Canyon Morning

Just got back from a quick overnight trip to Fields Spring State Park, in Asotin County. It's a quiet park; even on a beautiful Friday night, there were only a handful of people in the campground or on the trails. I mostly had birds, white-tailed deer, and bees to keep me company - as well as a chorus of coyotes at 4:40 am. There are elk and bear in the park as well, although I didn't see any.

Occasionally, during times of state budget problems, this park has surfaced on the list of those that could potentially be closed. While it's true that it's out of the way and not used as often as some, I think it'd be a shame. It's a very unique park in terms of location in geography, has lots of flora and fauna for the nature lover, and is a good place for those who don't hunt to hike and camp during hunting season. (I'm also selfish and want to be able to keep visiting it. This is my third trip here and I always enjoy it).

For photography, I walked to a spot on one of the park roads that looks that direction, overlooking the Grande Ronde and Snake river canyons, as well as landforms beyond. I opted for this location rather than the top of Puffer Butte itself because, it being sunrise, I wanted more unobstructed views eastward than the trail up to the summit provides.

First, a shot of some grass with the walls of the Grande Ronde River canyon in the background. I used an aperture of f/29 to retain detail in that background. This made the shot tricky to take; in the soft morning light, I used a shutter speed of 1/25 second - which barely kept it sharp, but I was already underexposing and at ISO 500. Since the contrast isn't too high, the lighting won't be too hard to correct. The noise will be higher than I'd like, but not to a level that would prevent using the picture.

Next is a shot from a bit earlier, just after sunrise. The smoke layer that is visible in the sky kept the sun a nice golden color at that moment. While the haze would later prove a problem for view-shots, reducing detail, here it proved an asset. I like the layering of the distant hills and canyon walls, and how they're mostly just color here.

Finally, a more distant shot of the canyon view, with the slope of a smaller summit near Puffer Butte in the foreground. Being just after sunrise, the lighting was still quite warm, as you see. You can also tell how the haze was diffusing the view of the canyon walls a bit. It's not too bad here, but still not ideal.

There are some larch trees in the park, suggesting the possibility of a visit in October. Of course, I've got other autumn destinations in mind as well - and all that is contingent on my having the time to make any long trips in October, which is not guaranteed at this point. Hopefully, though!

Until next time!

A Mist Opportunity

After a great deal of time spent poring over my atlas and browsing around in Google Earth, I found a promising location to catch a sunrise - a little spot of gravel road overlooking the Palouse River. I've had a few road-viewpoint photo shoots go bust recently, but this one worked! There was a nice view to the east, a view of the river, and plenty of nice trees. The bonus was some early-morning mist in the river valley.

The first image was a bit tricky due to the possibility of ugly lens flares. To mitigate this, I positioned myself so the sun would be partially behind the tree; I also cropped this image to edit out some flares that did show up.

Next is an earlier view up the valley, just before sunrise. This one might take a bit of lighting work (particularly the dark foreground and that overexposed bit of river), but I still think it's cool.

The next two are fairly self-explanatory; nice shots across the valely with sun and some mist still hanging about. They're not quite as interesting as the previous two shots, but I still like them.

The Palouse that Was

Well then! We're back! It's been a while since I've posted any new pictures, for a variety of reasons including a move, two photo trips that went bust, and some car issues. But here we are! I visited Rose Creek Nature Preserve, in the Pullman/Colfax/Palouse area.

Very little of the Palouse has escaped agricultural or other development. A few pockets here and there - such as the Rose Creek pereserve - offer a window into the prior landscape. Rose Creek, along with places like Kamiak Butte, are also a good reminder that the Palouse is not all prairie, but has wetlands and forested habitats as well, particularly along waterways and on north-facing slopes.

For the first image, I wanted to set the aspen and other trees of the preserve against the Palouse's iconic rolling hills. The grassy foreground was a nice bonus. The evening light, filtered as it was through a few clouds, complemented the scene nicely. The WB came out a bit yellowish but that will be easy to fix in Lightroom. I'll also play around with using highlight recovery to make the grass a bit less harsh. F/22.

Next one comes from down the hill, closer to the creek itself. The Preserve is quite lush in places, showing all the hard work that the Nature Conservancy and the Palouse-Clearwater Environmental Institute have done to restore the environment. For this image, I used a quite narrow aperture of f/36 to get everything in focus. The upshot, of course, is that details get a bit fuzzy when the aperture is that high. I think the tradeoff was worth it for this image, though.

