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.

Several Splendid Summer Sunset Skies

So I made another trip to Birch Bay, and was treated to one of the more colorful sunsets I've seen in a while, as well as choppier waves than I've seen there yet (or anywhere for a while). The first, from a few minutes after sunset, is probably my favorite. The clouds had turned a quite lovely color and some virga was starting to come down from them. Without further ado, here they are:

On an earlier day, I explored a spot by the Nooksack River to take some sunset pictures. The most interesting image, though, came a bit after sunset, when afterglow was still lighting the scene (especially Mount Baker). I used a wide aperture for this one, f/6.3, by default, since I couldn't get the whole scene in focus even with a narrow setting (the rocks were too close).

I'm not sure if I like it compositionally, but the colors are cool. Ideally, the rocks wouldn't be lined up in the center the way they are here. It might be worth a return visit to retry some similar compositions - now that I am familiar with the location, I'd be able to set up a shot more carefully. Anyway, here it is:

Next, a shot of the river and Baker from a bit earlier. While a wide depth of field worked better, the image isn't as striking overall. F/22.

This one was earlier in the evening, and I liked the warm color of the last bit of sunlight on the trees. F/20. This one took some trial and error with the polarizing filter - if I polarized it all the way, the blue of the sky became quite uneven and unsightly, so I had to back off a bit.

Summer in the Mountains

The inaugural post of summer 2015 will celebrate - what else - mountains! I made a trip up to the Chain Lakes trail, hoping to find some vanage points that I would be able to access at good lighting times of this sunny day (within roughly four hours of sunrise and sunset). Remarkably, wildflowers are peaking in the area, and Artist Point itself has much less snow than it did when I visited in late July last year. What a crazy weather year!

First is a shot of Mount Baker (bottom left) and some cool-looking cumulus clouds. I didn't notice these cloud forms at first - I had been working on a decidedly much less interesting perspective of Baker and, when finished, looked around at the sky after I had packed up. A good reminder to always look up and around you when hiking and at vantage points!

Next, an image of Mazama Lake, one of the Chain Lakes. I noticed that the lake reflected a lot more color when the wind was blowing, so for this shot I did the opposite of what I usually do and waited for a breeze to blow. The sunlight enabled me to use a shutter speed of 1/50 second and keep the heather flowers sharp.

Here is a closer shot of some gone-to-seed pasque flower (Anemone occidentalis) with Mt. Shuksan in the background. I found these on the trail up from Bagley Lakes to Herman Saddle. I used f/6.3 to blur the mountain while still keeping it distinguishable.

Below is a view down Bagley Creek with some Sitka valerian flowers in the foreground.

Below is a view from the slope between Ptarmigan Ridge and the lakes, into the Wells Creek drainage. I used a graduated ND filter to darken the sky and reduce contrast.

Below is a shot of some Sitka valerian and mountain spirea with Upper Bagley Lake in the background. Again, this one was taken while a slight breeze was blowing, increasing the sun reflections on the water. I used f/25 to get as much in focus as I could.

Next, two close-ups. The first is what I think is a color variant of small-flowered paintbrush (Castilleja parviflora) given the leaf shape and color. F/4.5.

Next is leatherleaf saxifrage, or Leptarrhena pyrofolia. I think that what I have photographed here are the fruits rather than the flowers. I saw a lot of these plants near lakes and streams.

Finally, the view of Mount Baker from Herman Saddle. I'm not all that enthused about this photograph because the lighting/contrast is rather poor, this image being taken at midday. However, I still wanted to share that great view.

Happy summer!

Another Sunset and a First!

I made a return visit to Birch Bay State Park the other day because it's such a nice place to see a sunset. As it was a Friday night, the beach was rather busy, but people were generally quite friendly, and the beach was certainly big enough to accommodate both other beachgoers and my own search for vantage points. The largest distraction was probably the hunger-inducing smells of people's picnics.

First is a view of the sunset through a big ol' piece of driftwood. I had to break out the heavy artillery for this one and use my ultra-wide lens. I used f/22 because I wanted to produce the sun rays you see here, as well as maximizing my area of focus. It's already edited - the contrast on this shot was quite high, and wasn't presentable in the camera's JPEG form. Editing from the RAW file, I was able to recover some of the shadows without blowing out the sunset itself.

Next is a view of the sunset itself. It's a bit more generic, but I still like it, and like the slight water blur I got at 1/13 of a second. Again, the sun rays you see are due to a narrow aperture, f/25.

Lastly, my first-ever wildlife photograph: a bald eagle that some kind beachgoers pointed out to me! I would have liked to zoom up closer, but my lens only goes up to 200mm - I haven't invested in anything more because I typically don't do wildlife! Who knows, though. I was lucky in this shot because the eagle stood quite still, basically posing for me. Anyway, if you want to see some real bird photography, explore the work of my friend Tyler Hartje. But here's my picture:

Discovery Park Trip

The fireweed are blooming at Discovery Park! First, a closeup. I've done a similar composition before (see the first photo in this post from last year). Today's, however, has the advantage of the sunrise light and thus more interesting coloration. F/6.3 to keep recognizable form in the rest of the flower.

Next, another relatively close shot of fireweed flowers that turned out well. F/4.

Next is a closeup of ocean spray flowers. The contrast between the shaded background and the bright flowers was enough to make the background look black, which I think is a somewhat cool effect here.  Thankfully, the sunlight was filtered by some high clouds, helping prevent overexposure. F/4.5.

A slightly less close shot of some ocean spray. F/5.

Below is a wider shot of the fireweed right at sunrise. I've done compositions from this spot quite similar in concept to this one, but I think this particular one uses the space better, not requiring any drastic cropping like this one did. I was closer to the closest stalk in this case, and thus was able to convey a better sense of depth.

For the last two, I did a little experiment in perspective. I did some wider shots looking up at fireweed stalks, which is not something I can remember doing before. I think the first is the stronger of the two, due to the cloud positioning, but I like both of these compositions. F/22 and F/25 for maximum depth of field.