Leapin' Lupine, 2nd Edition

Despite this morning's rain - whose onset came much earlier than advertised - I did manage to steal a bit of time this morning to photograph. This morning's destination was Magnuson Park. Its trails, while admittedly not as extensive as Discovery Park, feature many of the same meadow flowers, such as lupine, daisies, vetch, wild rose, and others.

The first photograph is not of lupine at all, the post's title notwithstanding. It is of a wild rose. I'm not confident on whether it's a nootka rose or a baldhip rose...or what. Last year I did a closeup of a rose as well. While it's lighting was cool, the angle was straight on, and so the image didn't have any depth to it. This morning's image improves on the perspective by looking at the flower from an angle. Including the out-of-focus petals in the foreground adds depth. I used f/14 to keep a lot of the flower's center in focus and to keep some definition in the petals (I wanted them to be discernible and not blobs).

Here's another cool perspective of a wild rose. It doesn't really observe the rule of thirds, but I still think it's compelling. I used f/14 again to keep the flower in the background discernible; it adds necessary context to this photograph. The close side view of the foreground flower produces a strong feeling of intimacy, I think.

Now we'll begin the transition from roses to the post's namesake. The image below was actually the last of a variety of perspectives and apertures of this scene. First, I preferred a vertical perspective over a horizontal one, first of all, because it included more lupine and reinforced their vertical lines. Second, I preferred a narrower aperture (f/6.3 in this case over, say, f/32, which I believe was the one that I tried) because it simplified the background enough to make the rose at the top of the image stand out.

For this one, despite its selective-focus appearance, I used f/22. I wanted to set these lupine flowers in the context of the blooming rose bush in the background, and I needed a narrow aperture to maintain some discernible detail in the rose blossoms. I tried f/14 as well, and even though the foreground was sharper, the composition was not as convincing. I also tried a variety of compositions around this spot; this one was the most compelling and did the best job of minimizing the brownish, withered petals low on some of the lupine plants.

The final image is the earliest, taken immediately after sunrise. I think with some contrast adjustment, the sunrise lighting would come through very well. The sky looks blue, but it was not blue at all - it was in fact almost entirely clouded over, save a thin clear strip on the eastern horizon through which the sun was shining. I tried experimenting with the sunrise lighting against the clouds, but in every case it just looked like a blue-sky background. Still, this one is pleasant. I don't like how the in-focus portion of the photograph is all jammed into the right side, but there's enough going on in the background that this doesn't kill the image. I used f/8 to keep some detail in the background lupine flowers.

It started raining at about 8am...well before I wanted it to, and before when the NWS predicted it would. There were other flowers there that I'd been hoping to photograph. Hopefully there'll be a round 2 in the near future.

Leapin' Lupine

As the post's title suggests, Discovery Park is awash with lupine right now. Lupine and other flowers. Discovery Park, in point of fact, is probably one of my favorite floral destinations, and certainly my favorite within the Seattle metro area. From February through August - and especially from May through July - the park provides a kaleidoscopic floral display.

This post's first image actually features a subject other than lupine: oxeye daisy, which also litter Discovery Park's beach-area trails with late spring blooms. It is my most adventurous composition from the afternoon. I tried something like this last year, but wanted to take another stab at it: I wanted to have a daisy flower in the foreground with perceptible lupine in the background. In this case, to keep the lupine perceptible, I stopped down all the way to f/18. The result is not quite as amazing as I'd hoped, but I still like it. I want to play with the lighting and contrast in the top part of the image - to see if I can bring out the greens and purples a bit more vividly.

Next, as advertised, is an actual picture of lupine. While most of the flowers were a solid purple, a handful of plants featured flowers that were partially a darker purple and partially white. I think that the image below nicely captures the vibrant color of these plants, while juxtaposing them against the solid purple flowers in the background. Since I was backed up a bit away from the large plants, I opened up to f/3 to minimize background detail. The image's biggest flaw is the visible spider web strands in the top half of the frame. Otherwise, I like it.

This one gives you an idea of what Discovery Park looks like now, at least near the beaches. I only needed to stop down to f/13 to get the whole shebang in focus. I think the meadow's slight slope adds interest to the image, as does the tall grass in the foreground.

And finally, this image of some sort of vetch in bloom. Although it's an improvement over my vetch images from last year, I still don't really know if it's all that captivating. I used f/6.3 to accentuate the contour of the leaves in the background. I have yet to take a picture of vetch that I really like. We'll keep trying!

Kamiak Butte, Part 2: The Meadow

Now we move on to what, for most, is the main attraction of Kamiak Butte: the south face, resplendent with wildflowers and gazing down upon the gentle undulations of the Palouse.

