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.