An Unexpected Pleasure

Yesterday I paid a visit to Lake Sammamish State Park. I must say that I wasn't thrilled. The trails provide a very pleasant walk through grassy meadows and cottonwood forests, but as far as photographic scenery goes, there wasn't much. There weren't a whole lot of interesting plants and I've definitely found more photogenic forests of this ilk.

Even so, I was pleasantly surprised by some of my pictures. I'm not sure if I'll go back, but it's possible. Maybe in the autumn. Or maybe earlier in the spring, when the plants are perhaps more interesting.

This first one is probably my favorite composition. The contrast between the different shades of green comes through enough to make it work, I think. I wish the tree trunks in the lower leftish part of the picture came out a bit more. Still, I like it. Some contrast/color work could add a bit more zip as well.

This one turned out okay as well. The horizon line is a bit close to middle; but the grass heads are further up and I think those act as more of a visual focal point anyway.

And a grass closeup. A bit of dead space in the lower left, but not too bad.

This is what most of the forests looked like:

Boulder River!

On Monday, after my visit to Discovery and running a couple errands, I drove out to the Boulder River Trail, near Darrington. I didn't decide for sure that I was going to do it until the last minute - there was a vague threat of rain, and indeed, even as I was driving a few raindrops ran into my windshield. But the skies actually started to clear up as I approached Darrington (go figure!). It clouded back over (which was actually great for my purposes), with no rain the entire hike and not much in the way of a breeze, either (both of which were also great for my purposes.

The trail itself was in decent shape, albeit a bit damp. There are a few places where the trail runs along a hillside and crosses under huge dead trees lying diagonally across the trail...and I had the unpleasant experience of being dripped on by these. The trail didn't get too muddy until near the end, a few miles in. I misjudged one mud puddle and, getting a bit cocky, stomped straight through it rather than trying to find a way around. My big mud boots sank rapidly and were completely submerged; the mud almost sucked them off of my feet when I tried to extricate myself! Thankfully, my socks didn't get wet at all--my boots held up under pressure, at least!

Now down to business. First, of course, you will want to see pictures of the waterfalls. They are pretty epic right now, particularly the twin waterfall about a mile into the trail. Some of them will need lighting work, particularly to take the highlights down a bit and bring out the shadows. Waterfalls are hard, even on a cloudy day.

This first one was with my wide-angle lens (it's really starting to come in handy!) I think the leaves in the foreground reinforce the idea of the lush forest.

This next one I took from a viewpoint a bit earlier, but with a similar concept in mind:

And two other good ones, the first also with my wide-angle lens:

The waterfalls weren't the only thing I took pictures of on Saturday. Another subject was the bunchberry flowers blooming along the trail. They are pretty low to the ground, but...I have a new tripod! It's only a couple of inches high, so it'll be great for really low flowers. I found out that you can't adjust its height, but I think that'll be okay. If I move in the legs to get the camera higher (up to, say, five or six inches), I have to hold the tripod - so it kind of functions as a monopod. Not perfect, but much, much more reliable than handheld at this level of magnification:

And then there's this one. I liked how the flowers were growing right on the tree...and it gives a cool contrast between the bright flowers and the mossy, old-growth trunk. I took a couple others with a similar concept, but this ended up having the most elegant composition:

Lastly, a few forest shots. There are a few second-growthy areas near the beginning, but the trail quickly gets down to business and has some big ol' trees by the time the first waterfall comes around.

On Monday, I hoisted myself out of bed at a quite early hour to briefly visit Discovery Park (its fireweed in particular).

I started things off with this shot of buds. There was a confounded breeze in the meadow, which made this shot nearly impossible. I must have spent 20 minutes trying to take it, and I finally got a sharp one. I don't like the out-of-focus buds at the top. I suppose I could try cropping the picture...although that  would perhaps put the in-focus buds farther toward the top than I'd like. We'll see.

Next a picture with a similar idea, but backlit by the sun. I didn't get the focus point quite where I wanted but this one was the best in terms of lighting. I'd have to see it edited and printed before I rendered a verdict of whether I liked it or not.

Finally, a shot of the whole meadow, taken with my wide angle lens. I thought the clouds were really cool, particularly how the formation was both checkered (adding texture) and angular. Obviously this one could use some lighting work to tone down the highlights in the middle right, and bring out the shadows in the middle left. Doable, though.

