Posts by: Steve Cole

Mount Shuksan

While warmer temperatures descended across Western Washington, the weather in the mountains still had the look of winter. Despite the sunshine, a steady conveyor belt of clouds streamed across the upper slopes and summit of Mount Shuksan..

Clouds and Mount Shuksan
Clouds and Mount Shuksan
Summit of Mount Shuksan
On my way home, I stopped to re-shoot this scene of a young fir growing at the foot of an old growth cedar. I shot this scene earlier this winter but snow actually detracted from the composition. I shot this slightly underexposed for the mood and since it helps define the shape of the cedar. I did some minor burning to the extreme righthand side since it was a tad too light in the original photo:

Big Brother
Old Growth Cedar
Lastly, sometimes old ski lift chairs find a new use…

Ski lift chair swing

Paradise

Earlier in the week, one of the Seattle weathermen indicated the possibility that sunsets later in the week might be enhanced due to ash from Alaska’s Mount Redoubt. As the weekend approached, the odds for sunny weather increased greatly so I made plans to head to the snow covered meadows of Paradise in Mount Rainier National Park. Fresh snow still flocked the trees and the sunshine make for one spectacular scene.

Although I had no specific place in mind, I snowshoed out towards the Edith Creek basin. Although winds were forecasted, they turned out to be much stronger than I thought they would be. Despite the sunshine, the winds were unrelenting so I retreated to find another vantage point for sunset. In the end, sunset didn’t live up to its potential but still delivered on a fine day…

Ice crystal halo around the sun
Icicles...
Icicles...
Icicle Ornament
Blowing Snow on my way back to Paradise from the Edith Creek basin
Christine Falls
Eagle Peak
Mount Rainier from Ricksecker Point
Mount Rainier from Ricksecker Point

Photographing Snow…

Recently I had someone complement me on my snow photos and ask me about my processing. While I don’t consider myself any sort of expert on the matter, I decided to share my workflow techniques.

Virtually all my photos are shot using a tripod and the 2 second mirror lockup mode (which prevents vibration and increases sharpness). I also use a circular polarizer since I’m usually taking photos of flowing water and looking to portray the water with soft flow. In these snowy situations, I usually use either SHADE or CLOUDY for my white balance setting. I do seem to alternate between the two because sometimes the SHADE setting added some warmness to the scene that I didn’t like (or observe in real life).

Due to how camera meters are designed, they typically underexpose in snow conditions. Despite this fact, I intentionally try to underexpose. Why? Well, I’d rather have the ability to recover highlights from the RAW [image] file instead of being stuck with a scene that’s blown out and unrecoverable. When I’m out taking photos, I pay attention to the EV Bar on my camera. My usual goal is to take a picture where the indicator lies two ticks left of center on the EV Bar. For my photography, this usually results in a fairly quick post-processing of the RAW file.

My target is an EV meter two ticks left of center
Once back home, the majority of my post processing is handled by Pentax’s Photo Lab program [a RAW file editing program made by Silky Pix]. 99% of the time, all I do is verify my choice for a white balance setting and adjust the curve to brighten the image but still keep the detail. I don’t go too overboard here because Photoshop Elements has easier & quicker tools to help brighten just the dark areas. Here’s an example RAW image opened up in Photo Lab prior to any adjustments:

RAW file before any processing
In this situation, I decided to change the White Balance from SHADE to CLOUDY. The next step is adjusting the curve to correct the exposure. The two point curve adjustment shown here is very typical of my adjustment. The 1st adjustment point I add is located in the lower left corner of the graph area. This brings up the brightness most of the way without losing too much detail. The second adjustment point added is located in the upper right of the graph. When the point is moved down into this basic curve position, it reduces the contrast (i.e. “dulls” the overall image) a bit but also helps retain some of the detail found in the bright snow areas. If this point is dragged to the right, it will increase the “dulling” effect whereas movement to the left slightly increases the contrast.

Pre-processing curve on the left and post-processing curve on the right
I seem to be doing this less at the moment (probably because it is winter) but sometimes I move the extreme right-hand slider (triangle at extreme right end of X axis) back towards the left in order to brighten the images BEFORE adding curve points. If the image is REALLY dark, I’ll move it two divisions left (a slider value of 192) but mostly it will probably be just one division (value of 224). Conversely (and in this specific example), I’ve notched the lower slide up a few values to knock the brightness down just a tad. Here’s the post-processed version:

Post-processed version
This is basically all I do in Photo Lab so from here, I export the adjustments as a high quality JPEG. The very last step would be any applicable touch up work in Photoshop Elements. After fixing anything such as a specs of dust, I might brighten the darker areas using the Adjust Lighting->Shadow/Highlights Tool. Of course it depends on the photo but I never brighten the shadow areas by more than 25% (typically it might be closer to 10-15%).

