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.

Purple Haze All Through My Skies

Well, the weather's taken a turn for a more conventional onshore pattern, but on the last night of our series of hot and smoky days, I traveled to Birch Bay State Park to catch the sunset. My best image, below, is almost otherworldly due to the dark color of the smoky horizon and the smooth/blurred water in the foreground. I zoomed up quite a bit for this and used my tiny tripod to put my camera low to the ground. The colors got a bit wonky in the JPEG so what you see below is already edited from the RAW, as well as corrected for pincushion distortion - having a straight horizon line is pretty imperative in this composition.

Second, a driftwood shot from earlier in the evening. I used an aperture of f/6.3 to get a selective focus effect.

Adventures in Sunshine

It was forecast to be a warm day, so I decided to beat the heat by hiking the Lake Twenty-Two trail in hopes of timing my travels so that I could do the climbing and photographing before things got too hot and, more importantly, while the lighting was still good on this bright and sunny day. Thus, I got up early - at 3:30 - and with the help of an uncharacteristically (for me) large dose of coffee, I was the first one to hit the trail and did indeed manage to get some nice light.

For the first one, I took advantage of some fortuitously placed side lighting to set some blooming fireweed against the cliffs ringing the lake. This is probably my favorite composition of the bunch, and I think the contrast between the sunlit fireweed and shaded cliffs worked well. F/22.

The next one is from the trail up to the lake. I wanted to juxtapose the old-growth cedar trunk in the foreground with the background forest beginning to be lit by the rising sun. It works, but I think editing would help bring this out more. F/25.

We'll end with two closeups. The first is western red columbine, which I've photographed before but never very well. Finally, I have a closeup of columbine in which the background is not splotchy. I've had more interesting compositional ideas with these flowers, but this is something that I can actually use, unlike my other images of columbine to date. F/5.6.

This last one I've seen under two names - Tofieldia glutinosa and triantha occidentalis. I don't have my plant book right now, but hopefully it will help me sort through it all. F/5.

Lunacy

So, last night I had another first - successful compositions involving the moon! I had seen on my calendar that a full moon would be rising just before sunset, so I headed over to Tennant Lake in search of a good eastern view. To my dismay, I discovered that the park closes at 9pm, but the ranger/staff person was very gracious in allowing me to finish up.

The first one is probably my favorite, because it includes some cattails in the foreground, thus adding depth.

A horizontal version of that shot - there is less of a foreground here, and thus less depth, but the upshot is that the moon appears larger in the frame.

Lastly, a shot a bit later. The moon is overexposed here, but not totally blown out. I could thus probably improve this image quite a bit through highlight recovery and other tools in Lightroom, bringing detail back to the moon and lightening up the trees a bit.