Old-Growth Adventures

The Mountain Loop Highway has many advantages; one of these is easy access to some very nice areas of old-growth forest. The images in this post are from the Youth-on-Age Nature Trail and the Lake Twenty-Two trail.

Close-Ups

First is a bunchberry flower (Cornus canadensis) that I foundgrowing on a tree trunk. I really liked how it was nestled within the surrounding leaves. I used as wide of an aperture as I could in this case, f/3.5, because I wanted to isolate the flower as much as I could. A decent area of the flower was still in focus at that distance, and the wide aperture helped blur any distracting detail on the leaves.

Next is a ripe salmonberry. Ripe salmonberries sport a variety of colors, from yellowish to deep red, and I thought one of the red ones would be fun to photograph. In this particular case, there was some filtered sunlight falling onto the berry; this would have washed out the color. So I blocked it with my hat; the red of the berry is much more striking that way, particularly against a partially sunlit background. I used f/6.3 so I could get a decent amount of the berry in focus.

Next is a wild rose; I think it's baldhip rose (Rosa gymnocarpa). I like how this composition turns out; it keeps main attention on the flower while including enough leaves to give some context. I used f/5, because opening all the way would have resulted in a smaller area of the flower in focus than I wanted.

The final closeup is of a flower I hadn't seen or noticed before - I think it's Coast boykinia (Boykinia elata). F/4.5.

Landscapes

We'll begin with a shot of an old-growth cedar trunk with bunchberry growing on it (this provided the location for the first close-up of this post). I really liked how covered this particular trunk was with lush growth. Move over, nurse logs; this tree has a head start! I included the trunk in the background to provide some context. I used f/25 to get the whole shot in focus.

This landscape features vine maple in the foreground, along with the old-growth trunk of what I think is a Douglas fir. I included the background trunks on the left for some balance and contrast. I used f/18 to keep the whole scene in focus. At a shutter speed of 1/3 second, it took some patience waiting for a lull in the breeze (I wanted the leaves to be sharp).

An Alpine Experience for a Lowland Price

On the aforementioned camping trip, I visited the Big Four Ice Caves trail the next morning. I've been there on weekends when the trail was incredibly crowded; today, I basically had the place to myself. It's a bit eerie that way, because there are signs up everywhere now warning that people have died exploring the ice caves themselves. I've always only observed those from a distance; of greater interest to me are the wildflower meadows and views of Big Four Mountain.

I've always thought of the Big Four Ice Caves trail as "an alpine experience for a lowland price." The trail is short - about a mile one-way - and has minimal elevation gain. This gets you right next to the mountain, though. Winter avalanches prevent a lot of forest growth in the immediate vicinity of the mountain; this and the cold winds all year create an environment that favors wildflower meadows usually more characteristic of higher elevations (I think the trail tops out at only around 2,000 feet).

Below is one such wildflower meadow, with the cliffs and waterfalls of Big Four in the background. I used f/25 to keep everything in focus.

Below is subalpine spiraea, which I've seen referred to as Spiraea densiflora and Spiraea splendens. The former is what I've found in books, the latter online. Either way, it's a pretty little shrub! I was having difficulty getting a good composition, so I decided to try one with the foreground out of focus, and a flower farther back in focus. I think this one works fairly well, although the far background is a bit splotchy for my tastes. F/4 to isolate the in-focus flower.

Below is a penstemon of some kind; probably Penstemon serrulatus as far as I can tell. In the background is Big Four Mountain. It's not quite as clear as I imagined it would be, but I think the image gets the point across. With some contrast adjustment, it'd be even better. I used f/10 to get some detail in the mountain.

No Pain, No Gain

Hello everyone! Before I begin, let me just say that if you haven't checked out my relatively new Facebook page, you should strongly consider doing so! You could even "Like" it if you wish. https://www.facebook.com/jamesdelbertanderson

Now on to business! Heather Lake is a popular hike, for good reason, but be warned that, in terms of pure mileage, a clear majority of the hike is rather lousy. The trail is quite rocky, particularly for a lowland forest trail; when it's not rocky, it's rooty, or has some awkwardly placed steps. Much of the hike passes through second-growth forest. And this isn't one of the nice second-growth forests, like those along the Goat Lake trail or in some other places. This one consists of large areas of uniform conifers with little in the way of understory or mossy branches to break the monotony.

The upshot of that is that, despite the interesting trail conditions, you pass through it fairly quickly, getting to the last stretch in less than an hour. And on this trail, it's that last stretch that you came to see anyway, and it's worth it. (Note that the Lake Twenty-Two trail, immediately nearby, has similar scenery and is much nicer, with old-growth forest most of the way, a crashing creek, and better views along the way. If you can only do one, do that one. If you have time, though, it's worth it to try both).

The last half mile or so passes through lovely old-growth forest. The transition from dark, uniform second-growth conifer forest to a brighter, diverse old-growth forest with a much fuller understory is very stark along the trail and a neat experience in and of itself.

The first image features an old-growth cedar in the background; I liked the way its mossy branches drooped down. I included the young hemlocks in the foreground to add some balance and depth. This is probably one of my favorite landscape images to date that uses an old-growth forest concept. Essential as it was to have everything in focus, I used f/29.

Below is a fern (lady fern?) growing on one of the old-growth trees. I used f/18 to get everything in focus; at 0.8 seconds, it took some patience to wait for the fern to be still. Even this isn't perfect; a few of the fronds are slightly blurred in places. But this was the best image that had the lighting I wanted (in a few tries, filtered sunlight overexposed some background leaves).

Then you get to the lake itself, in a cirque complete with everything you'd want in a lake so easily attainable - cliffs and crashing waterfalls, avalanche meadows, wildflowers, and a view of Mount Pilchuck.

Below is one of the views from the trail around the lake. I thought that including some of the huge boulders would add some context to the image; below is the best composition I could devise using this idea. I used f/18 to get everything in focus.

Below is a view toward one of the aforementioned waterfalls crashing down the cirque walls. I liked the gnarled, battered trees - perhaps that way due to avalanches? - and wanted to set those against one of the waterfalls. I needed good detail in both elements, so I used f/18. In hindsight, I realize that this image is very green, and the foreground and background don't show much color contrast, at least not in the JPEG. It wouldn't take much tweaking, though, to make it work and give the background the more bluish color cast that it presented to the eye. Otherwise, though, I like the composition.

Below is a Sitka valerian (Valeriana sitchensis) just beginning to open. I used f/6.3 because I wanted the out-of-focus buds and flowers to fall out of focus only gradually.

Below are two flowers on a pink monkey-flower plant (Mimulus lewisii). I used f/4.5 because wider apertures didn't give me enough detail, although I wouldn't have minded more background blur.

Fireweed Time

Hello! Last week I celebrated the first morning of official summer with a sunrise trip to Discovery Park. Not very many of my pictures turned out well, so this will be a short post.

First, we'll begin with my favorite annual event, the blooming of fireweed! They're at the beginning of their cycle, with some stands not having bloomed at all yet. Below is one of the blooming stands with just a bit of sunlight. I used f/22 to get the flowers and trees all in focus.

Below is a wide-angle perspective of the same stand of flowers. I like this composition; I overpolarized, though. You have to be careful with a polarized sky when using a wide-angle lens. If you polarize too thoroughly, the sky will have an obvious gradient like you see below. It's a bummer, because it's a good picture otherwise. I used f/22 to get the flowers and trees all in focus; background blur would have obscured this image's feeling of depth.

Next, I found some black twinberry (Lonicera involucrata) growing along the North Beach trail. In these images, I used f/5 and f/4.2, respectively. I think I may have talked about this before, but photographing shiny things can be tricky because of the possibility of showing up in the reflections. I crouched on the ground and took these images with my cable release. That prevented these closeups from becoming self-portraits!

A Very Green Adventure

Whoever is in charge of the weather made up for last weekend's unwelcome sunshine and wind by giving me an entire day of perfect photographic conditions - bright-cloudy skies, almost no breeze, and raindrops on grass and flowers to boot. I headed on over to Goat Lake to take advantage of these conditions.

The first image comes from Goat Lake itself. This is the only image I made at the lake - stratus clouds were obscuring most of the peaks surrounding the lake, limiting my photographic possibilities. Still, the lake was pretty in a different way with the low clouds. The image below looks across the lake to one of the snowfields; the leaves in the foreground belong to vine maple. I tried this composition at f/29 to get everything in focus, but decided that a wider aperture - f/6.3 - was more interesting, and that is what you see below. In this case, I think blurring some of the background detail enhances the feeling of mystery and stillness.

Below is a forest of red alder, with an understory of devil's club (aka "Dinosaur Plant") in the foreground. I set up the tripod fairly low to fill up the foreground with the devil's club and get a more interesting perspective. From beneath, the devil's club leaves seem to glow, and I wanted to capture that. I used f/22 to keep everything in focus.

(The trees in the background, due to their whitish trunks, are sometimes mistaken for birch or aspen. But in this case they are red alder; the whitish color is not an intrinsic property of the trunk itself but due to lichen).

The old-growth trunks below are just before the official wilderness boundary along the trail. I think the vine maple leaves in the foreground add some needed contrast to what otherwise would be a much blander image, as well as a bit of scale. F/18 to keep everything in focus.

