Rainy Day Fun

Yesterday I hiked the trail to Cascade Pass. The trail itself was surprisingly easy; the grade was gentle and there were virtually no rocky or rooty sections. Unfortunately, the weather decided to compensate for this ease. It was raining and/or very windy most of the day. I struggled under these conditions to take pictures, and didn't walk away with as many good ones as I would have liked.

We'll start out with the view southeast from the pass itself, not because it was the best image of the bunch, but because it shows you how awesome the view was. I tried to frame it so that the trees in the foreground would add some depth. They do, but they also belie the scale of the view - the mountains in the background seem much larger in person. F/22 to get everything in focus.

I tried a more interesting composition with some valerian flowers and false hellebore leaves in the foreground, but I botched it pretty badly, and it ended up horrifically tilted, irredeemably so. Thus, the one below is the best.

Below is the view back over the Cascade River valley, looking northwest, with a grass or sedge of some kind in the foreground. I used f/5 to isolate the foremost blade. I also tried f/22 but, somehow, it didn't communicate enough depth in this case. The washed-out background colors and water on the grass/sedge clearly communicate the rain.

The image below features a plant that was new to me - white-flowered rhododendron (Rhododendron albiflorum), blooming in the foreground. I used f/7.1 to get a little shape in the background hills and mountains.

Below is a meadow of pink mountain heather (Phyllodoce empetriformis); in the background are the peaks opposite the trail to the pass. F/22 to keep everything in focus.

Below are subalpine spirea flowers (Spiraea densiflora) in the foreground. I liked the way that the clouds were coming down over the mountains in the background. It was pouring rain when I took this picture; thankfully, the wind gusts calmed down for a bit, enabling me to keep the rain off of the lens itself. F/22 to keep everything in focus.

Next is another new flower - a bog-orchid or rein-orchid (genus Platanthera), probably slender bog-orchid (Platanthera stricta). I used f/6.3 for this one. I originally opened up wider (about f/4.5) but wanted a larger area to be in focus.

Below is white mountain-heather (Cassiope mertensiana) at f/4.5 to isolate the foreground and blur the background. I think the water droplets only help the image. Hooray for rain!

Below is a closeup of pink mountain heather. Instead of choosing a certain flower part that I wanted to be in focus, I gave that special status to a water droplet instead. I stopped down a bit to f/6.3 so that the whole droplet could be in focus. My only quibble with this composition is the brown area in the background on the left; I think that's the stem.

Finally, a closer perspective of white-flowered rhododendron. F/4.5.

Sunsets and Such

A few nights ago I headed to Discovery Park for sunset. It was surprisingly breeze - more than I expected that evening - which limited what I could do. I did find, however, some Puget Sound gumweed (Grindelia integrifolia) which, for whatever reason, were not moving too much.

The first one features the soft lighting of almost-sunset. With that and a polarizing filter, you can see that the contrast is quite low for a sunlit shot. f/4.5 to blur the far background.

Below is the same plant with the sunset in the background. I've done this concept before (see here and here for the unedited versions) with gumweed and sunset; in this one, however, I made the sunset into a ball, so it's a distinguishably different iteration of the idea. I used f/4 to do that and to blur other background elements. This particular image also came right before the sun dipped completely below the horizon - that was how I managed to get such a yellow color. When the sun had been higher its center showed up as white.

Sunrise Fun!

Yesterday morning, I went to Magnuson Park for a sunrise trip, as I do. I imagined that the sunrise would be particularly colorful due to smoke from wildfires burning east of the Cascades. Today's sunrise theme was grass blades.

The first one might be my favorite. I used a wide aperture (f/3.8) to blur the sun and turn it into a large circle.

Similarly, this one uses a wide aperture (f/3.5). It doesn't fill the frame quite as nicely; the upper left hand corner is a bit of a dead space. Still, the color of the sun is pretty dramatic - this was the earliest image of this bunch, coming as the top of the sun was just peeking over the horizon.

This one came slightly later; as you see, the sun was up from the horizon but still very richly colorful. The aperture of f/16 was originally an accident - I had forgotten to change the settings from something else I had been trying. I decided that I liked the effect though, since the reflections in the lake water come out more clearly.

