An Animal-Free Adventure

Yesterday, before my aforementioned visit to Picture Lake, I hiked partway down the Lake Ann trail (off the Mt. Baker highway). The title refers to the fact that I've had some interesting scrapes with large mammals during my photo trips and other journeys - including the bear on the Baker River, and a deer in the road on the way to the Maple Pass trail (by far the more dangerous incident). The largest animal I saw yesterday, however, was a chipmunk. That's just the way I like it. Other people have said I am "lucky" to have seen bears, deer, etc. They can have them! Personally, I'd much prefer that our paths did not cross, and that I stayed free of all animal danger.

The first picture of of Sitka valerian and a mountain - maybe Shuksan, although I'm not quite sure. I used f/29 to get the flowers and the mountain both in focus, and got down so that the foreground flowers were above eye level. Even though the lighting is a bit harsh, I still like it compositionally; I think the wispy clouds also add interest.

Let's continue with the valerian theme! This one came a bit later in the evening, as you can probably tell from the lighting. As with the last image, I used a narrow aperture (f/25 this time) to keep everything in focus. I liked the shadows the light was creating on the cliff faces, and wanted to put this and the flower fields below together. I tried a variety of slightly different angles and this ended up being my favorite. The clouds are a bit bright, but other than that, the exposure actually turned out fairly well for such a contrasty situation.

This one features spiraea of some sort, with valerian in the background. Despite the selective focus appearance, I stopped down to f/18; I wanted the valerian flowers to be discernible forms. At wider apertures, the background was basically a mottled white blob, which is so much less cool. I liked the opportunity, in this image, to juxtapose the pink against the white in definite areas of the frame.

This one juxtaposes lupine against a mountain in the background; I used f/10 to keep some detail in the mountain while still isolating the lupine. The placement of the lupine is not very strong, in my opinion, but I couldn't really concentrate because there were about 1000 flies swarming on my body! Still, it's so vivid that I though I'd post it.

Lastly, more lupine with a little falling stream in the background. I'm not sure how well it comes through but I think it was a cool idea. Since I was relatively far away from the plants, I used f/4 to achieve maximum selective focus. Even so, the right half of the image is a bit busy. So, again, I don't know if I'm convinced by the image, but it was worth a try.

Picture Lake

There are some things that you just have to do, things that you know everyone does but that you end up doing anyway. For me, this involved a trip to Picture Lake at sunset last night. I was one of three photographers present, which is rather rare - much more often, I don't see anyone else with a camera on my travels.

I realized that I'm not really quite good enough to do the whole Mt-Shuksan-reflected-in-the-lake thing, at least in a way that doesn't look flat and conventional. So instead of straight shots of the lake, I tried other perspectives. The first one was actually the last I took; as you can see from the angle of sunlight on the mountain, it was just before sunset. I thought about using a narrow aperture to get everything in focus, but I decided that something wider (f/5.6) was in order. I made this decision because I wanted to isolate the two flowers and draw attention to them. I think it reinforces a feeling of scale, in this case, with the sharper flowers feeling close and the out-of-focus mountain feeling large and distant.

This one's a bit abstract, but I think it actually works. I zoomed in to the face of Mount Shuksan as late evening light was hitting it. I liked the color of the light and the shadows; I think that putting trees in the foreground creates a sense of scale (Galen Rowell called this sort of thing "visual sea level"). The diagonal lines of the rock faces help unify the composition, and contrast with the vertical lines of the forest.

The final one is probably the least impressive of the bunch, but I still think it's a nice composition; the forked tree in the foreground stands out well. This particular image needs some color work; the actual light falling on the mountains was much warmer, more akin to the color in the images above.

I Can't Remember the Title

I had a witty title for this post all figured out earlier today...but alas, it has disappeared into the forgetful recesses of my memory, just like the fact that I needed to put insoles in my hiking boots this morning. By the way, don't hike without insoles. Or without adequate water, for that matter.

I hiked on the Maple Pass Loop trail, which is definitely recommended. Lots of nice flowers and imposing views. And when you come across the spur trail that leads to Lake Ann, take that as well. It's a mostly level 1 mile round trip that passes through some nice floral displays (in addition to the view of the actual lake).

The first image is probably the most interesting lighting wise. But I'm dissatisfied with it for a ket reason: I used a graduated neutral density filter on it, which created an unsightly gradient on the sky and the trees in the upper right hand quarter of the picture. I also took this shot without the filter, and I'll have to play with them both in Lightroom to see which one I can make look the best. As I often do with landscape shots like this, I used a relatively narrow aperture (f/22) and set my focus point to between the flowers and the background (specifically, to slightly more than three feet, I think).

The next one is of Western red columbine, with the same mountain in the background as in the shot above. I used an aperture of f/11 to keep some detail in the background flowers and mountain. The trees ended up a little dark, but I think there's still enough detail to rescue the green color in editing. The only problem is that the picture is a bit tilted. I'm not sure how noticeable that is, but rotating it would lose some of the flowers.

This third one is of pink mountain heather flowers (apparently, according to my book, they're not technically heather...). I like it, except I wanted the out-of-focus branches on the left to stand out more - even f/16 was apparently not enough. As it is, the picture is a bit too monochromatic; all green and no shape. But not horrible. A square crop would probably make the composition better (albeit also more conventional).

This one was taken closer to midday, but is not too bad. It is front-lit, which helped keep the contrast relatively low. It's not as interesting as it would have been at an earlier time of day, but it works, and everything is in focus (f/29 and an in-between focus point). It was such a pretty view that I just couldn't resist an image.

This last one features fireweed and alder of some kind growing in a clearing (avalanche chute?).  I like the lines throughout the image. I used similar focusing tactics to the wide depth-of-field shots earlier in the post (f/22, in-between focus point).

Enjoy what's left of your weekend, everyone!

Larrabee, Take Two!

I'm going to start with a second attempt at an image that I tried a few weeks ago; it was unsatisfactory because the rocks were too dark and the sunset was too bright. I crawled over the rocks - it was somehow more difficult than I remembered - to get practically the same angle. I did two things to make the lighting more even: The first was using my flash, armed with fresh batteries, to light up the otherwise too-dark rock face. Thanks to my angle and the positioning of the rocks, the flash didn't produce any weird shadows or glares. The second was shooting right at the moment that the sun was almost completely down; having only a tiny portion of the sun still over the horizon enabled me to bump the exposure up a bit. Although it's hard to tell just on Blogger, there is a lot more detail in the shadows, and color in the highlights, than in my last attempt.

Next come a couple more experimental shots. These are of ocean spray, with the sunlit waters of Puget Sound in the background. The bright color of ocean spray actually didn't hold up very well against the brightness of the sunlit waters, but that's okay. I'm not sure if I like them, but they're different, and have a warm, summery feel. For the first, I used f/9, to keep some detail in the background waves. For the second, I used f/8 - and the bokeh were still circular, basically! And I had some expansion of detail in the foreground.

A Trail Runs By It

This Saturday, I did a short (as it turned out, very short) hike along the Baker River Trail, just north of Baker Lake. It's a gorgeous place - the trail gently undulates between old-growth cedar and younger alder forest, both of which are beautiful, with some views of the Baker River and its valley. I only made it about halfway up the trail, or perhaps a bit more than halfway, the reason for which will be revealed at the end of the post.

When I first arrived, the valley was shrouded in mist; as I hiked, however, it gradually lifted, leading to some interesting interplay of clouds and light. The photo below, looking up the Baker River valley, was a bit tricky, because as it was, the contrast was much too high. I ended up needing to use a graduated neutral density filter. This ran the risk of making the top of the foreground tree trunk too dark; as it was, however, I don't think the gradient is so great as to be distracting. An aperture of f/22 was sufficient to keep everything sharp. I cranked the ISO down so that I could get a longer shutter speed and hence blur the water's movement; I don't think it really made a difference, though.

As mentioned earlier, the trail passes through alder groves of varying age. The shot below is, I think, one of my best alder-grove-themed shots, because the closeness of the foreground trunk and the leaves in front of it create a feeling of depth that my other similar photos haven't had. I stopped down all the way to f/32 to keep everything in focus. Thankfully, there was no breeze at this point, so a shutter speed of 2 seconds was not even an issue. There was a layer of low clouds/fog above the hillside in the background, and I originally tried to incorporate into the composition, but there was no way to avoid overexposing it.

Predictably, I was very happy to find some blooming fireweed plants further down the trail. The river and mountain views only sweetened the deal - like adding almonds to chocolate, or adding corn on the cob to a steak dinner. To continue the morning's theme of wide depths of field, I stopped down to f/20 to take this. I would have considered stopping down further, but the plants were swaying lazily in a breeze, and my shutter speed was only 1/25 of a second at ISO 500. Anything longer would have blurred the shot.

Now, you're all wondering: "Why was the hike so short? You were going to tell us!"

Well, it has to do with a hide-and-seek game I played with a certain large mammal. It began while I was hiking, as I do, and I approached a quite brushy alder grove with lots of ripe thimbleberries. "This would be just the place for a bear to be hanging out," I thought. Sure enough, I heard a loud twig snap in the brush. I moved to the side and craned my neck to try to see what had made it, but I saw nothing. Then I heard another twig snap, and a few thumps. Assuming that a bear had made these noises, I called out to the animal (as you're supposed to do), and backed up a few hundred feet.

I waited for about twenty minutes, and then thought, "Surely the bear's gone by now, if that even was a bear." I took a few steps and heard a very loud twig snap (much nearer than the last one), and this time saw a bush shake violently. Again, I called out, and backed up quite aways, subsequently hiking much farther back down the trail than I had the last time.

Annoyed that this series of "encounters" was wasting all my good morning light, I sat and sulked for a while, debating what to do. I drank some water, reviewed the pictures I had taken, packed up all my stuff, and waited. Just as I was relaxing and my guard was down, I turned to my left: BEAR! About twenty or thirty feet away on the trail. Startled almost out of my wits, I stood up slowly and said, "Hey bear, I'm leaving!" while backing up. The bear poked its head up, looked at me for about a second, and then dashed into the bushes.

By this point, all the good morning light was gone, and I had plenty of other tasks to accomplish that day, so I hiked back to the trailhead, stopping to let the next hiking party know where I had seen the bear. (I also sang to myself the whole way back, as many hiking guides recommend; I'm going to have to think of another way to make noise, though, because I got myself out of breath singing while climbing a short hill.) For the bureaucrats among you, I did stop at the park office and file a report.

But I'll be back to this trail, and, Lord willing, make it to the end! It's great!

Felix Culpa, Avalanche Edition

This time, instead of clearcuts, the title is referring to avalanche meadows. A highlight of the Gold Creek Trail, near Snoqualmie Pass, is that it passes through numerous areas that, at one time or another, have been subjected to the fury of avalanches and stripped of their forest cover. In the avalanches' wake  grow willows, alder, and a variety of beautiful wildflowers. A ways down the trail, there is an avalanche swath so recent that one can still see the devastated trees blanketing the hillside. In the valley, though, the willows and wildflowers have grown to the extent that the debris is hardly visible; you have to intentionally look for it to see it. The trail also passes through some nice older forest areas.

I'm going to start with some of my best flower shots, and transition more toward the landscape end of the spectrum later. The first is of a tiger lily (or Columbia lily, as they're sometimes referred to). This is probably one of my best shots to date of a tiger lily, both in terms of image quality (the in-focus areas turned out pretty well) and in terms of background uniformity. Also, it's nearly symmetrical, which is always a nice bonus when photographing a flower!

This second captures bunchberry flowers growing on a mossy log. I used f/9 to preserve some of the log's texture beneath the flower. In hindsight, I maybe would have tried one turn of the dial wider, to reduce the depth of field just a tad, but I think it turned out pretty well. I tried a variety of compositions with the clump of flowers, and this one resulted in the least dead space.

Below you see some paintbrush flowers. The trunks you see in the background belong to vine maple trees; I used f/16 to preserve the level of detail you see. I thought their winding diagonal lines contrasted nicely with the vertical, bulbous paintbrush flowers (technically, you are seeing the red bracts rather than the flowers, which are small and concealed).

Another red flower comes next: western red columbine. I stopped down just a tad, to f/5.6, to get a little more detail in the in-focus area. The background is still reasonably uniform, although it could be better.

This is a pink monkey-flower; this hike marked the first time I had ever seen (or at least noticed) one! Exciting! For this image, I actually stopped down to f/7.1; wider apertures did not give enough detail on the face of the flower, and there was nothing for the eye to lock onto.

There were a lot of queen's cup growing in the forest along the trail; ground-growing flowers, though, are hard to photograph well. You can photograph them from straight above, but that can be boring, and you also run the risk of including dirt/sticks/rocks/ugly chaos in your composition's background. These flowers were positioned in such a way that, with the camera nearly at ground level, I was able to make the background consist mostly of a Douglas Fir trunk - which gives much more interesting context than a lot of forest-floor detritus! I used f/13 to keep some perceptible detail in the background flowers and tree trunk. In this case, I wanted not to isolate but contextualize the foreground flower.

What you see below is a coralroot of some sort, probably western coralroot. This picture represents an element of luck; I did not know these flowers grew on the trail and I actually missed them the first time I passed them, and only saw them on my way out. I used f/4.2 to minimize background detail and isolate the foreground flower. I don't like the part of another flower protruding into the frame in the lower left; otherwise, I'd like this picture.

Interesting factoid: Coralroots are saprophytes, meaning that they don't make their own food like most plants; they instead derive their food from decaying organic matter on the forest floor. Hence the absence of the green chlorophyll necessary for photosynthesis.

The next picture, of Sitka Valerian, comes from the most recent avalanche area. In the background you can see a waterfall coming down the mountainside. In hindsight, the waterfall doesn't show up as clearly as I'd like, but just for the heck of it, I thought I'd post it. I used f/29 to keep as much detail in the waterfall as I could.

The next two show Sitka valerian from the same spot at different apertures; the shots are cropped differently but from the same angle. I cropped them differently because I felt that in the second picture, with the front blossom isolated, it was better to crop off the left part of the frame. The first picture uses f/29, the second f/5. I haven't decided which one I prefer.

Now, finally the landscapes. There are really only two. The first comes from very early in the morning, as the sun was peeking through a break in the low clouds and illuminating the valley. I don't like the white spot at the upper left corner, but otherwise, this is pretty cool, and it was a fun moment to witness. An aperture of f/22 and an in-between focus point kept everything sharp.

Finally, this last one comes from a patch of devil's club that I have photographed before; this one, though, is my best, creating the best sense of the area's lushness. I used f/25 to keep everything in focus; I would like to lighten the rock behind the devil's club if I were to change anything in editing.

Discovering Discovery

I took advantage of my time at home during the Fourth of July weekend to take a trip to Discovery Park. In fact, I was there on the morning of the Fourth itself. What better way to celebrate Independence Day than to go do my hobby and see my favorite flowers?

The first one isn't actually that great in terms of image quality - it's just not all that sharp - but I like the composition. I used f/25 to keep everything in focus.  Sunrises like this are the hidden secret of cloudy days in Seattle. And a little footpath took me right to the blooming fireweed!

This one catches the actual sunrise. I don't think it's as good as this picture, which I took a few weeks ago; it has a different mood, though, so I thought I'd post it. I used f/18, which is responsible for the nice sun rays that you see here.

The next one shows yarrow on the beach, down by the lighthouse. I've said this before, but Discovery Park is the only place where I've seen yarrow not in a garden with a color so pink. Perhaps they are descended from garden plants. Or perhaps it's just a genetic peculiarity there. In any case, they're very pretty. I used f/9 to get some form in the background flowers and grass blades. This one was tricky, because I had to handhold it; happily, though, I was able to get a shutter speed of 1/160 second at ISO 400, so I was in a good place.

The next one shows the fireweed in the south meadow area. I actually struggled for a while to find a composition that really captured the feeling of these fireweed stands; this was the best. I like it because the fireweed stalks look relatively unified, and if you look in the upper right corner in the background, you can see the pink of another fireweed stand! I used f/16 to keep detail in the background. It needs some color and contrast work; I think this will help add depth to the image.

The gumweed down by the beach is just starting to open up; this picture captures that. I used f/6.3 to keep some detail in the buds surrounding the lone flower. I actually kind of like this composition, although the color/lighting outside the yellow flower is a bit monochromatic. Perhaps some contrast/color adjustment in Lightroom would help.

The next two are flowers I found in the south beach area. They're not particularly creative compositions, but they were cool-looking flowers so I wanted to post them! They were both taken at f/4.5.