2015: Year in Review and New Year's Resolutions

Well, that's all folks, for 2015! It's time for another year-in-review post where I write about some of the past year's highlights and come up with some goals for the next. 2015 had its ups and downs, both personally and in terms of the time and energy I had available to devote to photography. Even so, there were some enjoyable moments, and I made some definite accomplishments.

Before we get down to it, here is the annual and obligatory plug for my websites:

• My Zhibit, which functions as an online portfolio for the images I've edited.
• My Facebook page! Give it a "like" if you haven't! This is where I usually announce any events or shows I might be doing. I also post individual pictures occasionally, with anecdotes and information that didn't necessarily make it into the blog.

Last Year's Resolutions

First, let's see how I did on the resolutions I made at the beginning of 2015.

1) Skies - I resolved last year to do more photography of the sky and interesting clouds. Though not as much as I might have envisioned, I certainly did accomplish some new compositions involving the sky in 2015.

Here's my favorite, looking at the sky and Mount Baker from the Chain Lakes Trail, near Artist Point. The polarizing filter really came in handy with this one, and although the polarization is uneven, I think it actually works in this case. The riskiest part of this image, though, was minimizing Baker itself in the composition. I think it works, due to the prominence of the large cloud, and the fact that the mountain is snowy and recognizable enough to still be intelligible. The final verdict would have to come upon seeing this printed at a decent size.

2) Winter, continuing to find color and interesting subjects - Yes, to the extent that I found time in the winter. Shortly after I wrote my review of 2014, I went on a couple trips before things got too crazy. The first one here is from Kamiak Butte in January, on an interesting weather day. A light snow had fallen earlier in the morning, and the snow level must have been just barely at the level of the Palouse, because it didn't accumulate on the valley floor level but did on the hills like Kamiak Butte. This created an interesting color contrast.

Practically speaking, my Microspikes (something I mentioned in my new year's resolutions last time around) came in handy. The north side of Kamiak, where the trails up are, is problematic in terms of ice; the constant shade, I think, prevents small/moderate snows from melting completely like they do on the exposed south face.

Here are the two from the Big Four Ice Caves area. This was yet another occasion for me to use my Microspikes; people were trying to get along without them, of course, but they were slipping and falling quite a bit. So, they were a good investment, particularly given the fact that all the gear I carry makes balance an extra challenge. (Later in the year, the Forest Service closed part of the trail. Both of these images, however, are from parts of the trail and the spur that are still accessible, so there is some nice scenery and easy walking to be had if you're in the area.)

3) Better Image Quality - Ehh...hard to say, really. I will say, however, that I am at least more aware, both in the field and at home, of potential image quality issues, such as perspective distortion, chromatic aberration, noise, sharpness, depth of field capabilities, etc. I suppose it's probably helpful to guess in the field what I might need to do to an image later - for instance, I might leave some extra room on the margins if I'm going to have to correct for distortion.

Certainly, I've become more able to notice things that need correcting, such as perspective distortion (for instance, a straight tree trunk that the lens rendered as bowed). Ultimately, however, I need more time and money - time to experiment with Lightroom, and money to buy a better main lens.

4) More Trips - not exactly. I did, however, get more creative about operating under the time and geographic constraints of graduate school in Pullman. There are a few nice little nature preserves and pullouts in the area. More than that, there are many good photographs to be had by simply driving out to the country, parking on a gravel or dirt road somewhere, and wandering up and down the road. Doing this involves a lot of guesswork, generally consisting of some time spent zooming in and out on Google Earth, looking at the topography and trying to estimate where the sun will rise or set, and a healthy tolerance for trial and error. Occasional traffic and clouds of dust notwithstanding, gravel roads can actually be quite pleasant for photographing and wandering.

The best was a morning in early September when I visited a gravel road between Palouse and Garfield, roughly, that looked over the Palouse River. I'll feature one of the images, a sunrise shot, later; here is the link to the trip. There was the added bonus of a bit of mist in the valley. Although it had occurred to me that I might find some, I didn't expect it as it was fairly early in the year. For the most part, I was alone, but I briefly had some small company: a little porcupine waddling down the road. First time I'd ever seen one!

Another highlight in terms of creative trip planning came this summer, when I went to Birch Pay State Park to photograph the moon. I'll talk about the image itself later, but it was a triumph in advance planning. On my moonrise and moonset calendar, which I had posted to my wall early in the summer, I highlighted a few promising days. I knew Birch Bay had a fairly expansive westward view, so about a week in advance, I booked a campsite (for a weekday; weekend camping is risky business around here). I got to the park after work, so I didn't do much but eat my sandwich and sleep. The next morning, I rose to my phone alarm and hit the beach. All in all, I had about 10-20 minutes of usable shooting time, where the light was what I wanted and I could expose for both the moon and its surroundings.

Other Highlights

1) The Moon - I'm surprised I didn't list this as a new year's resolution last year, because I've always wanted to do moon photography, and my attempts in previous years have fallen flat. I still did have some busts this year - most notable was my attempt to photograph the lunar eclipse in September. While I certainly had a pleasant evening wandering up and down a deserted dirt road in the countryside and listening to crickets, my images themselves fell flat artistically and technically. It simply took me too long to get a good handle on the exposure and ISO settings I'd need.

But there were some successes. The first is a moonrise from Birch Bay State Park, shortly before sunrise. It's a rather simple composition, but I think it works; I'm especially pleased by the color of the sky and the water, as well as the fact that I got good detail on the moon. I read somewhere - not sure where - that a good principle for full (or basically full) moon photography is to time it for when the moon will set after sunrise, or rise before sunset. That way, you have a good view of it when you can expose for both it and its surroundings. I observed this principle here and in the next image.

This second moon image is a moonrise, also from the Bellingham area, near Tennant Lake. Like the one above, this image took quite a bit of planning. I was met with a quite unwelcome ambush of mosquitoes later in the evening.

2) Sunsets - Last year, in my review of 2014, I wrote this little nugget of wisdom: "I maybe don't rely as much on sunsets and sunrises as I used to." Fool that I was! How little I knew then. Spending the summer in Bellingham afforded me multiple opportunities for sunset photography. There are lots of great places to do so - Birch Bay State Park and Larrabee State Park are highlights, each in their different way - and the weather was fantastic almost all summer. It would have been irresponsible not to take advantage of these places while I was there. In the process, I think I made some of my best sunset pictures to date.

The first is a motif I've explored before - grass with an out-of-focus sunset or sunrise - but I think I've done a better job here than I have in the past. The sun is very large in the frame, I got very close to the blade of grass, and I like the moody colors that the clouds above the sun created. I'd like to say that the decision to shoot this way was the result of careful planning. In this case, however, the decision was borne more from desperation; a compositional idea I'd had with a wider depth of field just wasn't working out, so I opened up the aperture on a whim.

In the next three, respectively from near Point Whitehorn, Larrabee State Park, and Birch Bay State Park, I went the opposite route and experimented with a wide depth of field.

Next is something a bit different: a sunset from a very smoky day in the Bellingham area. I think wildfires in British Columbia were producing a lot of this smoke. I set my camera very low to the ground and zoomed in quite a bit. I like the effect this had on the water.

Finally, here's a little experiment I did with some waves. I used a shutter speed of 1/5 second to blur the water a bit. I like the composition; if anything, I'm not satisfied with the edit. The waves were a bit clearer in the original JPEG, frankly, than they are in my processing of the RAW. This will do for now, but I'd want to revisit it and do a better job before I used the image for anything. Perhaps getting a print of it would give me more context for what I'd need to do differently.

Anyway, going out on this particular evening was a bit of a risk - high clouds can go either way in terms of possibilities for sunset color. Thankfully, it being summer, I had the time to take such a risk. Part of the reason I've not gone out as much this fall and winter is that I simply can't afford the time or money to risk a trip going bust (particularly since a few did go bust in August). Hopefully this situation will improve later in 2016.

The moral of the story, I suppose, is that sunsets are still a worthy pursuit, my pronouncements in 2015 notwithstanding. Hopefully I will have further opportunities along these lines in 2016.

3) The Palouse - As mentioned, I spent a bit more time this year out and about in the Palouse, on gravel roads and in small parks and nature preserves. For whatever reason, I was not particularly thrilled by the more agrarian aesthetic vein of Palouse photography - wheat fields, barns, old fences and farm equipment, etc. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but that wasn't the direction in which I wanted to go. Instead, I've found myself drawn to more pastoral settings, like river valleys used more for animal grazing than intensive plant growing, as well as the few pockets of natural and undeveloped space - including my mainstay, Kamiak Butte County Park.

The first one is from the gravel road near Palouse and Garfield that I mentioned earlier. It overlooks the Palouse River and travels through grazing land, Ponderosa forest, and even some riparian vegetation. This one is my favorite from the morning.

Next, here's a view from Rose Creek Nature Preserve. What I like about this one is that it hints at what the Palouse might look like without intensive agriculture. It would be more than endless rolling hills and prairies. In creek drainages like this one, as well as on north-facing slopes, there would be a mosaic of habitats, including some forested. In the Rose Creek area, for instance, there are open meadows, shrubby areas, Ponderosa pine woods, and quaking aspen groves. I think this image captures that nicely.

Finally, a view from near the summit of Kamiak Butte. Like the Rose Creek area, Kamiak has a lot of different habitats packed onto its slopes. Lower down on the north side, you have Ponderosa forests and a few aspen groves, with a ninebark understory; moving up, you see more fir, larch, and other tree species characteristic of moister settings. Finally, at the more exposed summit, you have a patchwork of Ponderosa pine, shrubs, and open meadows. It's a good place to go looking for plants and wildflowers (it'd also be a good place to look for birds and wildlife).

I like this image because it puts the wildflowers of the summit and the rolling Palouse landscape in the context of one another. I've found that the key to photography in the Palouse is to take advantage of sunny early mornings and late evenings: the angled sun causes the rolling hills to cast shadows, accentuating the topography. I think this image is a clear example of that principle.

4) Old-Growth Forests - I've written before about how forests present compositional challenges. It is difficult, particularly in the dense forests of Western Washington, to isolate subject matter or to create color contrast. I came away with a couple good ones last year, as I mentioned in last year's review. This year was even better, especially considering constraints - not just time, but also weather, as the consistent sunshine this summer made it difficult to find days suitable for forest photography.

This first one looks up a cedar trunk along the Baker River trail. Getting this shot was quite a project: it was raining at the time, and the camera was at a rather dramatic angle which made it hard to see. To confound matters further, the leaves kept wobbling. I must have tried this shot thirty or forty times (yay digital), and the one you see below was the only one in which the leaves were generally sharp enough to make the image useable. I then had to straighten the image out and correct for a bit of wide-angle distortion.

I like the final image, though; I think it was worth the effort. The converging lines help to create the impression of scale. The vine maples add scale as well, I think, as well as more contrast and context to a composition that otherwise would be dominated by the trunk.

This one is also from the Baker River trail, on the same day. The Baker River trail is nice because, despite the fact that there's very little elevation change, it passes through a variety of different environments and ages of forest. I believe river flooding is primarily responsible for this, as the trail skirts the floodplain.

While there is a lot going on in the photo below, I think it works because the mossy trunks and branches in the foreground are very distinct, and aren't really in competition with the alder trunks in the background.

5) New Flowers - I've always enjoyed flower close-ups, and this year I managed to get a few good ones of flowers I hadn't really photographed before, or at least not well. Here, I'll post what I consider to be the best of them, and as always, please check out my Zhibit for more. They don't need much commentary; I'll just post the species name and the location.

Grass widow (Olsynium douglasii), Kamiak Butte

Fiddleneck (genus Amsinckia), Ebey's Landing

Prairie star (Lithophragma parviflorum), Kamiak Butte

Three-leaved daisies (Erigeron filifolius), Puffer Butte (Fields Spring State Park)

6) Mountains/Other Landscapes - Here are a few other good moments from 2015 that didn't quite fit into the other categories.

First is a view of Mount Shuksan from Lake Ann. This represents, first of all, the fulfillment of a personal goal, since I'd wanted to hike the entirety of the trail for a long time. Second, I like it compositionally. The clouds at the top of the peak add drama to the image, and I like the contrast between the trees in the foreground and the glaciers. I've played around with several aspect ratios - I think the one on my Zhibit is 4x8 - but this is 8x10, and I think I like it better. As such, it more closely approximates the role of thirds, and accentuates the glaciers/cliffs a bit more. But I like the fact that the image is also passable at 4x6 and 4x8. It's rare to get a composition that versatile.

Next is a shot of fireweed in bloom, with the cliffs surrounding Lake Twenty-Two in the background. This was one of many sunny days that I had to make the best of. I hoisted myself out of bed at some ungodly hour (3am if I remember correctly) and chose the Lake Twenty-Two trail because I knew that both the drive and the hike would be comparatively brief. Even so, I had little shooting time at the lake before the sunlight got too bright and contrasty.

The next two are from the Ebey's Landing area on Whidbey Island. I've been there before but my landscapes were much more convincing this time. It's a pretty unique area; there aren't many grasslands, coastal or otherwise, that exist in an undeveloped, more or less natural state in Western Washington, particularly with bluffs and beaches as scenic as those here. I've even seen the area compared to California and Ireland. While I don't have enough first-hand knowledge to comment on the comparison, it really is a beautiful and unique place.

Both of these were shot at a narrow aperture for wide depth of field; the flowers in the first are yarrow and the flowers in the second are a type of lupine. I particularly like the second due to the striking colors.

Finally, here is a view from Fields Spring State Park, looking out over canyons south toward Oregon. I don't think it's that great of an image, mostly due to the withered character of the balsamroot flowers. Because of the dryness of the winter and the warmth of both winter and spring, I think had missed the best of wildflower season by early May when I made my visit. It's still a cool place, though, being able to look south and east over some pretty impressive river canyons. When the weather permits, you can see south all the way to the Wallowa Mountains.

Achievements


Despite the numerous constraints on my photographic activity, I did manage to put some pictures up in public - at the Abrams Chiropractic Clinic in Seattle for the Phinneywood Art Walk in July. I had a great time setting up the artwork and meeting the people there. Moreover, I managed to sell a framed piece and a few cards. Be sure to "like" my Facebook page to hear about any similar events in the future! Here's a phone picture I snapped from the lobby:

New Year's Resolutions for 2016 - I don't have as many as last year, due to the uncertainty of what is going to happen more generally in my life in 2016. Here, though, are a few basic aspirations:

1) New Modes of Travel - I'd like to make some trips to heretofore inaccessible locations by using new means of travel, either bicycle or backpacking. They would both require some creativity in gear management and, in the latter case, some advance preparation, particularly since it's been a while since I've backpacked. They would also require a certain level of physical fitness; certainly attainable, and I've been at that level before, but graduate school has been brutal in that regard so I'd have to intentionally work back up to it. I do, however, have adequate gear to pull it off, I think. Bicycling would enable me to cover more distance and reach some locations on longer bike trails that I haven't been able to photograph yet. Backpacking would enable me to be at a strategic point in the mountains - say, for instance, a lake several miles in - in the very early morning or late evening when the lighting is best.

2) New Locations - I'd like to branch out and get on some new adventures. I don't know what this will look like, as it will depend on my work situation, finances, and other factors. Possibilities include new areas of the Cascades that I haven't explored, a trip to the Olympics or the Washington coast, a trip to the Blue Mountains (farther in than Fields Spring), the San Juan islands...who knows?

3) Skies and meteorology - This is an ongoing goal. Part of photographing cool cloud formations and other atmospheric phenomena is risk-taking, since the best photographs along these lines often come from marginal conditions such as mostly cloudy skies or the back edge of a storm system. Hopefully my situation will change sufficiently this year to allow this sort of risk taking.

I'm sure my goals, aspirations, and opportunities will change as the year progresses. For now, thanks for reading, and happy new year!