Tema con Variazioni: Mount Si

After much waiting and some trials and tribulations, I finally got out on a photo trip! Today's theme was Mount Si, as I thought it might be pretty with all of the snow we've had in recent weeks; I visited a few different spots in the North Bend/Snoqualmie areas looking for views. I was having a devil of a time with skies, as I always do, but I can often improve things in Lightroom. So these images have some work ahead of them, in terms of white balance and exposure.

This first one, looking over a lake between North Bend and Snoqualmie, actually looks quite a bit different than I had planned, due to the wind. I had hoped that the lake would be still, giving the opportunity for more tranquil waters and possible a reflection of the mountain itself. As it is, the waves are choppy, so I'm not sure whether this picture says what I'd like it to say. But it's still interesting, and I timed the sunrise well, at the very least. A couple seconds later and the sun was too bright, making some ugly flares.

Here's a more basic shot of the mountain and some trees. I thought the bare trees and the mountain actually made for an interesting color contrast. Since the sun was mostly behind Mount Si and to the side, the mountain face didn't overexpose and had a cool blue shading.

This second one is looking up the Snoqualmie River itself at the mountain. I used a relatively narrow aperture, f/25, to get as much of the gravel bar in focus as I could. The sky on the right is overexposed and needs some work.

Lastly, another version of the bare-trees-and-mountain idea. The moss on the maple trunk was a much more vivid green to the naked eye, so perhaps some playing around in Lightroom would make this a more interesting image.

Lunacy pt. 3

I took a brief break from my studies to go find the moonset this morning, as last night was a full moon. My destination was a gravel road roughly between Palouse and Colfax, at a place that overlooks the canyon walls of the Palouse River. There are also some spots along the road that look out to Steptoe Butte, so I think I'll be making return trips to the area under different lighting and seasonal conditions.

The first two images are basically the same composition, separated by an interval of a few minutes. I think I like the first one the best - the moon is less obscured by clouds, and the color of the early sunlight is a bit more pronounced. Upon reflection, though, the way the clouds shroud the moon in the second version is interesting, so I thought I may as well post both.

Here is another one. I don't think this is as good of a composition, since the sense of depth is less pronounced. But the lighting is still cool, and the image still highlights the beauty of the morning.

Spokane Fun

I recently spent some time in the Spokane area and, while I was primarily going there on other business, accidentally happened to have placed my camera gear in my car. "Now, how did all of this get here?" I wondered aloud bemusedly, when I saw all the gear in the front seat before I left. "I suppose I might as well make some stops for pictures," I continued with a resigned sigh.

While I didn't get any show-stopping images, there are a few nice ones that I thought I would post.

Firt is a view from near the Little Spokane River, from the trail going south/east from Rutter Parkway. It's a nice trail and more diverse than I expected; moreover, this section escaped the wrath of the nearby fire this summer. There were nice fall colors near the river, and I suspect that there will be nice wildflowers at various points along the trail later in the spring. I used f/29 to get everything in focus. The sky was a bit milky for my tastes but it doesn't look too bad here. I imagine it'll look even better after some tweaking in Lightroom.

Next is a view from the James T. Slavin Conservation Area south of Spokane. Not a particularly eye-catching composition but it's pleasant enough. I think it's well-proportioned, at least. F/16.

Finally, some autumn aspen leaves from the conservation area. The white color of the aspen bark was more vivid in person than it is in this image, so I'm not sure whether I'm convinced by this composition. It might be worth it to experiment with lighting and white balance in Lightroom, but I don't know whether it'll ultimately make the cut. F/22.

Autumn Adventures III

Happy Saturday! Found the time for another short morning trip, this time to a fishing pullout on the Clearwater River between Lewiston and Lapwai in Idaho. I'd driven through the area before on other business, and had noticed both the frequent fishing pullouts and the attractive canyon walls. I think the place where I stopped this morning is technically within the boundaries of the Nez Perce reservation, although the access point is managed by the state. My trip this morning did not disappoint! Nice views of the canyon and some autumn foliage to boot.

