Good morning! I've gotten a bit behind on blogging, so in this post, I'm going to combine a few recent trips. The last month and a half or so has been busy, and I've had some bad luck with weather, so I haven't gotten to do quite as much spring photography so far as I would have liked. Still, I think I've made the best of the time I've had, including the first overnight trip of the season!
The first image is from Soaring Eagle Regional Park. Gusty winds and unexpectedly abundant sunshine made forest photography difficult, but I did get this nice closeup of springbeauty (genus Claytonia, I'm thinking; I don't know the exact species). F/5.
The next image is from the May Valley Loop in Squak Mountain State Park. It ended up being quite a rainy morning, so I wasn't able to do much photography. I'm intrigued by the possibility of a return spring visit, though; the forest is very lush, and I think I'd have a decent chance of catching some forest wildflowers. The yellow flowers in the image below belong to Oregon grape; they made for a fun contrast with the greens of the forest. F/16.
More recently, I hiked to Barlow Point off the Mountain Loop Highway. Apparently, it's the site of a former fire lookout, and although the trees in the area have grown in since then, there are still some nice views of the surrounding terrain. First, the best view from the top, framed by foliage. I like the contrasting greens of all the different trees. F/16.
Here's another mountain view from Barlow Point, this time with more of a depth-of-field concept. I liked the vivid yellow-green of the cedar in the foreground. F/5.6.
Most recently, I took a quick trip to the Lewis River area, with the intention to hike the Lewis River Falls and spend the night in a cabin nearby. I did so, but the hike was a challenging one for photography for a couple of reasons. The first was the weather - it rained in the morning, and then in the afternoon, the lighting conditions seemed to change every few seconds, making it hard to set up a shot.
The second challenge was trail conditions. I was able to hike from the Lower Falls to the Middle Falls, but turned back before I could reach the Upper Falls, because there were a lot of downed trees and damaged sections of trail. It might have been passable without all my photography gear, but as it was, I didn't want to risk it. Plus, it just wasn't very enjoyable. The upshot of the early turn-around was that I had more time on the return hike to photograph scenes that I had passed by earlier due to the weather.
First, Lower Lewis Falls framed by a maple tree. F/16, 1/3 of a second.
And here's the top of the Middle Falls, framed by spring foliage. F/16, 1/2 of a second.
Next, a cool crescent-shaped formation in the river rapids. The foreground tree trunk is a bit dark, but this was the best I could do without overexposing the rapids. F/16, 0.4 seconds.
Lastly, looking down on a stream through alder trunks. If you look closely, you can see the river through the trees in the distance. F/16.
Until next time!
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