I'd like to start with some shots that I actually tried twice during my trip. The first I had tried once during midday, with acceptable results. I wanted to try it again, though, with more dramatic lighting, so the following dawn I huffed and puffed back up the hill to the same balsamroot plant. The sunrise lighting wasn't as amazing as I'd hoped, but even the little stripe of pinkish sky in the background livens things up. I used f/25 to maximize my depth of field; a trick to help is to set the focus point behind the foreground rather than directly on it. This helps keep the background sharp.

For the next image, my original results had actually been satisfactory, but not quite good enough. I took the original during the late afternoon, and while the light was starting to get attractive, it was still a bit splotchy and distracting. The next morning, which was overcast after a brief few minutes of sunshine at sunrise, provided more ideal lighting conditions. In post-processing, I would definitely adjust the contrast in the top half of the image to accentuate the Palouse landforms. I used f/32 and set my focus point on the rearmost flowers to keep everything in focus.

The next image, framing desert parsley against the Palouse farmland, was similarly originally taken during too-sunny lighting conditions. Although it took some doing, I was able to locate the exact same group of flowers the next morning. Although this image isn't as striking as the ones above, I still like it. The only problem is that all of the vertical lines are tilted - the flower stems and the tree all point to the left. This gives the picture a bit of a crooked feel, even though I was actually quite careful to keep it level with the horizon. I used f/14 to preserve some detail in the background.

For now, we'll stick with the theme of juxtaposing the Palouse against flowers. I actually really like this image; I think it has a good sense of depth. This would have been better with sunrise lighting, perhaps, but it's still nice. By now, if you've been reading this and other posts carefully, you can predict what I did to keep everything in focus: stopped down to f/29, set my focus point slightly behind the foreground.

The next one actually came from midday, while the sun was shining! Rare, I know. But the sunshine was filtered a bit by high clouds, and illuminated these balsamroot flowers in a surprisingly attractive way. I had to stop down all the way to f/22 to keep some detail in the distant farmland.

The next one captures the vibrancy of the balsamroot flowers. I tried this shot at several different apertures, and the one you see below is at f/13. Even though I actually would have preferred a wider depth of field, my results with a narrower aperture lost so much sharpness to both diffraction and motion blur (the flowers moved ever so slightly in a breeze) that I ended up preferring the (relatively) wider aperture.

Now I'll move on to some more intimate wildflower images. This first one is probably my least conventional composition of the bunch. I stopped down to f/18 so that I could retain some detail in the paintbrush in the background. I don't like the splotchy white areas in the background, but otherwise, I think this was a neat idea. You'll see more compositions with a similar concept in future posts...

More paintbrush and desert parsley, this time in a more conventional format. This time, I used f/3.3, since the objects were all much closer to each other and because I was much less concerned with preserving background detail.

Another nice portrait follows below, this one of a larkspur of some sort. This one was actually a bit of a challenge, if only because a lot of these plants looked rather motley, and it took a while to spot one that both looked nice and was at a good height given my tripod coverage. I like this composition because the background flowers on either side provide a bit of symmetry.

This one captures some paintbrush that had just begun to bloom. The first time I tried to photograph these flowers, it didn't work - it was sunny and about noon at the time, and the only way to manage the lighting well was to shade them with my body. I was unable to do both that and actually compose the shot (I had to set the camera up on my baby tripod, and thus needed my body to be rather low to the ground). The second time I passed the flowers, though, they were shaded. I used f/3.3, and even at that wide aperture the background is still a bit distracting. I think the diagonal color change is also distracting in and of itself.

Finally, I'll close with the theme on which this post began: sunrise lighting. I'm posting this one last because, even though I like it, it needs quite a bit of work. Even using a graduated neutral density filter, the trees are too dark. They aren't so far gone that some work in Lightroom couldn't bring them out, though. And the skies and meadows aren't too bad. I used an aperture of f/16 to keep everything in focus; I was far enough away from the meadow that I didn't need to use anything narrower.

Kamiak Butte, Part 1: The Forest

Kamiak Butte is truly a special place. One needs merely to glimpse it to realize this, for even this glimpse will reveal its tree-clad slopes protruding oddly above the gently rolling plains of the Palouse. It exists as a geological relic of an earlier time. The rolling hills of the Palouse consist of windblown deposits. Kamiak Butte, on the other hand, consists of quartzite from an earlier geologic period.