All of my pictures this morning were taken at relatively narrow apertures to maximize depth of field. With that out of the way, without further commentary, here they are:

As I mentioned yesterday, I fear our nice weather may soon be coming to an end. Enjoy the sunshine and warmth while you can!

Autumn Adventures II

Fearing that the end of nice autumn weather might soon be upon us, I headed out this morning north of Pullman to the Elberton area. We'll start with something a bit different from my usual oeuvre: a shot of the old church in Elberton, a ghost town of sorts active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and disincorporated in the 1960s.

According to Whitman County Parks signage, Elberton thrived in the late 19th century when a sawmill, a flour mill, and other businesses typical of the time and place supported the town. Orchards, especially plums, were also important to the town, as was the processing of prunes. There was even a three-day annual picnic. At its heyday, the town would have had 400-500 people.

Fires, floods, and the depletion of local timber in the early twentieth century precipitated Elberton's decline.  Perhaps the Great Depression was also unkind to the town. No highways run through the town, and it's unclear to me whether this helped further the decline, or whether highways bypassed the town after that decline had already begun. Only a handful of people live in the general vicinity now, and not much of the old town is left. There's the old church, of course, an old bridge, lots of open fields, and trees of various sorts. Whitman County Parks owns quite a bit of the area, but there isn't much visitor use development apart from a few old picnic tables, an interpretive sign summarizing the town's history, and a ropes challenge course for groups.

One wonders, wandering around silent overgrown fields, what it would have been like to visit or live in the town at its height. What would have it been like so see the area when it was bustling with people, when plum orchards blanketed the valley floor, when the town hummed with activity? One also wonders how it disappeared. On a certain level, the answers are obvious - disasters, the growth of nearby towns, resource depletion, economic conditions, and so forth. But on another level, individual residents and businesspersons would have chosen to move or invest elsewhere at various points. How strange it would be to see your town disappear in your lifetime.

Before I visited Elberton, I stopped at a viewpoint uphill from the old town, along a gravel road. The first two are probably the most interesting of the lot; I had fun with backlighting, as you see. I had to time these just right; I wanted the sun to light up the tops of the cottonwood trees in the center.

Here are two wider views, looking roughly south over the Palouse River and its valley.

The final two images are again from near Elberton, near the Palouse River. I was enjoying the warm sunlight and the autumnal colors around the river. F/29.

Final image F/5.6.

Autumn Adventures

Here are a couple of images from a quick morning jaunt around the Palouse. The first comes from somewhere along Shawnee Road, just after the sun came up over the hills. I thought the light was hitting the aspen and shrubs quite nicely. F/11.

Next, some sunshine in Rose Creek Nature Preserve. F/22.

Interesting circumstance: the peaceful image above was taken before I found, right in the middle of the trail, the dismembered limb of an unidentified mammal. A grisly reminder that, even though I rarely see them, animals of all sorts live, eat, and die in the Palouse's parks. (Note: I don't know whether there are any animals in this particular area that stash kills. However, when hiking or otherwise in a natural area, it's a good idea to exercise caution around animal remains and avoid remaining in their vicinity. Some predators cache meat and will defend it.)

Canyon Morning

Just got back from a quick overnight trip to Fields Spring State Park, in Asotin County. It's a quiet park; even on a beautiful Friday night, there were only a handful of people in the campground or on the trails. I mostly had birds, white-tailed deer, and bees to keep me company - as well as a chorus of coyotes at 4:40 am. There are elk and bear in the park as well, although I didn't see any.

Occasionally, during times of state budget problems, this park has surfaced on the list of those that could potentially be closed. While it's true that it's out of the way and not used as often as some, I think it'd be a shame. It's a very unique park in terms of location in geography, has lots of flora and fauna for the nature lover, and is a good place for those who don't hunt to hike and camp during hunting season. (I'm also selfish and want to be able to keep visiting it. This is my third trip here and I always enjoy it).

