Methow Trip: Landscapes Etc.

This is the first post of three in a series that will share my experiences camping in the Methow Valley area. Most of the images in this post are from the MVSTA trails system near Winthrop, with the exception of a few from the Monument Creek Trail in the national forest. All of the images in this post, with the exception of the very last, were taken at narrow apertures to put the entire scene in focus.

A World of Contrasts

In parts of the Methow Valley, particularly along the foothills of the Cascades, desert, grassy meadow, and forest all meet. Part of this, I think, is because of orographics; it is just over this area that the rain coming over the Cascades becomes insufficient to support a consistent forest. It also has to do with local terrain features - north-facing vs. south-facing slopes; the presence of rivers, springs, and wetlands; the ability of the soil in a certain spot to drain moisture; and others. The upshot is a kaleidoscope of Ponderosa pine forests, aspen forests, lush riparian areas, grassy meadows, and desert-like hillsides. This first pair of images features some of those contrasts.

The first looks across a valley where water from streams, and collected in beaver ponds, feeds quaking aspen, ponderosa pine, and lots of shrubs and wildflowers. Up above, you can see the much drier hillside. The morning during which I took this photo was so still that even the leaves of the quaking aspen did not blur in a shutter speed of 1/5 second.

This is a good example of what we in the business like to call framing. I could have found a more open vantage point and done an image just of the view across the valley - but where's the fun in that? Or rather, where's the depth? Including foreground elements helps add a feeling of depth to the scene, making the image more intimate and compelling. And in this particular case, it reinforces the message of contrast.

The second image looks across the ravine of Rader Creek, with alder in the foreground and a dry hillside with Ponderosa pine and balsamroot in the background.

The Blooming Desert


One of the most common shrubs in the desert-like areas was antelope brush (Purshia tridentata), and they were almost all covered with little yellow flowers. I've never seen anything like it in the deserts of Eastern Washington.

For the first image, a polarizing filter helped deepen the blue of the sky. I also shot this quite early in the morning; later in the day, the stronger sunlight would have been to harsh, and the high contrast would have distracted from the colors of the bush and the hillside.

The next image includes antelope brush, arrowleaf balsamroot, and lupine, all blooming together. I tried a horizontal version of this composition, but ended up liking the vertical one much better. With so many blooming antelope brush plants, the challenge in this and the other images was to get some of them to stand out, rather than having the picture be a nondescript yellow mass of color. The only solution to this is just to carefully select your perspective and subject matter.

The flower in the middle of the next image is one that I didn't take the time to identify it in the field (shame on me), growing in the midst of antelope brush plants. I'm going to look into it this week, and will update this post if I figure it out. In the meantime, suffice it to say that it's pretty.

Next, a garden-like scene with lupine, antelope brush, quaking aspen, and another flowering shrub (possibly choke cherry).

The final two antelope brush images put quaking aspen in the background. I wanted to make some compositions with this concept to highlight the fact that these habitats exist in such close proximity in many places.

Quaking Aspen

Now, a few shots that look more exclusively at the aspen. I've read that aspen is the most geographically widespread tree in North America. In Washington, aspen are only here and there, and generally only east of the Cascades. There are some extensive areas of quaking aspen, though, in the Methow Valley. It's called "quaking" or "trembling" aspen because the leaves shake in the slightest breeze, a breeze insufficient to stir the leaves of other trees. There are a variety of legends and folklore associated with this. One is that Christ's cross was made from aspen, and its leaves have trembled ever since.

The first image was rather difficult; almost being backlit, there was quite a lot of glare from the sun hitting the lens. My lens hood wasn't sufficient to block it; I had to get creative with my hand placement to the side of the lens! A polarizing filter helped to bring out the blue of the sky, particularly on the right-hand side of the image, which is at more of an angle to the sun and thus more responsive to the polarization.

Here's one done under overcast lighting, focusing more attention on the trunks themselves.

The image below looks down on an aspen forest from a dry, open hillside. I liked how trees of different sizes and ages were next to each other; that can be hard to come by when you're photographing a tree that often grows in large clonal stands.

Other Forests

The Monument Creek Trail (which actually follows the Lost River) doesn't visit the river very often, but passes through some nice meadows and interesting ponderosa pine forest. The trunk in the foreground of the next image os that of a particularly large and old Ponderosa specimen, with hemlock and a younger pine in the background. I thought that the fact that the foreground trunk was tilted would add some interest to the image, rather than having it be just a bunch of straight tree trunks. It also fills up the frame more nicely that way.

The image below, featuring hemlock and Ponderosa pine, is also from the Monument Creek trail.

This last one I tried at a narrow aperture like all the rest, but I found a selective-focus approach to be more interesting in this case. Maybe that's because it calls more attention to the new growth on the hemlock leaves.