Sunset at Spring Lake

Taken at a lake in the Lake Desire Natural Area about twenty minutes from home. I know the second image is the “money shot,” but I really find myself drawn to the first, where I was lucky enough to get light that reminds me of the works of a nineteenth-landscape painter whose name I should remember, but don’t.

An Olympic Event

Two weeks ago, conditions looked right for woodland photography, so I set out for the Hoh Rain Forest in Olympic National Park. After around five hours of driving, I approached the entrance to the park, only to be brought to a complete halt by an approximately one-hour wait at the entrance gate. I was sorely tempted to turn back, but decided to stick it out, mainly because I figured that the near-solstice day meant that I'd have until the early evening to have enough light.

While waiting, I took an iPhone shot from my car window of the wetlands along the side of the road.



Once I got inside, I realized the obvious: that long lines outside meant dense (collectively and, shall we say, individually) crowds inside. While much of what follows may seem serene, it really was a matter of run-and-gun, wait at a given location for ten minutes so the tourists could finish taking their selfies, etc. Definitely one of the higher-stress shoots I've ever conducted.

Close-up of branch over the Hoh River.



Scenes on the short ascent to the Hall of Mosses trailhead.





Hall of Mosses Trail

















Although the forecast had been for clouds, I was surprised, upon exiting the forest, to realize that the conditions for good sunset light were starting to develop. Therefore, I raced down to Ruby Beach, a frequent location of mine, and one where I have tried repeatedly to capture the ultimate sunset, but always fallen somewhat short. Indeed, when I got there, I could see the beach itself had a thin mist in the air, precluding good images from down there; however, the upper viewpoint offered a scene that could only be described as "epic."







So, while this might have started out as an incredibly stressful photo trip, it proved, in retrospect, to be one of my most-rewarding ones.

Into the woods...

I don’t know how I lived here almost thirty years without knowing there was a small rainforest about a five minute drive away. Maybe because it was hidden behind an upscale housing development, but it was only about a week ago that I discovered it was now designated a county park, and had trails running through it. In honor of #ForestFriday (which is something that may or may not exist but, if the latter, I just created it), here is a record of my first couple of hikes through only a small part of it.

Water Falling Over Things 2023 - Part 1 (?)

It's been a while, hasn't it? Just thought that, for #WaterfallWednesday, I'd post these recent shots from an old favorite, Snoqualmie Falls.





More installments to come (hopefully)...

Tulip Thursday (or Flower Friday)...

Some images I took at Roozengaarde last month during the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival.

Moon, Captured

Preacher Mountain and the Middle Fork Snoqualmie River

White Shadow

Denny Mountain from Snoqualmie Pass during a blizzard.

Ice Blue

Winter on the Middle Fork Snoqualmie River, looking toward the Cascade summits.



(This is a bit of an experiment, as I haven't posted much here since Photobucket started charging for linking, causing me to stop using their service. I've since found that my Pixelfed account -- which I started during the Elon-inspired #Twexit -- allows linking and sharing images I post there. We'll see if this works.)

2018 - A Look Back

Those who have been around for some time here know that I make a point of posting an annual retrospective. I set myself two constraints on the photos I choose:

- Only one photo per month. (I'm making a single exception to this one here, but for good reason, as you shall see.)
- None of the included photos can have been posted to DU before.

In January, I took several photo trips to Snoqualmie Pass for winter shooting, as documented in other posts here. Among all the standard snow-covered-forest images, I took the time to record the bright yellow of a parked snowplow in the middle of a blizzard.




February took me to the northeast corner of Mount Rainier National Park, where I captured this image of forest textures.




In March, I took a break from daffodil shooting in the Skagit Flats to visit Rosario Beach for sunset.




Of course, I was back to Skagit in April for tulips.




Continuing the flower theme, May brought us the bloom of the rhododendron, our official state flower.




For June, I chose a quiet scene along Jenkens Creek.




Although I had yet more flower shots for July, I opted for something a little different. Just south of us, in Enumclaw, there's an abandoned, crumbling gas station along the main highway. For some reason, every election year, every Republican candidate in the area elects to post a massive campaign sign on or around this station. I will grant that it is seen by thousands of commuters daily, but do the Republicans really want to associate their candidates with a neglected, collapsing empty old building about to be swallowed up by the undergrowth? It was impossible to resist adding to the sense of decay by going with black and white. (As a footnote, I should add that each and every one of the candidates advertising at that site went down to ignominious defeat in November.)





August took me to Oregon, for Mount Hood as seen from the plateau above the Columbia Gorge.




In September, I visited Mount Rainier again for some early-autumn foliage, including these huckleberries.




The east side of the Cascades is a great place for fall color in October. I visited this bend in Nason Creek back in 2008 (if you go back far enough in DU2, you can find the shot I took from practically this same position), and decided to return on the tenth anniversary (to the day) to capture it once again.




The maples were still turning bright shades of yellows and oranges in November in western Washington; here's an image taken at a park not too far from home. (Some may notice that this is the same tree from my entry in the Autumn Contest, here taken head-on instead of backlit and in close-up.)




Finally, in December, conditions were frankly too lousy to get out. So, if I can't shoot trees outdoors, why not rely on the (artificial) one indoors? (As a bonus, you get an unavoidable self-portrait of the photographer, thanks to mirror-finish ornaments.)




Now, as you may have noticed, I mentioned an exception to the "one shot per month" rule, just for this year. You see, I took a lot of images in October, and was planning on writing some journal posts for DU, but never found the time to do them. (I did do a video of that month's shoots, which I'll link below.) While I did think the Nason Creek shot above was the best summation image for October, that would mean leaving out one of my favorite photographs. So I decided to included it as a "top pick of the year" in addition to my monthly choices. This was taken on a quick trip to nearby Lake Wilderness; since the edges of the bowl enclosing the lake are packed with McMansions, there really isn't any autumn composition possible of the trees themselves. However, if you just shoot the reflection of the foliage in the lake's waters, varying the shutter speed and counting on natural disturbances in the lake caused by breezes and waterfowl can yield some fantastic abstracts. I was sorely tempted to title this one "Show Me The Monet!!!"...but finally opted for the more-serious "Autumn Impressions."




Link to my autumn video: