Spring Break pt 5.1

On Saturday, as a last hurrah for my Spring Break, I drove down to Mima Mounds Natural Preserve in the hopes of catching some flowers.

According to park signs, this and other prairies in the south Puget Sound area formed after glacial meltwater, from the ending of the Ice Ages, washed up a lot of rocks and created some areas of very rocky soil that don't hold water relatively well. Later, during a warm period (10,000ya-4,000ya according to the park) prairie plants established themselves. After that, a wetter and cooler climate occurred, but the prairies were already there and maintained by local Native Americans, who burned the prairies to preserve camas habitat (the bulbs are edible).

Maintaining a native environment like this takes work, particularly in the wake of human disturbance and introduced species. While I was there, I saw volunteers yanking invasive plants out of the ground. Signs described how, in 2009, some Douglas firs were removed to allow Garry oaks to grow. Even before white settlement, native residents burned many prairies regularly to keep forest from encroaching.

There were a few camas blooming, though most of those flowers have yet to bloom in the park.

The real highlights were the shooting star flowers blooming all over the park. Here are the best pictures I took of them. Like camas flowers, these shooting star were too short for the use of my tripod; therefore, all of the pictures you see (in fact, all of the pictures I took at the preserve) were handheld.

I was also able to use my wide-angle lens for a shot. There is a little patch of dandelions growing along one of the trails in the middle of the park. Given how bright the sky was, it turned out better-defined than I had expected. I used an apterture of f/16 to get everything in focus. Were I to edit it, I would probably brighten up the foreground a bit.

There are also a lot of early blue violet (Viola adunca) blooming. Some of the flowers looked a bit motley - they seemed to already have been blooming for a while - but I found some nice ones. I'm finding more and more that I have to be very picky with the flowers I photograph close-up. I took a couple of camas pictures on Saturday, but ended up displeased with them. One of the flowers only had five petals (instead of the normal six). The other flower had all six petals, but some of them had holes and bites out of them. Everything "worked" in those pictures' technical respects, but the characteristics of the flowers themselves ruined the images.

Spring Break Pt 4

My latest photography adventure was a bit of a wild goose chase. I had read on WTA trail reports that flowers such as camas and paintbrush were blooming at Deception Pass State Park. Somehow, I assumed that camas must also be growing at Ebey's Landing, which is nearby. Incorrect! Other than common weeds, there were very few flowers blooming. The pictures I did take, to boot, didn't turn out very well.

I did, however, get this cool wide-angle shot of mustard flowers blooming:

Luckily, I had drawn a characteristically primitive road map to a trailhead in Deception Pass State Park just in case Ebey's Landing didn't pay off. I hiked the Rosario Point and Lighthouse Point trails; this venture proved much more fruitful.

I got a sweet top-down view of a paintbrush (Harsh paintrbush, or Castilleja hispida...I think). There was a little patch of these blooming on trail to Rosario Point. This marked the first time I had ever seen a paintbrush of this variety.

And another first: I finally found camas flowers! I believe they are common camas (Camassia quamash). They are just beginning to bloom on the bluffs of both points.

This was my favorite composition. I think the yellow flowers in the background add interest:

There's one little problem with photographing camas: the plants themselves are so short that I cannot use a tripod to photograph them! All the camas pictures you see tonight were shot handheld at ISO 500, which is a higher setting than I generally prefer.

Here are a few others:

I will definitely be returning to Deception Pass State Park in the near future - both for all the nice flowers and also for the forests. The forests are not all as lush as some in the Puget Sound area, due to the fact that the park sits in the Olympic Mountains' rainshadow. But still, they're very nice, have some interesting plants, and have some big ol' trees in the old-growth areas. It was so late in the day when I visited that I didn't really have time to photograph the forests (I started at Ebey's Landing in the early afternoon, and didn't get to Deception Pass until after 5pm). Shame. Next time!!

Spring Break pt3

Third straight day of photo-making! I like spring break so far. I also like this spring's weather so far. Quite an improvement over April 2011.

First of all, I was able to conjure up a much better Pacific bleeding-heart composition than last time I visited Carkeek. I used a narrow aperture of f/16 to get some definition in the leaves. The flowers stayed remarkably still for the 1.3 seconds my shutter was open.

Secondly, I got this interesting shot of a lilac bush beginning to flower. The first is at f/7.1, the second at f/22. They're both good, but I think the narrower depth of field accentuates the one open flower a bit more. I don't know. Still thinking.

