Stuart Lake

I recently made a brief foray into Alpine Lakes Wilderness on the Stuart Lake trail. While I would have needed a permit to backpack in the area, day hiking is allowed if one fills out a little form at the trailhead. I chose the Stuart Lake trail because it seemed a good match for my current level of physical fitness. A month ago, I probably wouldn't have been able to handle even that. But thanks to more frequent walking and hiking, as well as some trips to the gym, I'm getting there. The trail itself is pleasant enough and not too rocky. There are some stretches that aren't so scenic, but the highlights definitely make up for it.

We'll start with the view from a clearing a few miles in, with some aspen trees in the foreground. I believe that the peak on the left is Argonaut Peak, with Sherpa Peak on the right. This was actually the second time I tried photographing this particular viewpoint. On the way up, the lighting was more contrasty and the aspen trunks were shaded at this angle. But on my way back down the trail, the sunlight fell on the aspen trunks, accentuating them more; additionally, the sunshine was more filtered, resulting in a more even exposure.

Here is a different composition of the same view, with more emphasis on the mountains.

Stuart Lake itself also has some nice views. Here's a view across the lake through some granite. I used f/22 to get both the granite and the lake/mountains in focus.

Finally, a view from early in the trail. I think this might be Mount Stuart itself. The sunlight was filtered a bit at the moment; even so, the highlights got a bit blown out. Not irreparably so, however.

I found some new wildflowers! The first is yellow or golden columbine, Aquilegia flavescens. I only noticed it on one spot along the trail, and I'm glad it caught my eye. F/3.8.

Next is what I believe to by showy Jacob's ladder, Polemonium pulcherrimum. F/3.8.

Finally, I believe these are pinedrops (Pterospora andromedea). I found these beside my campsite at Eightmile Campground. F/3.3.

Lastly, here are a couple views of Icicle Creek from Eightmile Campground, where I spent the night. They have an excessively bluish cast due to the fact that they were taken under clear skies, but that'll be easy enough to deal with. The highlight of the first is what I believe to be sulfur buckwheat, Erigonum umbellatum; the highlight of the second is an impressive ponderosa pine trunk.

Lake Trip

Yesterday I decided to take my chances with the showers in the forecast and get out for a quick photo trip. My destination was Lake Twenty-Two - there are already wildflowers in bloom there, and the trail is short enough that I figured I could get some shooting time before the afternoon showers bubbled up. I got to the lake by about 8:30, and that's with my characteristically slow perambulation. I shan't specify how early I got up...

First is a view through bigleaf maple trunks along the trail, looking up the hillside. I liked how the trunks lined up, forming a rough sort of symmetry from this particular vantage point. F/22.

Next is a view of the lake itself. I was able to find an even better vantage point a few minutes later, and the clouds were more interesting, but a breeze kicked up and ruined these reflections. This one turned out all right, other than a bit of remedial lighting work that needs to be done. F/22.

Below are some Sitka valerian (Valeriana sitchensis) in bloom, with the cliffs ringing the lake in the background. I used the heavy artillery for this one - my wide-angle lens, all the way out at 10mm. I'm not sure how interesting the composition is, and there is a bit of perspective distortion to work on. F/22.

Finally is a western red columbine (Aquilegia formosa) in the rain. I'm not sure whether I like this image due to the self-portrait. Can you find it? F/4.2.

Olympic Extravaganza Part 2

On my way back from the rainforest, I stopped over at Sol Duc Falls. Despite the fact that it was a weekday morning, the trail was still rather busy - not least due to a horde of middle schoolers who descended on the trail. But the falls thundered just the same. It's a nice hike, too, quick and easy through pleasant forest. So the crowds are there for good reason.

Here's my favorite, with some devil's club framed against the trail. 1/4 second. Longer would have made the water look even better, but it was quite a task as it was to time the exposure with lulls in the breeze.

Next, here's a broader view of the falls. The water itself is overexposed in a few places, but it shouldn't be too hard of a fix in this case. I erred on the side of overexposing because I wanted the dark vegetation-covered cliffs at upper right to show up. 1.3 seconds.

Olympic Extravaganza part 1

As I am enjoying all my newfound free time after my retirement from academia, I made a recent two-night trip to the Olympic Peninsula, primarily to see the Hoh Rainforest. It's really something else, with the volume of moss on the trees and the extensive old growth. The forest itself is also relatively open in places, both due to the varying age of the trees and the browsing of elk and other animals. As a side note, I rather surprisingly didn't see any wildlife, including the area's iconic Roosevelt elk (or Olympic elk). I did see plenty of elk tracks, however. Other hikers were writing entries on the elk observation log at the trailhead as well, so they were certainly out there.

I won't dwell too much here on the technical particulars of my images. In all of the images in this post, I used narrow apertures to achieve wide depths of field; this ended up requiring some patience, as the long shutter speeds that I used under tree cover meant that I frequently had to wait for a breeze to die down.

We'll start out with a big ol' Sitka spruce trunk, along with some vine maple leaves in both the foreground and background.

Next is row of old trunks typical of trees that began growth on a nurse log; the tangle of roots and the alignment persist long after the fallen tree has rotten away.

Here's a view of some various varieties of ferns with the mossy forest in the background.

The next two show bigleaf maple festooned with mosses. I wasn't so sure about the second one compositionally-  I just don't know if it's all that interesting - but I like it better here on the computer than I did on the camera screen. The maples look somewhat ghostly with all the moss.

Another forest landscape:

Finally, something a bit different: A view up, during a brief period of afternoon sunshine, at the trunks of Sitka spruce and western hemlock. The contrast made this one tricky to pull off; I had to wait until there was a minimum of clouds in the frame, as they were hard to avoid overexposing.

Coming soon: Sol Duc Falls!

Sun Fun

I went to Magnuson Park this morning to experiment with the sunrise. I had some interesting results, although I was dealing with the scourge of lens flares. These were compounded by the fact that, in many cases (the first two out of the three in this post), I needed to use a graduated neutral density filter. Any time you add a filter, this increases your chance for lens flares. Thus, today's images would take some work in Lightroom to reduce or remove the flares, probably using the adjustment brush or possibly the clone/heal feature.

There's a technique, of course, in which you can combine multiple exposures, one of which involves blocking the sun with your hand, thus theoretically avoiding flares altogether. I have not yet aspired to this level of technical proficiency. It'd be hard to do anyway with subject matter like grass and flowers, since they tend to move ever so slightly in between exposures, even on a relatively still morning like this morning. So Lightroom it is - and, as of this writing, I've already done some experimenting with positive results. I'll won't get the flares to the point where it looks like they were never there, but hopefully I can alleviate to the point where they wouldn't be noticeable without specifically looking for them.

The first one looks out at Lake Washington through some grass.

Next is a nearby patch of white clover. There are also some issues with flares in this one, although they're fairly small and should also be manageable.

Finally, some hardhack, or Douglas's spiraea (Spiraea douglasii). I'm not quite sure about how I feel about this image as a whole - I wish the hardhack occupied more of the frame, and that there wasn't the coloration right around the sun. Still, I think it's nice.