For photography, I walked to a spot on one of the park roads that looks that direction, overlooking the Grande Ronde and Snake river canyons, as well as landforms beyond. I opted for this location rather than the top of Puffer Butte itself because, it being sunrise, I wanted more unobstructed views eastward than the trail up to the summit provides.

First, a shot of some grass with the walls of the Grande Ronde River canyon in the background. I used an aperture of f/29 to retain detail in that background. This made the shot tricky to take; in the soft morning light, I used a shutter speed of 1/25 second - which barely kept it sharp, but I was already underexposing and at ISO 500. Since the contrast isn't too high, the lighting won't be too hard to correct. The noise will be higher than I'd like, but not to a level that would prevent using the picture.

Next is a shot from a bit earlier, just after sunrise. The smoke layer that is visible in the sky kept the sun a nice golden color at that moment. While the haze would later prove a problem for view-shots, reducing detail, here it proved an asset. I like the layering of the distant hills and canyon walls, and how they're mostly just color here.

Finally, a more distant shot of the canyon view, with the slope of a smaller summit near Puffer Butte in the foreground. Being just after sunrise, the lighting was still quite warm, as you see. You can also tell how the haze was diffusing the view of the canyon walls a bit. It's not too bad here, but still not ideal.

There are some larch trees in the park, suggesting the possibility of a visit in October. Of course, I've got other autumn destinations in mind as well - and all that is contingent on my having the time to make any long trips in October, which is not guaranteed at this point. Hopefully, though!

Until next time!

A Mist Opportunity

After a great deal of time spent poring over my atlas and browsing around in Google Earth, I found a promising location to catch a sunrise - a little spot of gravel road overlooking the Palouse River. I've had a few road-viewpoint photo shoots go bust recently, but this one worked! There was a nice view to the east, a view of the river, and plenty of nice trees. The bonus was some early-morning mist in the river valley.

The first image was a bit tricky due to the possibility of ugly lens flares. To mitigate this, I positioned myself so the sun would be partially behind the tree; I also cropped this image to edit out some flares that did show up.

Next is an earlier view up the valley, just before sunrise. This one might take a bit of lighting work (particularly the dark foreground and that overexposed bit of river), but I still think it's cool.

The next two are fairly self-explanatory; nice shots across the valely with sun and some mist still hanging about. They're not quite as interesting as the previous two shots, but I still like them.

The Palouse that Was

Well then! We're back! It's been a while since I've posted any new pictures, for a variety of reasons including a move, two photo trips that went bust, and some car issues. But here we are! I visited Rose Creek Nature Preserve, in the Pullman/Colfax/Palouse area.

Very little of the Palouse has escaped agricultural or other development. A few pockets here and there - such as the Rose Creek pereserve - offer a window into the prior landscape. Rose Creek, along with places like Kamiak Butte, are also a good reminder that the Palouse is not all prairie, but has wetlands and forested habitats as well, particularly along waterways and on north-facing slopes.

For the first image, I wanted to set the aspen and other trees of the preserve against the Palouse's iconic rolling hills. The grassy foreground was a nice bonus. The evening light, filtered as it was through a few clouds, complemented the scene nicely. The WB came out a bit yellowish but that will be easy to fix in Lightroom. I'll also play around with using highlight recovery to make the grass a bit less harsh. F/22.

Next one comes from down the hill, closer to the creek itself. The Preserve is quite lush in places, showing all the hard work that the Nature Conservancy and the Palouse-Clearwater Environmental Institute have done to restore the environment. For this image, I used a quite narrow aperture of f/36 to get everything in focus. The upshot, of course, is that details get a bit fuzzy when the aperture is that high. I think the tradeoff was worth it for this image, though.

