Rocky Switchbacks of Doom

On Saturday, I hiked the West Fork Foss Lakes trail...or, as it should rightfully be called, the Rocky Switchbacks of Doom trail. There's some very pretty scenery, including mountain-rimmed lakes, a view of a waterfall, a few wildflowers, huge old-growth trees, etc. All this comes, however, at a high price. The path up to Copper Lake is quite steep and rocky. Going uphill is a grueling slog; going downhill, while easier on the cardiovascular system, is very hard on the knees and ankles due to the steepness and the unrelenting uneven footing. I ended up getting a later start than I had wanted, starting my hike at about 9:30. I ended up feeling rushed to get up to Copper Lake and back while taking pictures. Still, I got some good ones and have a positive memory of the day.

This was probably my most successful shot of the evening. I wish the foreground leaves came out more strongly against the background...although some lighting work might at least help that. I find myself wondering whether making the falls more prominent in the frame would have been a good idea. This would seem like an obvious choice, but having them smaller makes the falls seem more far away and makes the leaves/forest seem more intimate.

Here is another one with a similar idea, with some advantages and disadvantages relative to the previous picture. The advantage is that the color of the leaves contrasts more strongly with the background. The disadvantage is that the leaves don't wrap around the falls as well as they do in the previous picture (the gap is on the right side).

Here is an interesting one of a fern opening. In addition to the depth of field effect, I wanted to highlight  the contrast between the dull green of  the old leaves and the bright green of the new. I used the widest aperture that my lens could muster at the time (f/3.2). I could have stood to have even wider, probably. But I had to stick with what was possible, and I think it worked okay.

This one is of some opening pearly everlasting flowers. The previous pictures were taken late in the evening; this one came from midday! Even though I found some shade, you can tell from the background that sunlight is lurking about. But I like the way that effect translated here. Also, I backed off from the widest possible aperture and used f/4 to get a slight detail boost in the in-focus petals, and some more definition in the out-of-focus flowers.

This columbine flower has a large rock in the background; I used f/8 to keep some definition in it. I am not sure if this image works or not, although I am inclined to think that it does.

Here is a good idea poorly executed. This plant is a Cooley's hedge nettle, and I liked the lighting - particularly the background, with varying shaded and sunlit leaves making for an interesting texture. The focus worked fairly well, too. Unfortunately, I didn't get things positioned brilliantly. There's some out-of-focus clutter at the bottom of the frame (even with cropping). The flowers on the sides could also have used a bit more space.

Up at the lake, I found an old friend: shooting star flowers! There were a few blooming in the grass right next to the lake. I stopped down all the way to f/14 for this shot - wider apertures did not give me enough definition in the mountains; I wanted them to be distinguishable and not just a pattern of gray and white blobs. Unfortunately, this produces some cluttering detail in the background among the grass and the splotchy clouds. I don't think this ruins the image, though.

While I was taking this shot, I was afraid that the light would be too harsh, even though it was slightly filtered by a few clouds. Upon looking at it on my computer, however, I think the lighting is acceptable. Later evening light would have been better - but I had to make sure I had time to get back to my car without stumbling down the Rocky Switchbacks of Doom in the dark.  I also like how the perspective turned out.

Also from the lake, some reflections. Much of the lake surface was actually a bit choppy, as mountain lakes go; some logjams created some stiller areas, though. I am not sure if the mountain is distinguishable enough as a reflection of a mountain.

If I were to give a title to the next one, I think I would choose something like "leaning giants." The straight young tree on the left-hand side gives a sense of vertical orientation, highlighting the lean of the old trunks.

Another old-growth forest scene; I liked the lines these branches made against the two old trunks.

This one came near the beginning of the hike; I often find plants growing on stumps and logs but usually not flowers in such concentration. I tried some perspectives with some more depth - I moved to the left and closer - but this ended up detracting from the image, since it was a lot harder to tell what was actually going on.

A few other nice shots:

And we'll end where we began, with waterfall pictures. I'm not sure if I like this one, due to the extent to which the leaves intrude on the waterfall. Still, I thought it'd be worth a post.

A Bird in the Hand...

This past Saturday, I returned to the Gold Creek trail for my longest photo trip to date, lasting from the early morning until late evening (almost sunset). I prowled up and down the trail, making it to the creek crossing a few miles in.

Unfortunately, Gold Creek itself beat me one to nothing. That is to say, I tried to cross it, but chickened out at one point when the water was up to my thighs, the current seemed a tad quick, and the water was quite cold. The area in front of me looked even deeper. I will try again soon, however, now knowing what to expect. And I got some good pictures as it was, anyway.

First things first. It was a rather cloudy morning (with a freak drizzle downpour in the North Bend area...you had to have been there) which meant the ridgetops surrounding the valley were foggy. Here are my best ones. It was the first time I've been in that valley in this sort of a fog before (it was a thick, substantial fog, not like the shallow early morning mist I saw last September).

Now on to some flowers. The bluebells and bunchberries were still blooming, as well as Sitka valerian.

First, check this out!! I think this is one of my most interesting bunchberry photographs yet. Part of me says I should have used a wider depth of field to get the leaves in focus, but I like how the narrower depth of field keeps attention on the flower. There's still enough definition in the leaves that you can tell what they are.

I tried this next one with both a narrow and wide depth of field, and I ended up preferring narrow.

Here is a worm's eye view of Sitka valerian. I wasn't sure what to do since the lighting wasn't fantastic; I tried to take a picture of the flowers with the ridge in the background but the contrast ended up too high. The idea of a view from below just came to me as crouched by the flowers, thinking.

This next one is more contrasty than something I'd usually do, but I think it works here, at least somewhat. The shapes of the branches and speckles of light in the background give the impressions of forest-ness and evening-ness that I wanted.

These next two are among my favorites of the whole hike, especially the first one. These are bluebells with Gold Creek itself in the background. I tried a wider depth of field but didn't like it as well. In these ones, there is still enough definition to tell that there is water in the background, I think. When I was shooting, I was also pleasantly surprised by the variations in the colors of the bluebells.

This one was from rather late in the evening - 5 or 6pm, I think. Moreover, the sunlight was filtered through some trees. So a nice soft light was falling on the leaves, and the river was entirely shaded, making for what I think was a cool contrast.

Some postworthy shots from the forests:

Finally, as on my last hike, I stopped to take a couple from-the-road shots on my way out. This time, however, they took me by surprise. The sunset was perfect! For the first one, I devised an ingenious trick to get the foreground daisies and background mountains both in focus. I set the focus point between the flowers and the mountains! It looked gross in the viewfinder, and would have looked gross at a wide aperture. But at f/20, the flowers and the mountains both ended up in focus! Actually focusing on one of them would have ended up in the other looking blurry.

Divine Landscaping

On a whim the other evening, I hiked the Big Four Ice Caves trail. It's only a mile or so long, making it perfect for an evening hike. I ended up having the evening free, saw that it was not going to start raining until at least a few hours after dark...and off I went!

This is probably my favorite composition of the evening. Yes, this scene was just in the forest, even though it appears to be part of a garden. This is what I love about bunchberry flowers - they form these gorgeous carpets of perfect little flowers on top of perfect little clusters of leaves, often looking like an intentional botanical arrangement.

Up at the top of the trail, near the snowfields, there are some meadows that are chock full of valerian and lupine, and other flowers (including partridgefoot, a new one!) forming beautiful little rock gardens:

There were some snowmelt waterfalls cascading down the mountainside. I found one that I was able to photograph along with some snowfields up above and some trees down below.

Judging from the shape of the trees, there must be some strong winds here during the winter or something. Check it out:

Regarding this next one, I like the composition but am not pleased with how the depth of field turned out. I had wanted sharpness from the flowers in the foreground all the way back to the mountain (hence shooting at f/25). But I think the flowers were so close to the lens that the background still ended up a bit blurry. In my next post, I'll talk about a depth of field tactic that I learned more recently that maybe I'll attempt in scenes like this. I also tried a narrow depth of field on some loosely similar compositions. Unfortunately, I continued using my wide-angle lens, which doesn't have a very wide maximum aperture. I should have switched to my macro lens.

On the drive in, I had seen a couple of scenes along the road that I wanted to photograph on my way back. One was a pretty little creek flowing through a grove of alder trees, the other was a stand of blooming fireweed next to a grove of alders overlooking another creek. My pictures of the first scene did not turn out well, unfortunately. My pictures of the second scene were not fantastic either - partially due to my own haste (darkness was gathering) and partially due to the slight breeze and the fact that the scene was not as photogenic as it had looked from the car coming the other way. Still, one of the pictures was acceptable, if not "good":

Lastly, here is one that I had debated about whether to post, but here it is: some sort of penstemon with trees and the mountain in the background. The filtered sunshine helped make the flowers luminous, but was almost too strong/contrasty.

From Playground to Museum

Going to Discovery Park makes me a bit nostalgic. It's not quite the playground of my youth - or even last year. While I was walking around the meadows one recent evening, I noticed that a lot of the social trails that used to crisscross a few areas are disappearing. Some grass trails that I used last year are were apparently social trails, as they are now gone. Even a few trails that seem like they should be "real" trails are not being maintained and will be overtaken by the grasses before too long. It is a bit sad to see some of my old romping grounds disappear. It seems like this is the case in a lot of parks. My playground is becoming a museum - a place you go to observe something from the other side of a clearly defined boundary.

I am not saying that this is a bad thing - it is better for the health of a park's ecosystem for human use to be confined to a set number of established trails, and to have larger undisturbed tracts. This is especially true as population increases and human use of the park increases with it. You could just say it's a necessary tragedy that goes hand in hand with more people going into nature; the more people that do so, the more their effects have to be mitigated - thus, the less romping freedom they have while in it.