My wide angle lens is really starting to come in handy. My next post will also feature it, and the stories of how I was peed on by a tree and almost eaten by carnivorous mud! Stay tuned!

Good Morning, Summer Flowers!

I must apologize for neglecting this blog lately. It's been a busy (and intermittently rainy) couple weeks - lots of work and lots of other obligations. In the meantime, however, I did get out on three photo adventures in the time since I last wrote. Here are the condensed results.

First off, I went to Cougar Mountain, hoping to find some cool plants (columbine in particular, in the Redtown Meadow). Alas, I found no columbine, and not a whole lot of other flowers; there were some cool iris blooming, but too low for my tripod. The morning wasn't a total failure, though. I got this cool shot of vine maple seed pods:

At this point, it began raining, but I still eked out a couple nice forest shots. The first is of vine maples and the second is of alders. I think they both connote a feeling of depth, something that is surprisingly hard to do when photographing forests (there is so much "stuff" that pictures too easily end up looking flat and busy).

...The real action is just beginning, though. More recently, I went to Hamlin and Discovery parks where the yarrow and fireweed show are beginning!

First, two yarrow closeups. With the first, I managed to catch a plant just as its buds were opening. I've never been lucky/conscientious enough to do this before.

And now, the big cheese of them all, fireweed! The stalks are all loaded with buds, and a few plants are already blooming! The majority haven't, though, so I haven't really missed anything yet (whew).

While this last one turned out okay, I could probably do better - the stalk in the foreground could have been further to the right in the frame, for example. I also don't like how the flowers in the background extend about halfway down the frame. Still, though, it is acceptable.

Attitudes on Aperture

It's been a quiet few days due to some iffy weather and some busy days. I did get out a couple times this weekend, though, to Carkeek Park in Seattle and the Bob Heirman Wildlife Preserve near Monroe.

One thing I've been trying to do lately is choose apertures more consciously and specifically, something that will show up in this blog post. When I first bought my DSLR, I always shot at the widest aperture. Later, I started shooting in two modes - wide open for pictures with selective focus and narrower (I think usually f/11) for pictures in which everything was in the same plane of focus. Only seldom did I deviate from this approach. This year I've tried to be more intentional about aperture, trying to find the right depth of field or the right balance between definition and blur in the background depending on the needs of the image.

I suppose I also owe a bit of credit to the book Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson. He refers to f/22 as the "storytelling aperture" due to the wide depth of field and unique perspective it can afford In typical hyperbolic style, he wrote that if you aren't willing to shoot at f/22 then you aren't a serious photographer, or something like that. Perhaps it's a strong statement, but since I read it my photography has improved. I've become more willing to try narrow apertures and wide depths of of field.

I took the picture you are about to see at f/18. Even though it's still a selective focus situation, the wider depth of field keeps some definition in the background, thus enabling the perspective of the daisies within the orchard. It needs some lightening up...but at f/18 at ISO 500, my shutter speed was only 1/30 sec, barely enough to handhold (which I had to do to get this low). I didn't want to sacrifice sharpness by lengthening the shutter speed, depth of field by widening the aperture, or quality by boosting the aperture even further.

This one is similar, though not quite as striking:

I got a few interesting closeups as well. In each of these, I stopped the aperture down just a bit (f/4, f/5, and f/6.3, respectively). In the first, I wanted some definition in the leaves surrounding the buds; in the second, I wanted the grass blade to gently fade out of focus. In the third, I wanted a discernible amount of the daisy to be in focus, without picking up any of the background behind the flower.

I've started to realize that photography is not so much about depicting what a scene "looks like" and more about depicting what a scene "says." What is the scene saying to you, and how can you communicate that through the image? Verbally, it sounds like a strange distinction, but that is the best way I can describe it.

Here are a few from Bob Heirman Wildlife Preserve. If anything, they are a bit too...green. After the first of this set, there's not a whole lot of color contrast, which would probably help the images. Perhaps some tasteful editing would help accentuate the contrasts between the greens, but it's not necessarily something I should count on. The angles are kind of interesting...but the color schemes are a tad bland. I've learned that forest color contrasts are hard to capture in photographs.