Spring Break, pt 2

This morning, I hoisted myself out of bed at a rather early hour to make sunrise at Magnuson Park. It's the first time for a while I've been there, maybe even the first this year. (I could look through my pictures to check, but I'm too lazy.)

This might be my favorite of the morning. I think these flowers are serviceberry, but don't quote me on that. The early morning lighting was just perfect.

The theme of the rest of the morning was bigleaf maple trees. They are flowering all over the place and beginning to leaf out. Here is one of emerging leaves:

My pictures of blossoms were not as successful. I'll try again later this week. Here are some of the better ones. The second one would look a lot better, I think, with some lighting adjustments - if the flowers were brighter relative to the whole picture, they would stand out and be stronger in the composition.

Spring Break, pt 1

So, yesterday I started things off by visiting Saint Edward State Park. It was still a normal day of work, so not technically Spring Break. And next week - my actual "Spring Break" week - I am still working, although a different and somewhat reduced schedule that should be more conducive to photography adventures.

But I had the time, and it stopped raining. As I drove the road into the bark, through a forest thick and bright with new leaves, I got very excited for the week ahead.

I started things off with some opening fern close-ups. These ones were, I think, from sword ferns. The second one is my favorite.

Also, I think I found a trillium! They're one of the classic northwest coast forest flowers, although they're hard to come by in city parks. Also, they're supposed to be white. This one definitely wasn't, but the guidebook says that old flowers fade to pink or purple. Hopefully I'll have other chances to find white trillium flowers this year (in forests in the Cascades, for example).

Finally, some semi-wide forest shots.

Spring in the Valley

Yesterday marked my biggest photo adventure so far this year - a trip to Three Forks Natural Area and the Meadowbrook Farm Preserve, between Snoqualmie and North Bend.

Things started off on an awesome note, because a light mist was hanging over Meadowbrook Slough as the sun emerged from behind the hills.

Three Forks Natural Area a nice park, but its potential goes unrealized. There is one main trail that goes through a big grassy area, cuts through the forest, and goes part of the way through another grassy area. This trail is quite muddy in places, but that is to be expected in April. Still, some parks use gravel or bark to make trails less boggy, and I was surprised not to see it here. Maybe the park is so boggy that even bark and gravel would be impractical in solving the mud problem.

Moreover, every so often a side trail would branch off from the main trail, and it wasn't clear if these were official trails or not. I tried to stick with worn paths (not wanting to trample any ecosystems), but even these usually ended in a shoe-sucking maze of mudholes, willows, and salmonberry bushes. The park could use some clearer signs, maps and trail maintenance; or, if the side trails are not meant to be used, those trails could be more identifiably blocked and/or signs could say "STAY ON MAIN TRAIL" or something.

Mossy thicket that swallowed one of my trails.

The most substantial side trail afforded me a few views of the Snoqualmie River. I took this one with my new wide angle lens! I wish the trees looked a bit more spring-like; there's also a lot of perspective distortion around the edges. Still, I think it's an interesting shot.

The forests were very cottonwood-heavy, with an understory of salmonberry and some other plants. A smattering of maples, alders and conifers completed the mix, but by and large cottonwoods ruled the day. Since the cottonwoods had only just started to leaf out, I didn't get much interesting in the way of pictures of the forest itself. I did, however, get this good one of a salmonberry blossom superimposed over the forest:

This next one is one of the best out of the forests. The forest still isn't very colorful yet due to the general lack of leaves.

I also did a bit of wandering on Meadowbrook Farm Preserve. It's also rather mucky in places - and, problematically, the map shows "trails current and future." This caused me a few navigational problems. Still, I enjoyed myself, and found some places to revisit later in the year when more plants are out.

My favorite shot from the preserve was one upon which I stumbled almost by accident - a picture of a dandelion with mountains and grey clouds in the background. I'm lucky when I can find sunshine and dark clouds together; that always makes for dramatic scenery. Here's that and a few other pictures from the Preserve:

 A lovely weed. This might be Hybrid Dead Nettle, or Lamium hybridum.

An alder forest in the Preserve. I have a feeling that this picture would be more interesting if I boosted the contrast and some of the colors, particularly green.

Willows against a moody sky.

Time to switch gears!

This morning, I visited nearby Big Finn Hill Park. Frankly, most of the park isn't very interesting, but there are some swampy parts with some interesting plants and nice cottonwood groves. This picture was the one good one I got this morning. My camera did a good job of filling in the shadows - so good, in fact, that the picture almost looks like it went through HDR processing. It didn't, but it's still almost overdone. Anyway, though, I like the backlighting and the reflections.

