Kamiak Butte, Pt. 3: The Meadows

The forests of Kamiak Butte are surprisingly nice, no doubt about that. But it's really all about the meadows. That's why you visit. In early may, they are a kaleidoscope of wildflowers and flowering shrubs. It makes you wonder what the Palouse must have been like before settlement. Was it all like this? Were all the open areas full of flowering plants like this?

Of course, the obvious stars of the show were arrow-leaved balsamroot (Balsamorhiza sagittata) and paintbrush, so that's where we'll begin. I don't know what variety of paintbrush is featured in this post's images; my best guess is harsh paintbush (Castilleja hispida).

The first image features both balsamroot and paintbrush. I saw all these flowers growing close together and had the idea of setting the focus point to be a flower in the middle. Eventually, I narrowed the composition down to these specific blooms. I used f/3.2 to maximize selective focus and isolate the middle flower as much as possible. I think this image connotes a good feeling of depth.

For this image, I focused on the foremost flower but still used the idea of putting one flower within the context of a few others. Again, I used f/3.2 to maximize selective focus.

Here is a close shot of a balsamroot flower. In this case, I used f/3.5 to maximize the selective focus effect.

For the shot below, I was still pretty close to the balsamroot. But despite the selective-focus appearance, I used an aperture of f/16, because I wanted some perceptible detail in the balsamroot flower in the background. This puts the foreground flowers in their meadow context, and enhances the perspective.

Now a wider view of a balsamroot field, this one on the West End Primitive Trail. In contrast to some other wide-angle shots I'd taken on the trip, I specifically wanted to avoid including any of the distant rolling-hill farmlands in the background. Instead, I wanted an entirely natural context for the balsamroot. Perhaps this gives a glimpse of what much more of the Palouse looked like once. I used an aperture of f/20 to put everything in focus.

Below is a larkspur (genus Delphinium). I think it's probably upland larkspur (Delphinium nuttalianum) - that's what's suggested by WSU resources about Kamiak Butte. Anyway, it's much more important to note that it's a larkspur. I used f/4.5 to blur the background and the buds behind the flower.

Below is a desert parsley. A number of varieties of desert parsley grow on the Butte, so I'm going to have to be content with that for now. F/4.5 for background blur. Most varieties of desert parsley, being very small and close to the ground, are tough to photograph without including sky (which, on a cloudy day, can be quite unsightly). This was my best result.

Below is a flower I haven't identified yet. I'm working on it. I know that I promised myself that I'd try to be better about identifications this year, but I was on such a roll on my trip that I didn't bother much to get out my books when I was actually photographing, which is really the only way to do it. Trouble is, I kind of like this image. I think the rocks behind and in front of the flowers lend a lot of depth and intimacy to the scene. F/5 gave me sufficient selective focus.

Below is what I believe to be small-flowered blue-eyed Mary (Collinsia parviflora), which appear periodically in both the meadows and forests. (I've also seen them west of the Cascades, on Whidbey and Fidalgo Islands in rocky meadows). They're certainly small - so small that they quiver in even the slightest breeze, making a photography a challenge. I think they quiver of their own volition, even when there isn't a breeze. I was so close that I used f/6.3 and still only had a very small area of the foreground flowers in focus.

I arrived a bit earlier in the bloom cycle than last year, so I had the chance to enjoy some earlier flowers that I missed last time. For instance, there were still lots of shooting star (genus Dodecatheon) still blooming up on the ridge; last year, they had mostly all withered. For this first image, I was close enough that f/5 gave me plenty of background blur. That close, it's challenging to get the focus point where it needs to be, and you don't want to lose too much depth of field, so it's often a good idea to stop down, even just a bit.

This one looks at an entire flower stalk. I used f/4.5 for this one, to achieve selective focus.

We'll close with another early flower, grass widow. There seem to be a lot of scientific names associated with grass widow, and the Internet is only confusing me more, so I'm just going to stick with the  common name. These flowers were hard to photograph because their flowers are small and near the ground, face down, and mostly faced away from the trail. I had to lie on the ground to take the flower below. I used f/4 to blur the background, and keep detail only in the flower and a bit in the leaves at bottom.