It's a particularly special place because the steepness of its topography relative to its surroundings and its east-west orientation (creating distinct northern and southern sides) allow the butte to sustain multiple distinct ecosystems. The north side, which receives comparatively little direct sunlight (especially during the winter months) accumulates a great deal of snow, which melts slowly throughout the early spring. Moisture of any kind is retained here longer than on the sunny south side. By summertime, the south side is too dry to support much of a forest. Instead, it is carpeted by grassy meadows, dotted only with occasional groves of pine and shrubs. It is this south side that is the star of the show, with extravagant flowers and sweeping views of the Palouse.

The forest, too, was beautiful in its own right, and in fact featured a floral show just as diverse as that on the ridgetop, if less ostentatious. The tree cover consists mostly of ponderosa pine, with a smattering of fir, larch, aspen, and other trees thrown in for good measure. Mallow ninebark, the dominant shrub throughout most of the forest, was just beginning to show some white blossoms, and profuse wildflowers carpeted the forest floor. Even with basically four days in the park, I only had time to photograph a small minority of the species in bloom.

This post focuses on my photography in the forested areas of the park. The next post will feature the meadows.

We'll start with star-flowered false Solomon's seal (what a mouthful!). I like this composition because it's nearly symmetrical, with attractive lines formed by the leaves. I used f/3.8 to keep the background simple. (You may notice that my wide apertures differ in some of my pictures; this is because, for complicated physical reasons, my macro lens' maximum and minimum apertures vary at different focusing distances. My other lenses similarly differ at different focal lengths. There are fixed-aperture lenses, but sadly they are more expensive).

Next, a flower that I saw for the first time: ballhead waterleaf. They bloom pretty low to the ground, but their purple color helps them to stand out. I actually really like this composition. It keeps the flower at eye level, and having the flower cluster partially obscured by a leaf adds some depth. It is almost as if the flower is shy, and peeking out from behind its leaves. I used an aperture of 3.5 to minimize background distractions.

Next comes another flower I encountered for the first time: Western meadowrue. The reason it was striking was that its flowers seemed to resemble jellyfish, especially the way the hanging stamens danced about in even slight breezes when the rest of the plant was still. Thankfully, I was able to photograph this flower on a relatively calm morning, enabling me to get even the stamens sharp. I stopped down to f/9 to keep some discernible detail in the stamens of the out-of-focus flowers. The background green is a bit splotchy, but I had to accept it because this specimen had more attractive blooms than any other meadowrue that I had seen on any of the trails.

Ponderosa pines, although they look cool in their context, don't necessarily top my list of the region's most attractive trees. My brother noticed an interesting phenomenon, however - the emerging cones, or whatever these are, actually look quite pretty. I used f/4 because I thought the narrower depth of field would make the image more dramatic, and prevent too much distracting detail in the surrounding needles. Kudos 24/7 to Julian for noticing this!

In a few spots, miner's lettuce carpets the forest floor. I struggled to devise a composition that depicted this without becoming overly busy or complex. What you see below represents my best result along these lines. I used f/8 to keep some detail in the leaves underlying the buds. Had the flowers been blooming already, the image would have been more spectacular, but the leaves below would have been perhaps less discernible.

Confusingly, the flower below can be referred to both as "woodland star" and "prairie star." It occurs in both places, I guess, but that's the trouble with common names. I found this particular specimen in the forest. I used f/5.6 to compromise between background blur and keeping some discernible detail in the flower.

Below is a detail of a mallow ninebark just beginning to flower. I used for f/5.6 for reasons similar to the above picture. Yes, the background is a bit splotchy. But this was the most attractive flower/bud cluster that I saw.

Below is false Solomon's seal (not to be confused with star-flowered false Solomon's seal). It grew very thickly in some places, and I wanted to capture that. The image below doesn't have as much depth as I would have liked, although viewing it at a larger size might help.

I'll end with a sunset image; I took it near our campsite, where the forest borders farmland. Primarily, I wanted to capture the way the late evening sunlight casts shadows over the Palouse's rolling hills, accentuating their contour. This phenomenon actually doesn't come out all that strongly in the image below, but I still like it due to the colorful clouds and the warm color of the sunlight on the tree.

Shortly I will post the second half of my Kamiak Butte pictures, the ones from the meadows! Until then, cheers!

Garden, Pt 1

I recently went on a camping trip, and the pictures are going to take a while to sort through and write about. But in the meantime, I can break the silence by posting a few pictures I've taken recently in our garden at home.

Garden photography has some obvious advantages - dependably big, showy subjects that are easily and quickly accessible. It has some challenges, too. One is tripod coverage, because most garden subjects will be low to the ground.