Two weeks ago, I was out taking photos in the snow (recap here) and came across a situation where I did my normal processing on a couple photos but the finished images were still a bit too grey & dull. Someone suggested an alternate processing method which uses the Adobe Camera RAW (ACR) plugin for Photoshop Elements. It turns out to be a fairly simple adjustment and worked well. The adjustment uses the Exposure Slider. The default is zero (no change) but when I bumped the exposure up to 1.5 and the contrast slider up to 50%, I really liked the results:

Pentax Photo Lab (left) and Adobe Camera Raw (right) versions
Pentax Photo Lab (left) and Adobe Camera Raw (right) versions
In writing this blog, I came across the following article on Canon’s website that’s pretty informative about this topic.

Anyways, hope this information helps!

Marten Creek

This weekend I picked up the Pentax 12-24mm ultrawide lens and so I had to go out and break it in. The weekend brought another storm system so I decided to head up the Mountain Loop Highway outside the town of Granite Falls and revisit Marten Creek. I hiked this last winter but reasons I can’t explain, I never took any photos. As I looked back on it, I remembered that there were some nice stretches along the creek so back I went.

While not a long hike, it does have a steep beginning and along the way, you pass through an ongoing research plot that the Forest Service monitors:

Forest Service Research Plot
The study evaluates the correlation of Douglas Fir growth based on seed sources taken from across the Pacific Northwest. There is a second sign nearby which summarizes what they learned back in 1960. The steepness continues for a bit further and then relents as you enter the upper valley. At that point, exploration of the creek is possible…

Marten Creek
Marten Creek
Marten Creek
Marten Creek
Marten Creek
Marten Creek
Marten Creek
Marten Creek
All in all, a nice afternoon of photo taking despite the steady rain/sleet.

The Snowy Nooksack River

You’d be hard pressed to convince many Washingtonians that this weekend’s storm was probably the last “lowland” snow event of the winter. I was excited because it was one last opportunity this winter to photograph Nooksack Falls with a fresh coat of snow.

I also wanted to experiment with another piece of equipment- a 6′ aluminum ladder. Funny as it may seem, I’ve thought about possibly getting different angles or compositions with the assistance of the ladder. So- I carried the ladder the half mile or so from the Mt Baker Hwy to the falls.

While the fresh snow seemed promising, the actual amount at the falls wasn’t. I had hoped for 2-3″ or so to really provide a nice coat for the trees and rocks but the overnight snowfall amount was more like 1″. I had been at the falls for about 15 minutes or so when it started snowing. Hard. *VERY* difficult conditions to take photos when the snow is blowing into and on your lenses. I’m very thankful that Pentax includes weather seals with their DSLR cameras (for a fraction of the Canikon prices)!

Nooksack Falls
Snow and Nooksack Falls
Snow Pillows
Solitary Tree
Snowfall..
Nooksack Falls
Lastly, I checked another part of the river I’ve been meaning to that also had a horseshoe bend:
North Fork Nooksack River
Water Flow..

Spring Day on the North Cascades Highway

Other commitments and priorities have continued to sideline me from more regular updates but I’m looking forward to more regular updates starting with this one..

Friday brought sunshine and highs in the low 50s so I decided to take advantage of it in advance of a more traditional rainy winter weekend. I decided to head out the North Cascades Highway in hopes of photos and Bald Eagles. I only saw 2 or 3 eagles but the views are always stellar along the highway…
Skagit River and Eldorado Mountain from Milepost 100
Some views from the Diablo Lake overlook:

Diablo Lake
Mount Rose
Diablo Lake Island
The most interesting things were the icicles found in the sheltered areas alongside the highway..

Snowmelt Icicles
Snowmelt Icicles
Ice Bouquet
Interesting contrast between the ice and moss on the rocks..

Moss and Ice
Moss and Ice

Winter in Mount Rainier…

Several circumstances have sidelined me from taking photos for the better part of a month. With the holiday weekend, I was determined to finally get out and I decided that I wanted to head south to Mt Rainier. Initially I wanted to poke around the subalpine slopes of Paradise but the forecasts didn’t seem cooperate for mountain views.