Finally, a yarrow closeup. I was quite close to the flowers, and used an aperture of f/10 because I wanted the background flowers to fade out of focus more gradually.

Signs of Summer

Summer is now fully underway in the lowlands - most obviously atmospherically, as I write this on a quite warm day, but also botanically. The summer flowers are out, and the plants that bloomed in spring are fruiting. I went to Magnuson Park recently to have some fun with this.

We'll start things off with one of the more obvious harbingers of summer: ripe berries. The image below is of a thimbleberry. F/6.3 to get a little bit more of the berry in focus.

Below are reddening rose hips that belong, I believe, to a Nootka rose bush. F/4. I think the rose hips will turn redder as the season progresses.

Next is a chicory flower just opening. F/4.2. Chicory flowers are fun to observe early in the morning, because they close up at night and open up as the sun rises. Although an introduced weed, chicory is very pretty and I enjoy photographing it when I find it in city parks.

Below is a flower in the pea family that I've had a hard time identifying. It might be Bird's foot treefoil (Lotus corniculatus), an introduced species. F/6.3 to get more of an area in focus; I was so close to the flowers that far background detail wasn't really an issue at all.

Finally, the flower below is yellow parentucellia, yet another introduced species, which grows in the grassy meadows in the park. F/4.2.

Teanaway Summer, Part 2: Stafford Creek

On the second day of my recent camping trip, I visited the Stafford Creek trail, best known for leading to Navajo Pass. I made it about five miles up the trail, not quite to Navajo Pass - I ran out of time! Besides, I would have arrived at the pass right at solar noon anyway, not having a chance to photograph the views in good lighting. I have better luck when I can photograph views closer to trailheads; this gives me more flexibility as far as timing.

There was plenty to do, however, along the rest of the trail. So much so, in fact, that on this hike - as well as the Esmerelda Basin hike that I wrote about earlier - I jotted down ideas in my journal that I would return to on my hike back. I knew that if I did everything I thought of on my way up, I'd hardly make any progress on the trail.

We'll begin things with a closeup of scarlet gilia. F/5.

Below is pink wintergreen (Pyrola asarifolia), a small forest-floor plant that is easy to miss. Like coralroot on an earlier hike, I only noticed the wintergreen when I had stopped to look at something else. I used F/3.8 to isolate the in-focus areas as much as possible. I put the camera directly on the ground to get a slightly upward-looking perspective of the flowers, which I think makes the image more compelling and gives a better view of the styles etc.

Also, I took the image of the wintergreen while I was laboring under a migraine headache. Not bad!

Below is a small flower I found growing on the forest floor in a few places early on in the hike. F/5, mostly to bring out the out-of-focus leaf shapes ever so slightly.

Below is a rose, probably Nootka rose. I liked the way this flower was "hiding" behind some of its leaves. F/3.3 to blur the foreground leaves.

The flower below is one I haven't identified yet; the umbel inflorescence would suggest something from the carrot or buckwheat families as a possibility. F/4.5 to isolate the foreground.

Finally, two landscapes. The one below is of a Douglas-fir trunk in the foreground and a Ponderosa pine trunk in the background. As you can probably tell from the perspective distortion, I used my wide-angle lens. I usually don't care for shots that have a lot of obvious perspective distortion, but I think it works in this case, bringing attention to the size and height of the Douglas fir. F/14.

And another lichen image. F/22 to get everything in focus.

Teanaway Summer, Part 3: Johnson Medra

(Yes, Part 2 is coming later; I am posting these out of order as I get pictures sorted).

On the last morning of my trip this past week, I visited the Johnson Medra trail. The forest along the beginning of the trail was heavily festooned with lichen, and I had the idea of including the morning sun in a shot with the lichen. F/22, primarily to enhance the sun's rays.

This is another perspective on the lichen-draped forest. It is always hard to make individual objects stand out and catch the eye in photographs like this, in which the main concept is some general aspect of the forest rather than any one specific subject. Having the diagonal tree, and having it well in front, helps the image do the job. The image will be better once I edit it and enhance the lighting/contrast a bit; that will bring out individual shapes more. F/14.

