Spring Break Part 4: A Wild Goose Rock Chase

Now comes the final entry from my camping trip to Deception Pass State Park earlier this week, when I  visited Goose Rock and some of the surrounding trails.

The first image contains an interesting juxtaposition: camas (the bluish-purple flower) with death-camas (the creamy/yellow flower). Although their flowers look quite different, their bulbs are very similar. Camas bulbs are edible and in fact were a staple food of many indigenous groups; death camas bulbs, on the other hand, are very poisonous. I used f/3.3 to blur the background as much as possible and isolate the two flowers near the camera.

The next two images feature some of the interesting grass found on the way up to Goose Rock. I tried a variety of compositions and the two below ended up being my favorites. I used f/4 in each case to isolate the parts of the grass that I had in focus.

Below are some of what I think are field chickweed, which grow in thick clumps here and there in the meadows. I used f/4 to blur the background flowers; I originally tried narrowing the aperture more, to get more definition in the background flowers, but found such an approach to be too busy.

The next two are experiments that I thought achieved merely a modest degree of success, but I thought I'd post them.

First is a death-camas bloom peeking out from grass. It's not bad, although the death-camas doesn't fill up the frame quite the way I would like. I used f/3.3 to blur the surrounding grass as much as possible.

This second is a paintbrush with some white flowers (a clump of field chickweed, if I recall correctly) in the background, blurred to the point where they became overlapping white dots. I stopped down just a bit to f/5.6 to make those white dots just a bit more clearly discernible.

Spring Break Part 5: At Your Serviceberry

…Yes, this is Part 5 and I haven't posted Part 4 yet. I haven't gotten around to sorting those pictures yet; coming.

Recently I made an early-morning visit to Magnuson Park, one of my favorite sunrise destinations. A bank of clouds blocked the actual sunrise, but I was able to squeeze a few other interesting images out of the morning before the sun came out.

We'll begin with the first images of the morning, which are closeups of a budding lupine plant (I am not sure which variety). In both cases, I used f/3.5 to isolate the foreground as much as possible - I was far enough away from the plants that f/3.5 still gave me enough in-focus detail.

There are a few serviceberry bushes here and there in the park, and they are all budding or flowering. Below are some buds on one of them. For this one, I used f/6.3, because this gave me the right amount of shape in the background elements.

Next are some serviceberry flowers that have actually opened. For this one, f/5.6 gave me the right amount of foreground in focus without creating too much clutter in the far background.

The next image was a bit of an experiment, and I think it turned out fairly well. I used my wide-angle lens with a closeup filter, so that I could focus on the buds (which were quite near the lens) while getting a perspective wide enough to include the trunks in the background. Clearly there's some distortion involved, both from the lens itself and from the closeup filters. But that's part of the effect, and I think it works in this case. I used f/9 to keep the trunks in the background recognizable as such.

Finally, the flowers below belong to what I believe is a black twinberry bush. F/5.6 was the best choice, because wider apertures didn't have enough of the flower in focus, and there was nothing for the eye to lock onto. As you can tell from the background, the sun was now out and getting higher, but I was lucky enough to find a shaded flower.

Spring Break, Pt. 3: Lighthouse Point Round 2

I don't think I've ever put so many numbers in a blog post title!

My recent trip to Deception Pass State Park was in fact an overnight camping trip (in a campsite that turned out to be rather garbage-strewn and rocky…always look at campsites before you register at the park office!) In the morning, I returned to Lighthouse Point and completed some unfinished business.

Below is a budding stonecrop, broad-leaved stonecrop if I'm not mistaken. This is the first year I've ever noticed these, but they are on many large rock faces in the park. I stopped down ever so slightly to f/5 to get a bit more detail in the in-focus parts of the buds.

The next image is a flower in the pea family; unfortunately, I didn't take the time to identify it, mostly because I had to be efficient with my time that morning (I had left all my food at home and only had enough snacks to last me so long). I narrowed the aperture slightly to f/5.6 to get more of the foreground flower in focus; opening up all the way didn't do it.

Below is field mustard, which is apparently an introduced species, but I still think it looks nice, and there were a few of these growing here and there, so why not? This one looks across Bowman Bay; the land on the other side is in the background. Despite the selective-focus appearance, I used f/9; wider apertures didn't get enough definition in the background and the image just didn't look right.

Next, two landscapes. Below is a view from one of the side trails on Lighthouse Point, looking out to one of the other headlands. The blooming flowers belong to Scotch broom, I believe. I used f/22 to put everything in focus.

Below is a forest on Lighthouse Point; I wanted to highlight the copious lichen that hangs from the trees. I think some color and contrast adjustment would help that aspect of the image, as well as enlargement. I used f/22 to get everything in focus.

Stay tuned for one more post from the Deception Pass trip!!

Spring Break, Pt 2: Lighthouse Point

Let's look at some flowers! Today's post comes courtesy of Lighthouse Point in Deception Pass State Park.

We'll start things off with a fawn lily. Unfortunately, I neglected to take a look at the leaves, so I can't precisely identify the species at the moment. I used f/10 because I wanted the background flower to be discernible.

