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.