The Gift that Kept On Giving

Last night, I went. The theme of the evening was working on some compositional ideas that I've tried before, either this summer or others, and wanted to see if I could do better.

Choosing yesterday evening in particular was a bit of a risk - there were quite a few clouds in the western sky. Clouds can go either way. Some nights, they add color and interest to the sky, and on the best of evenings add a colorful second act to the sunset after the sun itself is already below the horizon. Other nights, the clouds obscure the sunset or turn it a milky and unphotogenic color.

Of course, all clouds are not created equal - altocumulus, for instance, will often give you an interesting sunset, whereas altostratus usually will not. There are never any guarantees, though - meaning a sunset trip with clouds in the sky is inherently risky. Last night, though, I hit the proverbial jackpot, and the clouds both made the sunset itself more interesting and created a colorful second act as they reflected gold and red from the already-set sun.

The first is one with a wave crashing in the foreground, and I like it better than other images I've done along these lines because of the rich blue color I was able to capture in the wave, and because the wave appears fairly close in the frame. I'd need to brighten the image somewhat, but that's certainly surmountable in this case. I achieved the partial blur of the water with a shutter speed of 1/5 second.

Below are some examples of another compositional idea I've done before, focusing on a blade of grass with my macro lens and having an out-of-focus sunrise or sunset behind it. The three below are my best results to date along these lines in terms of color and composition. The clouds darkened the sky and added some blue and violet tones, making these a lot more moody than my previous efforts.

At first, I was trying this shot with a narrow aperture to get some detail in the water. There were some annoyances, however - such as flare, trouble getting good sharpness with a longer shutter speed, etc. On the spur of the moment, I changed course and decided to try the shot with the widest aperture my camera would muster (f/3.8 at this focusing distance). The shot ended up a lot more interesting this way, as the sun became quite large in the frame.

(I had the hair-brained scheme that it might be fun to try printing and displaying these all together, side-by-side, as a sort of time-lapse. I'd have to decide, of course, if they're distinct enough from one another to make it work. I'd also have to crop them all to the same dimensions, but I think that could be done.)

A Wet Day

The forecast for the mountains on Monday was for showers. I thought that this might make for a good photography day on the Lake Ann trail due to overcast lighting and mountains partially shrouded by clouds. I've gone out into the mountains before and had such success under a forecast of showers, photographing under nicely overcast skies while dodging a few quick squirts of rain.

This time, I was not so fortunate. It rained like the dickens all morning, even soaking through my backpack. My sandwiches were ruined. More tragically for the photographic prospects of the day, both of the cleaning cloths that I use to clean lenses and filters were soaking wet - and my filters were wet and smeared due to the rain. To top it all, I only had a few short windows in which the rain stopped falling and I could actually take any pictures at all. (Even if I use an umbrella in the rain, I still have to chase stray drops on my lens - which I couldn't do without cleaning equipment).

We'll start with the star of the show, Mount Shuksan. This image is from one of the backcountry campsites at the end of the trail above the lake; the big glacier smiling at you in the lower part of the frame is the Lower Curtis Glacier. The clouds at upper left are slightly overexposed, but not badly. I like them bright, anyway, it accentuates the idea of a clearing storm or shower, which was in fact what was happening. F/16.

Before I hiked the Lake Ann trail, I visited Picture Lake. It was not raining then, and I got a nice image of some fireweed with partially-shrouded Mount Shuksan in the background. F/6.3.

Here is a close-up of the flowers of false hellebore, or corn lily (Veratrum viride). Although most of the wildflowers on the trail were past peak, these were blooming everywhere. F/5.

Finally, an image of some lichen-festooned trunks from near the beginning of the trail. I think this is one of the better lichen/forest images I have, in terms of being a clear composition. F/14.

Purple Haze All Through My Skies

Well, the weather's taken a turn for a more conventional onshore pattern, but on the last night of our series of hot and smoky days, I traveled to Birch Bay State Park to catch the sunset. My best image, below, is almost otherworldly due to the dark color of the smoky horizon and the smooth/blurred water in the foreground. I zoomed up quite a bit for this and used my tiny tripod to put my camera low to the ground. The colors got a bit wonky in the JPEG so what you see below is already edited from the RAW, as well as corrected for pincushion distortion - having a straight horizon line is pretty imperative in this composition.

Second, a driftwood shot from earlier in the evening. I used an aperture of f/6.3 to get a selective focus effect.

Adventures in Sunshine

It was forecast to be a warm day, so I decided to beat the heat by hiking the Lake Twenty-Two trail in hopes of timing my travels so that I could do the climbing and photographing before things got too hot and, more importantly, while the lighting was still good on this bright and sunny day. Thus, I got up early - at 3:30 - and with the help of an uncharacteristically (for me) large dose of coffee, I was the first one to hit the trail and did indeed manage to get some nice light.

For the first one, I took advantage of some fortuitously placed side lighting to set some blooming fireweed against the cliffs ringing the lake. This is probably my favorite composition of the bunch, and I think the contrast between the sunlit fireweed and shaded cliffs worked well. F/22.

