Fog Fun

I don't recall whether I've written about this before, but September is actually a tricky month for nature photography. It's beautiful to experience - cool, fresh mornings; afternoons that are warm but not hot; leaves starting to change - but not as photogenic as one might expect.  For the most part, summer flowers have faded. A few leaves have changed color, but more are just looking withered and mottled. Certainly, there are good pictures to be had, but they require more patience to find than in August or October, when one can go for the easy money of wildflowers or abundant fall foliage.

The Gold Creek trail yesterday was quite damp, and rain was falling more often than not. But the upshot of the rain and clouds was an attractive fog that danced in and out of the valley. This first image comes from the viewpoint; I wanted to find a way to include the fog and the colorful vine maples in a composition. This was my best result, and although the contours of the fog do not show up as crisply as I might have preferred, I still like it. I also like how the branches essentially provide lines that lead toward the background trees. I used f/22 and set the focus point between the foreground and background trees to get everything into focus.

There were still some berries remaining on the bunchberry plants, and I finally found some at a height that my little tripod could feasibly photograph. I used f/7.1 in order to keep a decent amount of the foreground berry in focus.

For the next two images, we'll return to the fog theme. This first one looks down the Gold Creek Valley. It was actually raining at the time, so I had to crouch down under a tree to take this picture. Upon doing so, I waited until the fog was just right; I wanted some of the trees in the background to be visible and thus bring out the contour of the hillside. Since everything was fairly far away, and aperture of f/16 sufficed to bring everything into focus.

This last one was a bit of an experiment; it doesn't suggest a whole lot of depth, but I still like the way it turned out. As in the above photograph, I had to wait a few minutes for the fog to be just right - there were certain trees that I wanted to stand out, so I waited until a gap in the fog was between me and them. I think the light gray trunks complement the fog and add to the mysterious aesthetic. Since everything was far away and basically at the same distance from the camera, f/14 sufficed to get everything into focus.