and ended up choosing f/6.3, the widest (I didn't go any narrower because I wanted the whole front flower stalk to be in focus). Narrower apertures created too much detail in the mountains, taking the focus off the fireweed stalk and making the image too busy.

That early lighting on the mountains afforded me two other opportunities. I really liked the way the sun was streaking onto the mountain from the side. On the second of this set, I wanted to juxtapose the sunny mountain against the shaded valley; I don't think the valley has enough depth or contour but I thought I'd post the picture. Maybe some color and lighting work would bring out the concept I had in mind when I shot the photograph.

The next two are some wide-angle perspectives of the rocky mountainsides. It was still relatively early, but already the lighting was a bit harsh. I still like the looks of them, though. You will notice the uneven sky polarization. I scaled back the polarizing filter a bit, in anticipation of this effect, but obviously not enough. I used relatively narrow apertures (f/16 I think) to make sure everything from the foreground rocks to the background peaks was in focus.

Finally, a few floral shots. The first two are Indian hellebore, the third some sort of penstemon, the fourth a scarlet painbrush. In all of these pictures I sought out natural diffusion - i.e. an area where the harsh, close-to-midday sunlight was partially diffused by leaves, softening its effects a bit. None of these images is fantastic, but they're alright. Even with the natural diffusion, though, the picture of the penstemon is inordinately contrasty.