The next one is from the trail up to the lake. I wanted to juxtapose the old-growth cedar trunk in the foreground with the background forest beginning to be lit by the rising sun. It works, but I think editing would help bring this out more. F/25.

We'll end with two closeups. The first is western red columbine, which I've photographed before but never very well. Finally, I have a closeup of columbine in which the background is not splotchy. I've had more interesting compositional ideas with these flowers, but this is something that I can actually use, unlike my other images of columbine to date. F/5.6.

This last one I've seen under two names - Tofieldia glutinosa and triantha occidentalis. I don't have my plant book right now, but hopefully it will help me sort through it all. F/5.

Lunacy

So, last night I had another first - successful compositions involving the moon! I had seen on my calendar that a full moon would be rising just before sunset, so I headed over to Tennant Lake in search of a good eastern view. To my dismay, I discovered that the park closes at 9pm, but the ranger/staff person was very gracious in allowing me to finish up.

The first one is probably my favorite, because it includes some cattails in the foreground, thus adding depth.

A horizontal version of that shot - there is less of a foreground here, and thus less depth, but the upshot is that the moon appears larger in the frame.

Lastly, a shot a bit later. The moon is overexposed here, but not totally blown out. I could thus probably improve this image quite a bit through highlight recovery and other tools in Lightroom, bringing detail back to the moon and lightening up the trees a bit.

Several Splendid Summer Sunset Skies

So I made another trip to Birch Bay, and was treated to one of the more colorful sunsets I've seen in a while, as well as choppier waves than I've seen there yet (or anywhere for a while). The first, from a few minutes after sunset, is probably my favorite. The clouds had turned a quite lovely color and some virga was starting to come down from them. Without further ado, here they are:

On an earlier day, I explored a spot by the Nooksack River to take some sunset pictures. The most interesting image, though, came a bit after sunset, when afterglow was still lighting the scene (especially Mount Baker). I used a wide aperture for this one, f/6.3, by default, since I couldn't get the whole scene in focus even with a narrow setting (the rocks were too close).

I'm not sure if I like it compositionally, but the colors are cool. Ideally, the rocks wouldn't be lined up in the center the way they are here. It might be worth a return visit to retry some similar compositions - now that I am familiar with the location, I'd be able to set up a shot more carefully. Anyway, here it is:

Next, a shot of the river and Baker from a bit earlier. While a wide depth of field worked better, the image isn't as striking overall. F/22.

This one was earlier in the evening, and I liked the warm color of the last bit of sunlight on the trees. F/20. This one took some trial and error with the polarizing filter - if I polarized it all the way, the blue of the sky became quite uneven and unsightly, so I had to back off a bit.

Summer in the Mountains

The inaugural post of summer 2015 will celebrate - what else - mountains! I made a trip up to the Chain Lakes trail, hoping to find some vanage points that I would be able to access at good lighting times of this sunny day (within roughly four hours of sunrise and sunset). Remarkably, wildflowers are peaking in the area, and Artist Point itself has much less snow than it did when I visited in late July last year. What a crazy weather year!

First is a shot of Mount Baker (bottom left) and some cool-looking cumulus clouds. I didn't notice these cloud forms at first - I had been working on a decidedly much less interesting perspective of Baker and, when finished, looked around at the sky after I had packed up. A good reminder to always look up and around you when hiking and at vantage points!

Next, an image of Mazama Lake, one of the Chain Lakes. I noticed that the lake reflected a lot more color when the wind was blowing, so for this shot I did the opposite of what I usually do and waited for a breeze to blow. The sunlight enabled me to use a shutter speed of 1/50 second and keep the heather flowers sharp.

Here is a closer shot of some gone-to-seed pasque flower (Anemone occidentalis) with Mt. Shuksan in the background. I found these on the trail up from Bagley Lakes to Herman Saddle. I used f/6.3 to blur the mountain while still keeping it distinguishable.

Below is a view down Bagley Creek with some Sitka valerian flowers in the foreground.

Below is a view from the slope between Ptarmigan Ridge and the lakes, into the Wells Creek drainage. I used a graduated ND filter to darken the sky and reduce contrast.

Below is a shot of some Sitka valerian and mountain spirea with Upper Bagley Lake in the background. Again, this one was taken while a slight breeze was blowing, increasing the sun reflections on the water. I used f/25 to get as much in focus as I could.

Next, two close-ups. The first is what I think is a color variant of small-flowered paintbrush (Castilleja parviflora) given the leaf shape and color. F/4.5.

Next is leatherleaf saxifrage, or Leptarrhena pyrofolia. I think that what I have photographed here are the fruits rather than the flowers. I saw a lot of these plants near lakes and streams.

Finally, the view of Mount Baker from Herman Saddle. I'm not all that enthused about this photograph because the lighting/contrast is rather poor, this image being taken at midday. However, I still wanted to share that great view.

Happy summer!