But the biggest challenge, in my experience, is background management. While background management is certainly not always easy in the wild, there are a few variables on the side of the photographer. A good background is more likely to present itself - a carpet of moss, a tree or grove of trees, flowers, a stream, a mountain, a view, a picturesque boulder...the list goes on. In a garden, fences, dirt, walls, and other such elements are often nearby and, in a closeup shot, can create an unattractive and distracting background.. You will see that I have not completely satisfied with my efforts to meet this challenge - two out of three pictures have backgrounds that I find distracting. I thought it would be useful, though, to post them and talk about their positive and negative aspects.

The first picture, of Lenten roses, comes from March. I wanted to "frame" the flower in the foreground with the blooms you see above and behind it. They don't stand out as well as I had envisioned, though, and the whole image looks a bit cluttered. This even with the wide aperture of f/3.2. Still, I achieved good detail on the foreground flower.

The second, of bleeding hearts, is more recent. The background consists of the plant's leaves and the ground. I am not fully satisfied with the background in the picture, as it's a bit cluttered. The flowers are striking, though, and I like the way I arranged them, with one of the middle ones in focus. That decision, I think, adds depth and interest to the image.

Finally, another picture in which I was able to use multiple flowers of the same kind as a background. The plant was thick enough that I was able to do so without incorporating any distracting elements such as a wall, dirt, or anything else. I tried several different focus points on the flower, and this was the most pleasing. I stopped down to f/6.3 to increase the amount of the foreground flower that was in focus. In hindsight, I wish I had experimented with a slightly wider aperture to see if I could blur the background a bit more without losing too much foreground detail. Ultimately, though, f/6.3 produced an acceptable result, I think.

The Other Spring, Pt. 2

This weekend, I visited a place very similar to the place I described in my last post - Washington Park in Anacortes, which is near Deception Pass and whose forests and south-facing rocky meadows share similar characteristics. The southern parts of the park are the highlight, with trails that meander through flowery meadows and feature grand views of Burrows Channel, Burrows Island, the Puget Sound, and the Olympic Mountains. And although the trip was not the bonanza of show-stopping images that the Deception Pass hike was, I did get a few nice ones.

This first one features death camas and the view out to Burrows Channel and Burrows Island. I really like the warm side lighting that this image captures. An aperture of f/6.3 provided a good compromise between selective focus and keeping enough definition in the background to give it a discernible form. It could use a bit of contrast tweaking, but it's alright.

This next one features a much more intimate perspective of death camas. Despite the selective-focus appearance, I used f/18 to keep a bit of definition in the coastline in the background. I think it needs some lighting and contrast work; the filtered sunlight (the sun was partially behind a tree) isn't all that flattering with the blue sky and water in the background. We'll see what happens in editing.

This one was a flower I found growing in the forest. Unlike calypso orchids (see below), which I found throughout the park, I only found this flower once. It was a tricky character to identify, but I think it is spotted coralroot. My plant book says it is "widespread"; I've never seen it outside of the mountains, but my travels are just beginning! I'm finding more and more, though, that native biodiversity has taken a hit near populated areas, and plants that should be widespread can only be found in outlying areas like the mountains, or other areas where there has either been relatively less disruption to the ecosystem or a strong effort to preserve and/or restore it.

The picture uses an aperture of f/5; I wanted some definition in the foreground but anything more than f/5 would have made the background too splotchy. It is already borderline too splotchy; the flowers, unfortunately, were on a rocky and awkward slope near a tree, not giving me much flexibility in choosing where to set up the shot.

The next one is of a calypso orchid, a small and easy-to-miss flower that grows under forest cover. I've never seen them in parks in and around Seattle; apparently, the plant used to be more widespread but is easily killed by trampling or picking. The picture's not quite as sharp as I would have liked, but I really like the sunlit background; I think it creates an interesting, moody atmosphere, without being quite so bright as to distract from the flower itself. Obviously for this one I needed to maximize selective focus, so I opened up to f/4.2.

This one is of field chickweed, I think. I liked the backlighting that was falling on the flowers. I used f/5; narrower apertures added too much distracting detail, and wider apertures lost too much detail in the in-focus flower. I'll be interested to see what I can do with the lighting and color in this shot in post-processing.

Finally, some sea blush growing between some reddish rocks. I tried a few different apertures; f/8, which you see below, provided the most satisfying image. This one isn't a show-stopper, I don't think, but it pleasantly depicts a flower in its context at eye level.

Did you notice a theme? There were several pictures for which I said some contrast post-processing work would be required. This is what happens when you photograph on a sunny day. The lighting is much harder to manage! Additionally, I've realized that you have to be more intentional about how you use lighting. On an overcast day, you can just compose your shot without worrying about it very much, and the lighting brings out the subject. On a sunny day, though, you have to make lighting a "character" in the scene; if you don't use it intentionally, it obscures your subject.