I'll definitely be back to the Rose Creek Nature Preserve. I imagine that the fall colors will be quite nice, and all the gone-to-seed wildflowers I saw suggested that visits in April and May will also be worthwhile.

Until next time...hopefully soon!

Sunsets rock!

Believe it or not, we've actually had a number of iffy nights for sunset seeking recently; last night, however, looked like it was shaping up to be a good one, so I hopped in the car and visited Larrabee State Park. I've done most of my sunset trips to Birch Bay this summer, and Larrabee is a bit different. The view of the sky is less open and there are more islands and things obstructing parts of the horizon; the tradeoff is more foreground possibilities (rocks, trees, etc) and the chance to use the background objects compositionally as well.

The sunset image below does this. I wanted to set the sunset against the park's cool rocks; I think the background islands complement the image as well. I had to break out the heavy artillery - my wide-angle lens, so I could include a greater area of the foreground rocks within the frame. I used f/20 to ensure that the depth of field encompassed everything.

Eventually, I'll need to correct for a bit of pincushion distortion, but it isn't too bad here. And I'm pleased with the lighting - I got a healthy amount of definition in the foreground, particularly for an unedited JPEG. Anyway, here it is:

Lunacy pt 2

Last night, I camped at Birch Bay State Park with the intention of catching the moonset over the water this morning. I chose Birch Bay over other local parks (such as Larabee, for instance) because it has such an extensive view of the sky; I wasn't sure exactly where the moon would be, and also wanted minimal obstructions on the horizon. Ordinarily, being only a half and hour drive away, I might have just driven here in the morning, but this and other state or county parks are gated at night - often opening at 6 or 6:30 (I think BB opens at the latter), which would have been much too late!

Anyway, here's the first. It's similar in concept to this sunset image, also from Birch Bay, with the difference of a vertical orientation. What I especially like about this image - besides the moon - is the rich color of the sky and the faint reflection of the moon in the water.

The next one was a bit of an experiment; I shot the moon through some driftwood here a few minutes later. I like the composition and the color - but the moon's a bit small and indistinct, as well as a bit fuzzy. I'll have to edit this one in Lightroom and see what it looks like large; only then will I be able to make the final verdict. It's always hard to judge landscape shots on the computer; they often make more sense when printed at a more reasonable size.

Mountains and things

Yesterday I paid a return visit to the Lake Ann trail, hoping to enjoy a drier day. I was not disappointed! Unfortunately, the cloud ceilings were too low for good views of Baker or Shuksan from the trail, and the wildflowers are mostly gone. Nevertheless, I found some interesting subjects, and besides that had a fine walk in the mountains.

First, two images on a theme of trees, mountains, and swirling clouds. In the first, taken on the way uphill to the saddle and the lake, a partial sunbreak provided some interesting backlighting that I think adds some depth and interest. The second, taken near the trailhead, is also dramatic but has quite high contrast. It will be interesting to see what I can do with it in Lightroom - particularly whether I can reduce the overexposure in the clouds at the top. The shadows could also be lightened, but only slightly (too much would eliminate the drama of the image).

Next, an image of some corn lily (aka false hellebore) with the cliffs of the valley walls in the background. While the greens of the hellebore don't contrast with the background as much as I had originally envisioned, some tasteful tweaking in Lightroom might remedy that and bring the image closer to my impression on the scene. F/29 to get everything in focus.

Lastly, an image with a similar concept featuring the berries of what I think is a mountain ash of some kind (genus Sorbus). I don't have my plant guide with me at the moment, but that's my educated guess. I think this composition is a bit busy, so I don't know if I'd ever "use" this image for anything, but I still think it's interesting and a cool setting.

Artist Point Morning

Recently, I headed up to Artist Point to catch a sunrise. Ultimately, I came away with two images that I like. The first, from right at sunrise, looks roughly south, over the Swift Creek drainage and beyond. F/20.

