Deception Pass trip

Yesterday morning, I visited one of my favorite haunts, Deception Pass State Park. One of the cool things about the park is that there are some bits and pieces of old-growth forest. It looks like, on at least one occasion, there was a fire in the Lighthouse Point area, as some of the older trees show evidence of a burn. I wanted an image that showed this, and below is my best result. In the far background, a bit of the younger greenery is visible. I used f/22 for a wide depth of field.

Next is broad-leaved stonecrop (Sedum spathulifolium). I photographed these last year at Deception Pass, also at eye level, under different lighting conditions. I think I did better this time, though - I like how the leaves are more apparent in the foreground. F/3.5.

And here's a flower I haven't photographed before - I think it's broad-leaved starflower, or Trientalis latifolia. They're an interesting-looking plant, because the flowers themselves are on very thin stems; beneath that, though, are whorls of comparatively large leaves. F/7.1.

Next is twinflower, or Linnaea borealis. They are pretty tiny and, unless there is a large clump of them, relatively easy to miss. They also grow at a height that is hard to photograph with either of my tripods, so this one was handheld. F/4.8.

Lastly, an image whose quality didn't turn out very well. Even so, I still think it's an interesting composition, and the RAW file might be worth at least a halfhearted effort at salvaging via Lightroom. I used f/32 and an ISO of 500. This combination of settings led to high noise and soft detail, but I was stuck with the high ISO because I needed as quick of a shutter speed as possible to counteract the breeze.

Plan B

Well, yesterday was interesting. I made a photography trip to Kamiak Butte, which was a second choice. My first choice would have been the Colfax Trail, but the little access road was rather muddy from the weekend's rain. It was tricky to drive as it was, and I was nervous about the possibility of afternoon showers (they didn't amount to much, but I'm generally a cautious fellow). Once I had extricated my car, regained traction, and dug the mud out from around the wheels, I decided that this was a divine sign to seek another destination. Kamiak it was.

The first image, which I think is the best of the lot, looks over the Palouse at an approaching rain shower, with some mallow ninebark (Physocarpus malvaceus) in the foreground. I used a graduated neutral density filter to darken the sky a bit; that way, I could recover the darkness of the sky from the actual scene while still exposing the foreground properly. F/22 for a wide depth of field.

It needs some work. There's a dust spot visible in the cloud; moreover, if you look at the horizon line you can see some barrel distortion from the lens itself. Those are fairly easy to deal with, however - Lightroom has nifty tools to correct for perspective distortion. I'll lose a bit of the corners, but I think this composition can handle that.

This image is similar to this image from 2014, which I took mere yards away. I think they're satisfactorily different enough - different flowers in the foreground, different orientation, and this latter image is greener.

Next is a detail of some mallow ninebark flowers and buds, with part of a leaf visible at bottom. F/5.

The next two are images in which I experimented with a flower or bud in the foreground and the colors of Kamiak Butte and the Palouse in the background. In the first are mallow ninebark flowers, in the second the buds of a rose bush (probably Nootka rose). I used f/16 and f/11, respectively, to preserve some shape in the background. In both cases, the contrast could use enhancing - but that's easy. It's getting rid of excessive contrast that's hard...

Finally, Cynoglossum officinale, or hound's-tongue. I learned to my dismay that this is an introduced weed in the U.S., and a relatively troublesome one at that. An image like this brings up interesting philosophical questions. What would it say if, for instance, I included it in an exhibit themed around the plants of Kamiak Butte? Could I in good conscience celebrate the aesthetic value of a flower that the Butte would be better without? Anyway, here it is. F/5.

Fourth Time's a Charm

I recently returned from an overnight trip to Fields Spring State Park. I believe that, this time, my landscape images were more successful than previous trips. Part of this was some good luck with conditions; I enjoyed some filtered sunshine and the air wasn't as hazy as other visits. I am also getting to know the park fairly well - where to find views in certain directions, certain types of flowers, how long it takes to get from point A to point B, etc. Furthermore, the park itself was much more photogenic this time than it was during my visit last spring; this winter and spring have seen healthier snowfall and rainfall, leading to greener grass and a more impressive wildflower display.

The first image is from the top of Puffer Butte looking roughly west. I liked the interesting cloud formations positioned over the wildflowers. To put these elements together successfully, I had to use both a polarizing filter and a graduated neutral density filter (to darken the sky). As you can see, the use of these two filters created a bit of vignetting. That is fixable, though. F/16.

The next two show a group of paintbrush flowers, with the views in the background, from slightly different vantage points. I can't decide which one I like better. The second one has a more interesting sky, and would be more amenable to 8x10/16x20 cropping. F/25 in both cases.

Here is a view from a side trail just a few minutes after sunrise the next morning. F/22.

In the next two images, both from the Puffer Butte summit, I tried to experiment with the view of the distant Wallowa Mountains. The distance makes them a bit hard to discern through the haze, but it might be interesting to play with the lighting, contrast, and white balance in Lightroom and see if I can't bring the mountains out a bit. F/16 in both cases.