Update: I believe that I have identified this plant: it is a pipsissewa or prince's pine, Chimaphila umbellata. The bodies in focus may not be fruits at all but in fact buds. Cool stuff. F/4.2 to isolate them as much as possible.

These are twinflower (Linnea borealis). The lighting came courtesy of a sunlit area out of frame reflecting sunlight onto the flowers. F/4.5.

Teanaway Summer Part 1: Esmerelda Basin

Hello readers! I recently returned from a camping trip in the Teanaway area. My first hike was the Esmerelda Basin. Charles Gurche's book Washington's Best Wildflower Hikes inspired me to visit this trail. (Out of the 50 that Gurche lists in the book, this makes six that I've visited for photography, not counting the Maple Pass loop because I didn't get very far. Can I get to all 50 before I buy the proverbial farm?)

If you're ever in the area, Esmerelda Basin would be the hike to do, I think. It's short - only about three miles - with plenty of scenery on its own, but it access plenty of other trails if you want a longer hike or a backpack. With the trailhead above 4,200 feet in elevation, it doesn't take all that much work to get to nice meadows and views, and the grade is relatively forgiving. I wouldn't visit it too late in the summer, though - the trail is hot in the sun and will not be as interesting when the flowers are gone.

The first image comes from a wildflower meadow just about a mile up the trail. The polarization of the sky is a bit awkward but I think I could work with it. Other than that, I like this image. I placed the tripod very low, which helps make the paintbrush flowers more prominent in the composition. I used f/18 to get the whole scene in focus.

The flower below is scarlet gilia, also known as skyrocket (Gilia aggregata). In the background, out of focus, is one of the mountains viewed from the upper part of the trial. I used f/13 to preserve some shape in that mountain. The sun was still pretty high when I took this one, but the lighting turned out surprisingly well.

Below is a view of the North Fork Teanaway itself. I think this composition lacks a sense of depth, but I like the lighting and color contrasts between the sunlit leaves and shaded creek. F/18 to get everything in focus and to get a shutter speed of 1/3 of a second, which blurred the water's motion a bit.

Below is a flower I found for the first time - I believe it is Columbia lewisia (Lewisia columbiana). They are rather small but quite pretty upon close examination. I used f/5.6 to get a bit more foreground in focus.

Below is some sort of stonecrop (genus Sedum). I did not take a close enough look at its leaves to make a more specific identification. Besides, there is quite the number of stonecrop species in the state. I opened up as wide as I could in this case, f/4.2, to blur the background as much as possible. I tried a variety of focus points and liked this one the best, because part of the petal is in focus as well as a couple of the anthers.

Below is a phlox, probably spreading phlox (Phlox diffusa). F/5.

Below are some shaded paintbrush flowers; the out-of-focus pink flowers are shooting stars. I used f/3.3 to blur the background as much as I could. This is another example of the shaded foreground/sunlit background idea that I've been periodically playing with recently.

I believe the flower below is a penstemon of some sort, probably woodland penstemon (Nothochelone nemorosa). I had the idea of setting the focus point deep inside the flower, and this was the result. I used f/3.8 to blur everything else and isolate the part of the flower that I had in focus.

Below is one whose identity I was having a tough time pinpointing, but I think it's either Labrador tea (Ledum groenlandicum) or trapper's tea (Ledum glandulosum). I even tried to include the leaves in the image - but these two species have very similar leaves and other features. I'll update this post if I figure it out.

Finally, another penstemon of one variety or another - as near as I can tell, Davidson's penstemon (Penstemon davidsonii). The waterway in the background is the North Fork Teanaway River. I used f/5, which blurred the background. I would have liked to try a narrow aperture to put everything in focus, but the flowers were wobbling in a slight breeze and a narrow aperture would have meant too long of a shutter speed, and the flowers would have blurred.

Discovery Fireweed, Round 2

We'll begin with some closeups, the first one of fireweed, as the title promised. I did this one looking up at the flower, which I don't often do in flower closeups, and I think it works well and makes the perspective rather dramatic. F/5 was enough to isolate the stigma and put the rest of the flower well out of focus.