Why only this good one, you ask? Well, the sun was so high and bright by the time I got outside that the light was too contrasty for very many good pictures. I had thought it was going to cloud up, which was why I waited. Clouds did not come - at least not in time for my purposes (it's clouding up now, but I'm eating lunch and have to go to work soon).

It's getting to be that time of year when I can't just sit around in the morning, waiting to figure out what's going on lighting-wise. If I do that, as I did this morning, I can wind up outside too late for good lighting.  In the spring and summer it's wiser to go right out at first light and take the gamble based on the forecast. If it becomes sunny - something that is getting more and more likely - I can miss the good light, due to earlier sunrise and higher sun angle.

Licorice (the good kind)

This morning I went to Carkeek Park to take advantage of our good weather and continuing forest plant flower show.

First, I got some cool shots of ferns opening up. Not quite sure what kind - might be bracken fern but I'm not 100% sure. Anyway, in these pictures the unfurling fern resembles the head of an elephant!

Also, the Pacific bleeding heart (Dicentra formosa) are beginning to bloom. They're quite small but are very lovely; since most plants sit below my tripod's lowest setting, however, they're difficult to photograph. Soon many more will be blooming and I'll be able to choose better settings (take a picture of a flower growing on an uphill slope from a trail, for example).

How could I resist another salmonberry picture? In this one, you can faintly see forest trees in the background. I had to use a somewhat narrow aperture to get that (f/14). This meant a long exposure (1/2 second, which in close-up photography is an eternity). Most ended up blurry due to the slightest of breezes, but I got one successful shot, and that's all it takes!!

Now, to the title - I used my wide-angle lens to take a picture of some licorice ferns (Polypodium glycyrrhiza) living on a tree trunk, as they often do. Feeling adventurous, I stopped all the way down to f/18 to get the ferns and tree trunk all in good focus. And it worked! There wasn't much of a breeze, either, which helped the ferns stay sharp. Even at f/18 the background is a bit mushy, but the important parts of the picture came out sharp, and I think it's a pretty good result overall.

Try, Try Again

I must have done something to engender bad luck. This is because most of the pictures I took this morning didn't work. Photographing a red-flowering currant bush with my wide-angle lens: looked gross, and wasn't as striking of a composition as my mind's eye thought. Photographing backlit flowers: failed, because by the time I got each shot composed and focused properly, the light disappeared. EVERY TIME. (Probably about 6 different compositions). A few times I waited for the light to return, but to no avail. The breeze also kicked up just when I needed it not to, and from just the right direction to turn the salmonberry leaves into sails.

And I lost a lens cap.

A few good things happened, though. I chanced to capture some fantastic clouds and light over the Olympic mountains. I also got a decent (shaded) flower picture.

Here are the mountain pictures. They ended up quite a bit underexposed and with not nearly enough contrast...so, for a quick blog-able fix, I used the Auto-Contrast feature in Picasa. Obviously, I would go through a more intentional editing process if I wanted to use one of these seriously. The water in particular should not be so dark, and everything could stand some brightening, but I didn't want to take the time to do a whole lot of editing before posting these.

And, although my backlit pictures were a total flop, this one of shaded salmonberry was acceptable. As far as focusing/sharpness goes, I've done better with this type of flower. But I like the composition, with the flat leaves on top, the zig-zagging branches and the second flower in the background.

The Many Moods of Salmonberry and Currant

Yesterday was quite the day! As you can probably imagine, I did not expect the weather to be as nice as it was. The warmth and sunshine put me in rather good spirits; I even broke out shorts for the afternoon, first time this year!

I visited Meadowdale Beach Park to see if I could still catch some salmonberry flowers. Indeed, there were many, especially along the lower portions of the trail. The alder and maple trees have yet to leaf out, so everything was very bright.

Here is my best close-up. I think this is one of my best yet of a salmonberry flower. It's sharp in the right places, and the background isn't too intrusive.

Another good close-up was this of a red-flowering currant bush toward the beginning of the trail. I kind of like the dark background, it makes the picture look a bit moody, and highlights the flowers:

I also captured a few other interesting shots of salmonberry flowers - not as close-up, but some interesting compositions. I used a narrower aperture/wider depth of field than I sometimes do in macro shots because, in all cases, I wanted the background to have some definition and be part of the composition.

That last one could use some remedial rotation - the tree wasn't perfectly vertical to begin with, but it would make for a better composition.