After some thinking, I finally decided on returning to Silver Falls and the Grove of the Patriarchs in the southeast corner of the park. My only other visit was last June and I was curious how winter would change the landscape. First, I had to verify that this was possible. After some emails and phone calls to the Park Service and the state DOT, I was told by both that the highway was clear of snow up to the park’s entrance. That made a long day a little shorter with a roundtrip on snow of about 7.5 miles.

After picking up my friend, we drove another 2.5 hours to the turnoff from Highway 12 and were immediately greeted by this:

Highway 123 / Highway 12 JunctionCrap. Our long trip became even longer. The snow on the road now added another 2.5 miles just to reach the park entrance. We made good time getting there so we geared up and headed out on foot. Thankfully a firm base with only 1-2″ of new snow made snowshoes unnecessary. About an hour later, we arrived at the park entrance:

Entrance to Mount Rainier National ParkContinuing on, we finally arrived at the Silver Falls trailhead after another 1.5 hours (~5.25 miles from my truck). A short scramble downslope brought us to the falls:

Silver Falls in winter
Below the fallsDownstream of the falls:

Downstream of the fallsAfter lunch, it was time to move on and continue north. About a half-mile north, the Stevens Canyon Rd park entrance is reached:

Stevens Canyon Park EntranceHere, the snow depth was about 4′ deep (at about 2000′ elev). The trailhead for the Grove of the Patriarchs is just beyond the entrance. Upon arrival, we were greeted with a sign posted that told us that the suspension bridge across the river to the Grove has sustained damage during the fall 2008 flooding and was closed. Double crap.

Well, we had come this far so why not go another half mile to take a look? We did so and arriving at the bridge, we found it standing with no visible signs of damage. In fact, the entire span had 4′ of snow on the deck and seemed to be supporting it just fine. A sign on the bridge simply advised one person at a time when crossing the bridge.

We decided to cross it and I went first. I was able to cross without incident and so my friend followed:

Carefully crossing the Ohanapecosh RiverSafely on firm ground, we arrived at the Grove. Being the dead of winter, the highway (which is across the channel from the Grove) is closed and so there was no noise whatsoever. It’s very rewarding to experience this environment in complete solitude.

Grove of the Patriarchs
Grove of the Patriarchs panoramaNew growth on a very old Douglas Fir:

New growth..I admit that I have a hard time photographing this place and I think it just has to do with the immense scale of the environment. Here my friend stands in front of one of the cedars:

A Sense of scale..Big brother, little brother…

Big brother, little brotherFinally, there was this interesting sight. Normally, as limbs die on a tree, they break off due to snow, weather, etc. For this particular cedar, it hasn’t happened so it seemed like a medusa tree:

Medusa treeWith that, it was time head make the long trek back. As we headed back, the weather broke more and more and we were treated to some nice sunset color above us as we hiked out. About 8 hours and 12.5 miles roundtrip and we never saw a soul. A grueling but very rewarding effort.

Visit to Collective Visions

Collective Visions Gallery - Bremerton, Washington
Collective Visions Art Gallery - Bremerton, Washington

Today I headed over to Bremerton to drop off my photograph for the Collective Visions Gallery 2009 Art Show which will run through the month of February. As I mentioned in a previous blog post, my photo “Gray Day Reflected” was one of 132 pieces accepted from an overall pool of 850 submissions from all over Washington State.

The show opens on February 1st from 12-5pm and runs through the entire month. If you find yourself in the area, by all means, stop by! The gallery is located on the corner of 4th & Pacific in downtown Bremerton. The gallery’s website is here.

Big Brother..

Big Brother
I’ve passed by it dozens of times over the years on my way up to the Mount Baker Ski Area but have never stopped. It definitely caught my eye but it’s located alongside a very busy highway during the winter with no place to park nearby. This time, there was frost on the branches of the younger tree so I thought it might make for a more interesting photo. A careful half mile walk back alongside the highway brought me to this view.

Truth be told, the frost detracts somewhat from the scene and blends the younger tree with its elder brother. I’m still very confident in the scene and will make another stop in better conditions!

While exploring another spot along the Mount Baker Highway, I came across a small creek valley with an obvious cold air pocket. The frost on the needles of this fir were especially pretty:

Fir in Hoar Frost...

Fir in Hoar Frost...

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