The image below looks across Elliott Creek. The tree trunks belong to red alder. All in all, I like the very lush look of the image. I needed to use f/29 to keep everything in focus, and the shutter speed of 4 seconds blurred the water's motion.

The image below highlights the beautiful new growth on what I think is a young hemlock. F/22 to keep everything in focus. Red alder are the trees in the background.

Now a few closeups from the hike. The first is a grass or sedge of some kind that I saw in open areas throughout the hike. I used f/3.8 to maximize foreground isolation. I think the curved leaves/blades, as well as the elements in the background add a good linear dimension to the photograph. The raindrops were the icing on the cake.

This little plant is fringecup (Tellima grandiflora), I think. The flowers are usually white or greenish; I've never seen them this pink before, so I just had to do a picture. The vivid pink was such a strong contrast against the day's general green-ness. F/4.5.

Below is western red columbine (Aquilegia formosa).  I used f/4.5; I would have liked even more background blur but wider apertures resulted in too small of an area in focus on the flower, and that wouldn't do. I decided to prioritize that.

And the final image, while not particularly captivating artistically, is still cool - check out all the growth on this complex of nurse logs!

Hello there, June!

I took advantage of having yesterday off to do some photography on the Baker River Trail. It was basically deserted on that Monday morning; aside from a party of backpackers at about 9am, I saw no one the entire day. The forecast had originally called for clouds and showers, but the weather ended up being more sunny and breezy than anything else, with only occasional cloudy periods. Pleasant to be out in, certainly, but not ideal for a forest situation. My results ended up not being the greatest, but here they are, anyway!

We'll begin with an image of deer fern (Blechnum spicant). In the foreground is one of the fertile leaves, just beginning to unfurl, with already-grown sterile leaves in the background. I used f/8 to establish some discernible shape in the background leaves.

Below is western red columbine (Aquilegia formosa). The white blur at bottom right is a stream; I don't know if that's obvious or not. The image below is at f/5.6; any wider and I wouldn't have gotten enough detail in the second columbine flower on the right. I initially used a comparatively narrow aperture (f/18) to get more detail in the stream, but there was too much distracting background clutter from grass and things. As it is, the image below is better, but I'm still not convinced of whether I like it.

Below is bunchberry (Cornus canadensis), also known as dwarf dogwood and by other names. For this image, I used f/20 because I wanted some detail in the mossy forest in the background. This image was actually rather difficult to pull off - the flower was moving quite a bit in the breeze, and at 1/3 second, it was hard to get a sharp image. The one below is the best; even it is marginal by the standards I usually try to use. I was originally using f/29, and liked that better compositionally, but the shutter speed was impossible.

Now for some landscapes. Below is a mossy jungle of vine maple trunks and branches. I used f/25 to get the entire scene in focus.

Below is an image looking across Sulphide Creek at the end of the trail. I used f/18 to get everything in focus and a shutter speed of 1/2 second to blur the water. Ultimately, this one isn't as compelling as I imagined it at the time, but it's still nice.

There are large piles of logs (I don't know if you'd call them "driftwood," since they're on a river, but I don't have another term) in many places along the banks of the Baker River, and I had the idea of including them in a composition. I set up my tripod below one log that was jutting out, and here is the result. I kind of like it. I used f/22 to get everything in focus.

Finally, some images that generally involve the Baker River Trail's old-growth forests. None of them really need any individual commentary; on all of them, I used narrow apertures to get everything in focus.

Old Business

These are some images from a trip to Magnuson Park a while back that I forgot to finish writing about. Here we are!

The first one features vetch flowers with the sunrise - filtered through some branches and such - in the background. It's a bit dark, but didn't lose very much at all to total black, so the underexposed areas are definitely salvageable. I stopped down to privilege rich color in the sun itself. I used f/4.2 to achieve selective focus.

Below is a plant that I see all the time but have never bothered to photograph or identify - cleavers (Galium aparine). I suspect it might be an introduced species but it's still cool-looking, particularly when its little white flowers are blooming. I used f/5.6 because wider apertures didn't give me a large enough area of the foreground in focus. I was extremely close to this subject, which always decreases depth of field.

Next is a closeup of some grass - orchard grass, I think - that I liked. The head was hanging down, which enabled me to get this perspective of it. I used f/5.6 - the far background is still blurred nicely, but I got a good amount of detail in the foremost stamens.

Next is another shot of vetch, this time a little bit after sunrise and backlit. I used f/4.2 for selective focus.

Below are some wild roses growing in Magnuson; f/4.5.

Next, a shot of some clover, red clover if I'm not mistaken. My camera was nearly on the ground for this perspective; I think that even my little tripod was too high. I used f/4.5 for selective focus. I think that, compositionally, the grass blade on the left provides a contrasting shape and helps accentuating a feeling of depth and closeness.