I've complained on this blog before about sunny conditions making photography more difficult due to high contrast, awkward shadows created by overhead lighting, and other factors. While I stand by my complaints, there are some factors that mitigate the difficulties this time of year. First of all, the angle of the sunlight - even at midday - is lower and the light is less intense. Second, sunrise and sunset are at much more civilized times of day, making it more practical to photograph early morning light. So I had a satisfactory photography trip "despite" the sunshine.
We'll start with pictures not actually taken at the lake, but at various points along the trail. The first comes courtesy of an avalanche chute along one of the switchbacks to the lake. I'd been struggling to incorporate the fall colors on surrounding ridges into an interesting composition, but I think the sidelit trees do the trick. The lighting falling on them is attractive, they give an interesting contrast to the ridge in the background (which is pretty on its own, but would have looked rather flat).
This one is from the farther junction of the upper and lower trails. I had hoped that there would be no sunlight in this composition, but as I set up my equipment and fine-tuned the composition, the sunlight increased as it rose through the trees. Thankfully, the trees still filtered it enough to keep it from ruining the image. And in hindsight, I kind of like it; it adds some texture. The trunks are those of red alder, and the orange tree in the background is a vine maple.
The composition below was my first of the morning, taken along the lower trail looking at Elliott Creek. My original idea had been to exclude the sun from the composition, focusing more attention on the creek and the patchy morning sunlight. But I decided that the sun would add more interest to the composition, and help "balance" it out by providing something of interest in the upper left (the creek is at the bottom, and all the foreground objects are concentrated on the right). At f/13, the sun didn't "star" as much as I expected, but it still works.
In the next image, the sun did star. I used f/22 to both ensure this and to get everything into focus. I found it hard to fine-tune the composition the way I like to, because the sun kept moving! You don't really think about it, but when a composition depends on the sun poking out from behind a tree trunk or other object, it doesn't take long for the sun's position to change enough to force you to move and recompose. I had to do this a few times, and the image below was the best result.
Right below the lake, there is a waterfall on Elliott Creek, accessible via some semi-sketchy side trails. I used an aperture of f/7.1 to blur the foreground leaves, hoping that this would make them seem closer to the camera/viewer. In hindsight, I wished I had used an even wider aperture and blurred them even more, focusing attention on the falls. But it's pleasant, at least, if not a show-stopping image.
Now, Goat Lake itself. My original plan had been to get to Goat Lake at about 9:30 am, to take advantage of (relatively) early morning light. Theoretically, this would have been possible if I had started hiking at 7:30 as I'd planned and had not made any stops along the way. A number of factors, however, conspired against this itinerary. Dense fog, slow drivers, no passing zones, and cruel potholes slowed my drive to the trailhead. Once hiking, photo stops (some of which you've already seen) slowed me further. I didn't make it to the lake until about 11:30.
The sun was in the southern part of the sky, thus more or less shining toward me as I looked at the lake. This created an interesting backlighting situation. In the composition below, I think it actually served me well, enabling me to create a contrast between the vibrant autumn color on the slopes and the snowy mountain in the background. If the mountain had been sunny, too, the composition wouldn't have been as strong. The straight diagonal line in the foreground accentuates this contrast.
I tried a variety of reflection images, and the one below is the best. By this point, the sun was off the lake, helping the reflections to come through more strongly - but this meant that the slope on the right was shaded, which I think weakens the composition. In editing, perhaps I could try to brighten it up a bit and bring out the colors.
This final reflection image doesn't have as strong of a feeling of depth as the one above, but it's still nice.
This final image from the lake was inspired by the way the sunlight was hitting their trees and illuminating their branches. There's some fall color on the opposite side of the lake, but it doesn't show very strongly in this image. Perhaps editing would help bring it out. The mountains in the background on the far left are also a bit overexposed. But I like this compositional idea. Something to play with in editing or, more importantly, try again sometime.
The final three images come from a group of nurse logs along the trail. There are a ton of seedlings growing on the logs, and I wanted to capture this. My compositions weren't as successful as I would have liked, mostly because they ended up being rather busy. I also had a hard time getting the focus point where I wanted it - it was late in the evening at this point, and so dark in the forest that, with the polarizing filter over the lens, I could hardly tell where I was focusing. (I could have tried focusing with the filter off, and then attaching it, but the act of attaching can jostle the tripod or change the zoom just enough to ruin the focus anyhow.)
Nevertheless, I have posted the three best below; they were taken with relatively wide apertures (f/6.3 for the first and last, f/4.2 for the second) to isolate one of the young trees.
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