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.