This second plant is one I haven't identified yet. It's only a few inches high and appears sporadically in the meadows. To achieve this perspective, I wasn't able to use a tripod, not even my little one; I had to put my camera on the ground, which resulted in my lens being just a couple inches above it, enabling this straight-on perspective. I don't really like the white sky that shows up in the upper right, but it's not too large an area, and the perspective helps make up for it. I used f/16, because I thought that detail in the background leaves and flowers would help enhance that perspective.

Below is a flower that I believe belongs to kinnikinnick (or "bearberry"). I used f/7.1; I would have liked to go wider, because more background blur would have been better, but only f/7.1 gave me enough detail on the foreground flower.

Below is camas, a ubiquitous presence in the meadows of Deception Pass State Park; the yellow spots in the background are buttercups. I liked how the sunlight coming from behind the foreground flower lit up its petals. In this case, I used f/3.8 to isolate that flower.

Here is camas again; I really liked the evening light and wanted to use it in an image that had the approaching rainclouds in the background; the sun at this point was just above them. This was my best composition out of all the ones I tried with this idea. I used f/5.6, which is as wide as I can get with my wide lens, to blur the background and isolate the foreground flower.

Finally, baby pinecones! I believe these belong to Douglas fir. For the first one, I used f/4 to blur the background as much as possible. For the second one, I decided f/5.6 would be a better choice.

This last image comes from the forest on Lighthouse Point. The new shoots in the foreground belong to salal. I used f/11 to preserve some forest context, specifically the cedar trunk in the background. This image represented a bit of patient, because I had to wait for some drifting clouds to cover the sun before I could take it.

Stay tuned for more coming soon from Deception Pass State Park!

Spring Break, Pt. 1: Jungle Flowers

Yesterday morning, I set my sights on Bellevue's Coal Creek Park with only one objective in mind: vine maple (Acer circinatum) flowers. These trees' autumn foliage gets all the glory, but their spring flowers, while small, are very pretty. I'd photographed them once before, but not very well, so I resolved to visit some vine maple thickets that I knew are on the west end of Bellevue's Coal Creek Park.

Annoyingly, I discovered upon arrival that the trailhead was closed for the replacement of a culvert or something. Not to be deterred, I made a wide detour around the park and started my hike at the Redtown trailhead for the Cougar Mountain park, which is adjacent to the east end of Coal Creek. Anyway, after a much-longer initial hike than initially planned, I made it to the vine maple thickets. Most of the trees did not have any flowers at tripod level - but it only takes one to make things work, and one such tree is what I found.

I'll start with my close-ups of the vine maple flowers. For the first, I used f/3.8 to blur the background and focus attention on the flowers. I think using leaves at different distances, and on either side of the flowers, adds depth.

I went slightly narrower for the next one - f/5 - because opening up all the way didn't give me enough foreground detail. An oblong, slow-moving, not particularly attractive or picturesque bug was on the foremost flower and I had to stand there and wait until it decided it was done feasting and could move. I didn't have the heart to remove the bug - after all, it was just eating breakfast.

The next image looks at vine maple flowers a bit differently, putting them into their forest context. I used f/18 to make the mossy trees in the background discernible. On second thought, going a bit wider with the aperture would probably have improved the image. Still.

Next is a group of unfurling sword ferns (Polystichum munitum); I used f/3.5 to blur the background and isolate the ferns. The new leaves of the maple trees in the background lend an interesting yellowish-green color, I think, a good contrast to the purer green of the sword fern leaves.

Here is the same group of ferns looked at differently, with a more clearly defined context. I used f/9 to show the mossy branches in the background.

Below are large-leaved avens flowers with Pacific bleeding heart in the background. I used f/11; using a wider aperture would have blurred the bleeding heart flowers too much, making them look like pink blobs.

Finally, the flowers of a currant bush (genus Ribes) - probably trailing black currant, although I didn't look at the leaves very closely. I used f/18 to put the flowers in their lush forest context. I think this image is my weakest of the bunch, somehow, but I still think it's interesting enough to post - for a look at the flowers if nothing else.

Thanks for reading!

Maples and Such

The other day, I was able to make a brief stop at Saint Edward State Park; my primary motivation was to find some blooming bigleaf maples (Acer macrophyllum) to photograph, something I have yet to really do well.

The first three images focus on individual flower clusters; for all of them, I opened up my aperture as wide as I could to blur the background and isolate the parts of the flower clusters that I had in focus.

Below is a wider shot of some blooming maples on the edge of the big lawn around the old seminary. I knew I would need to crop it heavily, as you see here, because the upper half of the original frame had too many distracting splotches of white sky.

Finally, a change of gears to Pacific bleeding heart (Dicentra formosa). I wanted something that included a mossy-forest background. This one's all right, although the mossy trees don't figure as prominently as I imagined. I used f/16 to get detail in the leaves and mossy trunks in the background. I'll be playing around with some more compositions like this soon, hopefully, as there are lots of bleeding hearts in the park - the only reason I didn't pursue the idea further was a lack of time.