Anyway, enough of that. Pictures.

I got a pretty neat closeup of a fireweed flower, if I may say so. Instead of focusing on the petals, like I usually do, I focused another part (the anthers? I am looking at a flower-part diagram and I think that is what the arrow is pointing to!). I was so close that even without a breeze, the flower still moved! Just of its own volition! I had to wait for breaks in the movement to take each picture.

This next one was an unexpected success. I didn't think the lighting would work, but I ended up having good definition in both the flowers and the sky. I used f/22 to get both in focus. The colors are a bit muted for my tastes; still, I think it creates a very serene feeling, especially with the clearing in the middle top. I could also use post-processing to make the colors close to what I saw.

Finally, there was quite a nice sunset! The colorful part only lasted a couple of minutes, but that was all that I needed! When I saw it, I jogged to a good vantage point to get some pictures of the lighthouse. My desire to rush proved auspicious due to the short-lived nature of my surprise sunset.

...Or was it a surprise? I have to give myself credit where credit is due. When I was up on the bluff, I was wondering whether it would be worth it to schlep all my camera gear down to the beach. I saw a few clear areas opening around the western horizon, though, and I knew that at that time the cloudy/rainy weather system was moving out rather than in. Thus, even though the moment of color (which came a bit before actual sunset) took me by surprise, I was partly expecting it and ready for it, and also knew exactly where to stand to get this view of the lighthouse from prior experience. So to say that I was caught by surprise or that I got a "lucky shot" would not be perfectly accurate.

The first of this set has a bit more space at the top than I'd want; but the dark cloud ceiling makes the picture moodier than the second, I think, even though the second picture is more compositionally "correct" (i.e. following the rule of thirds, etc.) The sun's rays streak like that due to my using a relatively narrow aperture (f/18 and f/22, respectively).

Here is an interesting comparison: a sunset shot I took from practically the same place in July 2010. See how the cloud configuration, particularly the dark cloud ceiling, makes the scene more moody? I think I like my pictures from this year better, although the one below is nice.

Iron Goat!

The Iron Goat trail follows what used to be a railroad through the Stevens Pass area; if I'm not mistaken, the term "Iron Goat" refers to trains. I was inspired to try this trail for a variety of reasons. First of all, it's one of the closer hikes featured in Charles Gurche's Washington's Best Wildflower Hikes, and I was in the mood for flowers. Second, I wanted a trail easy and short enough that I would not be in huge trouble in the event of afternoon storms--which, in fact, there were, but right after I left. Perfect timing.

Now down to business. First are some flower closeups I took. Flowers are everywhere along this trail - tiger lily, columbine, bluebell, false lily of the valley, cow parsnip, springbeauty, Cooley's hedge nettle, pentstemons, and still others. It quickly became apparent to me why Gurche chose it for his books. Also, fireweed is growing profusely; when it blooms, the trail will be amazing.

The first one is cropped a bit to resemble what I had in mind. On a narrow trail with thick plants crowding in, it can be hard to get my camera and tripod set up as close to flowers as I'd like. But, with cropping, I think this tiger lily came out well. I had really wanted to capture the underside of the flower, something I don't think I've really tried with flowers.

Also, after a few recent disappointments, I finally stumbled across some wild columbine. They must really like water, since I usually found them growing by streams or in boggy areas. This was my best of the lot:

This next one I would like except for the out-of-focus stems on the left. So close, though!

The Cooley's hedge nettle are beginning to pop out in a few spots. After a couple abortive attempts, I finally found a plant at a suitable height for my tripod and took this picture:

Finally, a mossy surface covered with flowers, springbeauty I believe.

Another highlight of the trail was the incredibly lush forest. I don't think I've ever seen a forest with such a thick understory of ferns. On many trails, going off-trail is simply in bad taste unless absolutely necessary. On many parts of this trail, though, it would have been impossible. Alders predominated. Overall, it was one of the nicer second-growth forests I've been in. Here are my best compositions:

The trail also has some nice views, I found, that get better as you keep going (and get a better angle looking into one of the far away valleys). This shot of cow parsnip and the view turned out okay - the colors are a bit dull, partially because of the harsh midday lighting. It was filtered a bit by clouds, but not enough at that moment. Oh well, it's okay, and a concept to save for different conditions.

Finally, this shot of some ferns and one of the streams along the trail. I originally shot it at f/6.3 to isolate the fern in the foreground a bit more; upon further reflection, I decided to also try it at f/8. I ended up preferring the latter aperture - it gave some more definition to the mini-waterfall, which is an important part of the composition.

There are also some historical structures along the trail: old tunnels, snowsheds, etc. from the railroad. I didn't focus on these, only taking this one photograph of one of the tunnels: