Oxbow Loop

I had the morning free yesterday, so I made a quick trip to the Oxbow Loop in the Middle Fork Snoqualmie area. After having visited some busy trails and parks, it was nice to have this peaceful area almost entirely to myself. The short trail passes through second-growth forest with many attractive groves of deciduous trees, and frequent views across the lake.

First, a rare sunny-day forest shot that worked - a thin layer of high clouds was filtering the sunlight just enough to make this possible. I still would have preferred fully overcast lighting, but am glad that I was able to make do with what I had. I used my widest lens, so there's some distortion on the edges, but I don't think it's egregious. The flowers blooming in the foreground are Pacific bleeding heart (Dicentra formosa). F/16.

Next, a view of Oxbow Lake itself. I like the composition, and the image quality is adequate. Unfortunately, the contrast is high - some of the distant snow ended up overexposed, to the point that I couldn't fully recover it in Lightroom. Since the eye already expects it to look white, and since the snow takes up a relatively small area of the composition, it's possible that this image could still work as a print. F/16.