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.