The second is a close-up of some fireweed with Mount Baker in the background. It's from a bit later, about 8am. The lighting is a bit flat due to the sunshine, but I like the composition. I had to use f/32 to get the level of detail I wanted in the mountain.

Cheers!

The Gift that Kept On Giving

Last night, I went. The theme of the evening was working on some compositional ideas that I've tried before, either this summer or others, and wanted to see if I could do better.

Choosing yesterday evening in particular was a bit of a risk - there were quite a few clouds in the western sky. Clouds can go either way. Some nights, they add color and interest to the sky, and on the best of evenings add a colorful second act to the sunset after the sun itself is already below the horizon. Other nights, the clouds obscure the sunset or turn it a milky and unphotogenic color.

Of course, all clouds are not created equal - altocumulus, for instance, will often give you an interesting sunset, whereas altostratus usually will not. There are never any guarantees, though - meaning a sunset trip with clouds in the sky is inherently risky. Last night, though, I hit the proverbial jackpot, and the clouds both made the sunset itself more interesting and created a colorful second act as they reflected gold and red from the already-set sun.

The first is one with a wave crashing in the foreground, and I like it better than other images I've done along these lines because of the rich blue color I was able to capture in the wave, and because the wave appears fairly close in the frame. I'd need to brighten the image somewhat, but that's certainly surmountable in this case. I achieved the partial blur of the water with a shutter speed of 1/5 second.

Below are some examples of another compositional idea I've done before, focusing on a blade of grass with my macro lens and having an out-of-focus sunrise or sunset behind it. The three below are my best results to date along these lines in terms of color and composition. The clouds darkened the sky and added some blue and violet tones, making these a lot more moody than my previous efforts.

At first, I was trying this shot with a narrow aperture to get some detail in the water. There were some annoyances, however - such as flare, trouble getting good sharpness with a longer shutter speed, etc. On the spur of the moment, I changed course and decided to try the shot with the widest aperture my camera would muster (f/3.8 at this focusing distance). The shot ended up a lot more interesting this way, as the sun became quite large in the frame.

(I had the hair-brained scheme that it might be fun to try printing and displaying these all together, side-by-side, as a sort of time-lapse. I'd have to decide, of course, if they're distinct enough from one another to make it work. I'd also have to crop them all to the same dimensions, but I think that could be done.)

A Wet Day

The forecast for the mountains on Monday was for showers. I thought that this might make for a good photography day on the Lake Ann trail due to overcast lighting and mountains partially shrouded by clouds. I've gone out into the mountains before and had such success under a forecast of showers, photographing under nicely overcast skies while dodging a few quick squirts of rain.

This time, I was not so fortunate. It rained like the dickens all morning, even soaking through my backpack. My sandwiches were ruined. More tragically for the photographic prospects of the day, both of the cleaning cloths that I use to clean lenses and filters were soaking wet - and my filters were wet and smeared due to the rain. To top it all, I only had a few short windows in which the rain stopped falling and I could actually take any pictures at all. (Even if I use an umbrella in the rain, I still have to chase stray drops on my lens - which I couldn't do without cleaning equipment).

We'll start with the star of the show, Mount Shuksan. This image is from one of the backcountry campsites at the end of the trail above the lake; the big glacier smiling at you in the lower part of the frame is the Lower Curtis Glacier. The clouds at upper left are slightly overexposed, but not badly. I like them bright, anyway, it accentuates the idea of a clearing storm or shower, which was in fact what was happening. F/16.

Before I hiked the Lake Ann trail, I visited Picture Lake. It was not raining then, and I got a nice image of some fireweed with partially-shrouded Mount Shuksan in the background. F/6.3.

Here is a close-up of the flowers of false hellebore, or corn lily (Veratrum viride). Although most of the wildflowers on the trail were past peak, these were blooming everywhere. F/5.

Finally, an image of some lichen-festooned trunks from near the beginning of the trail. I think this is one of the better lichen/forest images I have, in terms of being a clear composition. F/14.