The flowers below belong to thimbleberry; I really liked the way the sunlight was falling on them. Additionally, there wasn't too much right behind them, enabling me to isolate them against the sky, which served as a good background. F/4.5.

Bellow is a yarrow near the beach. There are quite a few unusually pink and purple yarrow down there; I'm not sure whether this is just an endemic natural feature or the result of escaped cultivated varieties. Regardless, they're very lovely. F/5.6.

Next is some sort of weedy pea flower; again, I liked the light that was falling on them. They were backlit, but some trees and leaves helped soften the sunlight. F/4.5.

Below, some more landscape-like images of fireweed. The first is looking from the South Meadow area out to Puget Sound. You might notice that I cropped it pretty significantly - to a 4x8 ratio, to be exact. That was the best thing for the composition. I seldom do sunlit landscape shots anymore, but this one was early enough that the sunlight was still an asset rather than a liability. I used f/32 to really get everything in focus.

The next one was right at sunrise. Initially I was worried about the high clouds; I didn't want them to be distracting or, worse, block the sun itself. In retrospect, though, I think they make the image more interesting than it would have been with a clear sky. A narrow aperture - f/22 - enabled me to get the star effect on the sun.

Finally, a shot of the fireweed looking across the meadow. F/22 to get everything into focus.

The Inevitable

So I recently made my obligatory early-summer trip to the Gold Creek trail! I will start with close-ups and move on to landscapes.

First up is a cool flower that I found in the forest. It was pretty small and I almost missed it; I only noticed it as I was packing up from taking a different picture. It's Western coralroot (or Pacific coralroot), which I've seen referred to as Corallorhiza maculata ssp. mertensiana, or just Corallorhiza mertensiana. (And there are others. Seriously. Sometimes plants seem to have almost as many scientific names as common names!)

Coralroots are interesting because they are saprophytes - instead of producing food and energy via photosynthesis, they derive it from dead and decaying organic matter. Hence saprophytes generally lack green leaves (i.e. chlorophyll).

Below is a bunchberry (Cornus canadensis) flower. I've noticed that they often grow alongside, or among, deer fern (Blechnum spicant). I don't know whether this is just because they prefer similar environments, or because they have some sort of special relationship. Regardless, I wanted an image that showed the two growing together. Below is my best result: you can see the leaves of deer fern in the background. I used f/11 to achieve this effect; wider apertures would have obscured the shape of the fern leaves.

Here's another look at bunchberry, with a couple old-ish trees in the background. Since I was at a reasonable distance from the flowers, I was able to open up to f/4 and still get enough shape in the background.

Below is some sort of spring-beauty or miner's lettuce. I found them growing on a rock and held the camera very low to achieve this shot. In this instance, I used f/4.2, which was as wide as my lens would let me at this focusing distance, to blur the out-of-focus flowers as much as possible. I think this one has a somewhat surreal aesthetic.

Below is youth-on-age (Tolmiea menziesii). I've done closeups of these before, but this one is better. The very selective-focus appearance notwithstanding, I stopped down a bit to f/5 to get more of the foreground flower in focus.

The next flower is one I haven't yet identified. I suspect it might be a speedwell of some sort (genus Veronica). This one was very small and I was very close to it, so I used f/5.6 to get more detail in the foreground.

On to some landscapes. Below is a view down to Gold Creek with some fern (bracken fern, I think) in the foreground. I put the tripod down below the level of the ferns for this perspective. I used f/29 to get everything in focus as much as possible.

Below are two views across the valley, with vine maple in the foreground. I really liked how colorful the vine maples were, as they were covered with red seed pods. I am not sure which orientation I like better, so I am posting both. The vertical one is a bit busy; the horizontal one is better on this count but doesn't have much going on in the center. F/29 and f/25, respectively, to get everything in focus.

Finally, a little meadow of Sitka valerian (Valeriana sitchensis). F/22 to get everything in focus. I used my wide-angle lens and got fairly close to the flowers in order to achieve a better sense of depth.