Too Much Sunshine

Baker River Trail

The first photographic destination of the day was the Baker River Trail, just north of Baker Lake. I've been there several times before but not yet in the spring. Due to its slightly higher elevation and winter snowfall, it's not as far along in terms of spring growth as other places in the lowlands - most of the salmonberry plants hadn't even bloomed yet. To further confound matters, it was sunny practically all day, which I was not expecting. I prefer the even lighting of overcast conditions, but I was there, so I had to make the best of it!


What drew me to this first scene was the strong backlighting coming through the alder grove. I accidentally left my white balance set a bit warmer than I usually have it, but in this case, I like the effect. It really communicates the warmth of the sun. I would maybe tweak it, though, to bring out the greens of the new leaves in the background. The blue color in the far background comes from the ridge on the other side of the valley, whose west-facing slope was still in shadow. I used f/25 to get everything in focus.

Below is a little flower on a bush; the bush appears to be a Vaccinium of some sort, but I have not quite identified the specific species. My best guess is ovalifolium due to the red twigs and the fact that the flowers preceded the leaves, but I'm far from positive. I used f/5, which isn't quite as wide as I could have gone, because I wanted a bigger area of the foreground flower to be in focus. I was physically close enough that the slightly narrower aperture didn't create any unsightly background shapes.

This one I took looking down from the trail with the waters of the Baker River itself in the background. I tried a few shutter speeds, ranging from 1 second to 3 seconds, and decided that I liked 1 second the best.

Below is some new growth on a willow (not sure which variety); in the background is a view across the valley to Hagan Mountain - which, in this shot, is mostly hidden by clouds. I tried waiting until the clouds lifted a bit, but I ended up liking this one more. I used f/20 to keep detail in the background. My only quibble with this one is that the composition isn't very balanced; all the foreground is concentrated into the right half of the frame.

The next image is a view up Sulphide Creek to Mount Shuksan. This is the little treat that comes at the very end of the trail. I actually crossed part of the stream and set up the tripod on a little gravel bar for a better perspective. Since I was at this point of the hike at midday, the lighting is a bit off and the contrast is high. You can see the overexposed areas of the mountain. Still, it isn't horrible, and I mostly wanted to post it to show everybody how nice that view is. I used an aperture of f/25 to get the background and the rocks in the foreground all in focus; a shutter speed of 1/10 of a second blurred the water.

Below is some sort of moss, which I'm not going to even try to identify. I tried a variety of apertures, experimenting with different amounts of background blur, and arrived on f/5 as my favorite. The filtered-sun backlighting is what drew me to the scene.

Below is a view of a waterfall coming down the valley wall. There are a few peekaboo views of it, but the best comes right after the trail ducks into the forest - if I remember correctly, just immediately past the national park boundary. I used f/25 to get everything in focus and 1.6 seconds to blur the water.

And, lastly on that trail, some salmonberry buds, with a mossy alder grove in the background. I used f/18 to get some recognizable detail in the background.

Rasar State Park

Later that evening, I stopped at Rasar State Park, hunting for more signs of spring and some sunset scenery along the river.

What was most attractive about the evening was the light. Nice warm sunlight was coming in at an angle almost parallel to the river, giving me some interesting sidelighting and backlighting situations to work with. I shot the view across the river both horizontally and vertically, using f/22 to get everything in focus. Compositionally, I think I like the horizontal one better, although the vertical one preserves more of the blue reflection in the water.

And finally, here's a closeup of a bigleaf maple flower cluster opening up. I used f/3.3 because I wanted to blur the background as much as possible; otherwise, it would have been a bit splotchy.

Green River Extravaganza pt. 2

The second part of my day involved a trip to Kanaskat-Palmer State Park, which is near Flaming Geyser State Park. Overall, I didn't find it to be as scenic as Flaming Geyser, mostly because the forest is drier and a bit scraggly. That said, it still has its nice moments, and there are frequent views of the Green River as it enters the gorge.

This first image happened while a bit of sunlight was still peeking through the treetops, illuminating the trunks and leaves in the foreground. I focused on the trunks and used f/8 - I didn't want to blur them too much, but I wanted the foreground leaves to be out of focus. In the upper right you can see one of the riverside cliffs; much of the river looked like this. A shutter speed of 1/3 second blurred the water a bit. I would have preferred more, but I had to prioritize aperture in this case.

Next, we have some alder trunks in the foreground, with a cottonwood just beginning to leaf out in the background. I used f/22 so that I could have the foreground and background trees all in focus. This meant a shutter speed of 1.3 seconds, which blurred the water nicely.

The next image features some new cottonwood leaves, with a different cottonwood trunk in the background (and, of course, the river). Despite the selective-focus appearance, I used f/22, because I wanted the tree, river, and background leaves to all be recognizable.

Below is an alder hanging on for dear life on one of the cliffs surrounding the Green River. I think this image might be more dramatic later in the year, when there are leaves on the alder and you can tell it's alive. (It is alive; if you look closely, it has lots of catkins already). I used an exposure time of 1.3 seconds to blur the water.