Lastly, a couple fun closeups. First is old man's whiskers (Geum triflorum). This is a better angle than I've gotten in the past - as the flowers look downward, getting a good perspective can be tricky. F/3.5.

Next is Douglas's brodiaea (Brodiaea douglaii or Triteleia grandiflora). F/3.3.

Colfax Adventures

This morning, I had the good fortune to visit the Colfax Trail. It follows a former railroad route along the Palouse River north/west of Colfax, WA. I hadn't visited it before, and I liked it a lot - since it's mainly in a riparian setting, it's rather lush, with a lot of wooded sections of ponderosa and cottonwood forest. Not to mention the nice views of the river and its canyon walls. The trail also has a fairly wild and private feel, since the cliffs and hills do a good job of sheltering the trail from the surrounding sights and sounds of civilization. It's an interesting change of pace, then, from the general spread of the Palouse.

The first image is the one that I ended up genuinely liking. This is from near the beginning of the trail, shortly after sunrise. There were bits of pieces of mist floating around the valley, and I managed to time this one fairly well in that regard. If and when I edit the RAW file in Lightroom, getting the sky to look right will be a challenge, but it's a good enough composition that it might be worth a shot. F/22.

The following images are ones that I'm not quite so sure about, or that would take a lot of work.

The next one looks over the Palouse River through a flowering shrub. I was characteristically lazy about figuring out what it was while I was there, but if I had to guess now, I'd say this is red-osier dogwood (Cornus stolonifera). I used F/4.5 to blur the river in the background.

In this one, I framed the canyon wall with a cottonwood tree. It gives a good sense of the character of the views from the trail, at least the first third or so.

Finally, the canyon walls with what I am guessing is mallow ninebark in the foreground. I like the composition, but the lighting is a bit contrasty for my tastes, and the colors a bit muted. Even so, it might be interesting to play with this in Lightroom and see if I can get it to look better. This image was from a mere 8am - even by that time, the lighting starts to get a bit too harsh on a sunny day. F/32.

I'm hoping to make a return visit on a cloudy day. I might be able to experiment more with some views of the canyon walls, especially toward the end of the trail (where it'd be hard to get to on a sunny day in time for good light).

Rainy Day Recess

At least, rainy at first. Yesterday, I found myself blessed with a free morning, and made a little jaunt to Kamiak Butte. The day started out rather soggy, but that ended up being a blessing - the rain left some attractive water droplets on flowers and plants, as you'll soon see. Once the drizzle had stopped, I enjoyed several hours of overcast lighting and almost no breeze, which is close to perfect for photography. Kamiak Butte itself was looking quite nice. This winter/spring has been wetter than the last, so everything is greener and the wildflower display has been a bit more impressive in my opinion. The balsamroot are past peak and looked a bit beaten down by the recent rain, but there were plenty of other fun plants to photograph.

We'll start with some closeups. Here is ballhead waterleaf (Hydrophyllum capitatum). I was intrigued by the water droplet encasing the stamens. This image would have been quite difficult if there had been any sort of a breeze. F/5.6.

The next two are closeups of paintbrush (genus Castilleja). F/4.2 for both of them. Silly me, I didn't take the time to figure out which species of paintbrush these are, and I'm frankly not very good yet at telling them apart.

Below is a larkspur, probably Nuttall's larkspur (Delphinium nuttallianum). I've photographed larkspur before, but had yet to have good luck with a shot this close. F/6.3.

Next are some images that, while still relatively close, involved using narrow apertures to preserve more or the background, in contrast to the isolation sought in the images above. The first shows a little group of paintbrush, with flowering shrubs and the Palouse in the background. I stopped down to f/13 to have some of the background discernible.

This next one is similar, with desert parsley instead of paintbrush. F/18. I think it's narrow-leaved desert parsley, or Lomatium triternatum.

This one is a flowering shrub or tree of some sort that I haven't yet identified. Anyway, I don't usually include a cloudy sky in my compositions because it will look bland and washed out. In this case, however, a bit of filtered sunshine peeking through the clouds illuminated the foreground enough to create a nice contrast with the sky. The entire image could use a bit of lighting work, but I think it's on the right track. F/11.

The next one was a bit of an experiment. Instead of focusing on a flower as I often do, I focused on the stem/leaves, intrigued as I was by the numerous water droplets. I think this is also Lomatium triternatum. F/16.

Finally, two landscapes. The first was one of the earliest images of the morning, while it was still sprinkling a bit. While I would have liked just a bit more definition in the farthest background, I like the effect of the Palouse contours fading to gray. It really captures the atmosphere of the morning.

Second is some desert parsley, probably Lomatium dissectum, with the slope of Kamiak and the fields of the Palouse beyond. I don't know that this shot is terribly captivating, but it gives a good sense of how the place looks right now.