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.