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!