I'll definitely be back to the Rose Creek Nature Preserve. I imagine that the fall colors will be quite nice, and all the gone-to-seed wildflowers I saw suggested that visits in April and May will also be worthwhile.

Until next time...hopefully soon!

Sunsets rock!

Believe it or not, we've actually had a number of iffy nights for sunset seeking recently; last night, however, looked like it was shaping up to be a good one, so I hopped in the car and visited Larrabee State Park. I've done most of my sunset trips to Birch Bay this summer, and Larrabee is a bit different. The view of the sky is less open and there are more islands and things obstructing parts of the horizon; the tradeoff is more foreground possibilities (rocks, trees, etc) and the chance to use the background objects compositionally as well.

The sunset image below does this. I wanted to set the sunset against the park's cool rocks; I think the background islands complement the image as well. I had to break out the heavy artillery - my wide-angle lens, so I could include a greater area of the foreground rocks within the frame. I used f/20 to ensure that the depth of field encompassed everything.

Eventually, I'll need to correct for a bit of pincushion distortion, but it isn't too bad here. And I'm pleased with the lighting - I got a healthy amount of definition in the foreground, particularly for an unedited JPEG. Anyway, here it is:

Lunacy pt 2

Last night, I camped at Birch Bay State Park with the intention of catching the moonset over the water this morning. I chose Birch Bay over other local parks (such as Larabee, for instance) because it has such an extensive view of the sky; I wasn't sure exactly where the moon would be, and also wanted minimal obstructions on the horizon. Ordinarily, being only a half and hour drive away, I might have just driven here in the morning, but this and other state or county parks are gated at night - often opening at 6 or 6:30 (I think BB opens at the latter), which would have been much too late!

Anyway, here's the first. It's similar in concept to this sunset image, also from Birch Bay, with the difference of a vertical orientation. What I especially like about this image - besides the moon - is the rich color of the sky and the faint reflection of the moon in the water.

The next one was a bit of an experiment; I shot the moon through some driftwood here a few minutes later. I like the composition and the color - but the moon's a bit small and indistinct, as well as a bit fuzzy. I'll have to edit this one in Lightroom and see what it looks like large; only then will I be able to make the final verdict. It's always hard to judge landscape shots on the computer; they often make more sense when printed at a more reasonable size.

Mountains and things

Yesterday I paid a return visit to the Lake Ann trail, hoping to enjoy a drier day. I was not disappointed! Unfortunately, the cloud ceilings were too low for good views of Baker or Shuksan from the trail, and the wildflowers are mostly gone. Nevertheless, I found some interesting subjects, and besides that had a fine walk in the mountains.

First, two images on a theme of trees, mountains, and swirling clouds. In the first, taken on the way uphill to the saddle and the lake, a partial sunbreak provided some interesting backlighting that I think adds some depth and interest. The second, taken near the trailhead, is also dramatic but has quite high contrast. It will be interesting to see what I can do with it in Lightroom - particularly whether I can reduce the overexposure in the clouds at the top. The shadows could also be lightened, but only slightly (too much would eliminate the drama of the image).

Next, an image of some corn lily (aka false hellebore) with the cliffs of the valley walls in the background. While the greens of the hellebore don't contrast with the background as much as I had originally envisioned, some tasteful tweaking in Lightroom might remedy that and bring the image closer to my impression on the scene. F/29 to get everything in focus.

Lastly, an image with a similar concept featuring the berries of what I think is a mountain ash of some kind (genus Sorbus). I don't have my plant guide with me at the moment, but that's my educated guess. I think this composition is a bit busy, so I don't know if I'd ever "use" this image for anything, but I still think it's interesting and a cool setting.

Artist Point Morning

Recently, I headed up to Artist Point to catch a sunrise. Ultimately, I came away with two images that I like. The first, from right at sunrise, looks roughly south, over the Swift Creek drainage and beyond. F/20.

The second is a close-up of some fireweed with Mount Baker in the background. It's from a bit later, about 8am. The lighting is a bit flat due to the sunshine, but I like the composition. I had to use f/32 to get the level of detail I wanted in the mountain.

Cheers!