Photography

Tye Waterfalls

Jun 28

I wasn’t going to head out this weekend but decided I needed to get out after a very lengthy day of yard work. Forecasts were stream and waterfall friendly so I decided to head up Highway 2 to check out a couple waterfalls in the Tye River valley. First, I decided to revisit a location from a couple weeks ago to re-shoot it under better conditions:

Next up, Alpine Falls which is just east of the Old Cascade Highway’s west end. The volume of water is pretty high so it’s hard to get a balanced exposure and detail in the waterfall:

My last stop was was a waterfall I had no idea existed which is appropriately named Scenic Falls. It’s located just off of the road to the Surprise Creek trailhead and pretty impressive. Once again, with water volumes running on the high side, photos were difficult because a hefty amount of spray downwind of the falls. I found a “dry zone” which was partially shielded by a slope to take the photos you see here:

I will return to Scenic Falls at some point to re-shoot it. It was late in the day but I saw another vantage point up higher and outside of the spray zone so I’m anxious to try it.

The Foss

Jun 15

I finally found myself bsck on more familiar ground this week after my trip to Honduras. I lost track of time recently so I spent the best day of this weekend framing my entry for next week’s Edmonds Art Show (I’ll save my original destination for next weekend). I still felt the need to get out so I headed out to the Foss River valley to explore some more.

First up is a small creek that runs underneath Highway 2 a little bit west of Skykomish. I’ve thought about stopping at this location for a while now but never have. It turns out that it did have some photo worthy opportunities:

From here, I pressed onward and headed up the Foss River Road. Once again, there’s one particular creek that I’ve crossed but never explored. The full sunshine was havoc but once again I found some interesting scenes:

Next up was a second visit to a particular spot along the Foss River that I found earlier this winter. By now, the weather was SLOWLY turning with scattered clouds beginning to drift through. Still- bright sunshine was still dominating:

From here, I headed up the valley to see if I could get up to the Evans Lake trailhead. It looked hopeful but about 1 mile shy of the trailhead the road became snow covered and undriveable. At one point, I happened to look up and watched some whispy clouds stream across the ridgeline above me. The clouds were backlit due to the sun and a halo kept appearing:

From here, I doubled back down the valley and wanted to quickly check out the conditions near Jack’s Pass on the Beckler River Rd. I was bummed to find a MASSIVE windfall blocking one of the side roads off of the pass about 0.5 miles in. A four foot diameter trunk sheered off about 30 feet off of the ground. I’m not so sure this will get cleared this year. That will put a damper on a few of my plans!

Edmonds Art Show 2010

May 21

I found out this week that my photo “Standouts” was accepted into the Juried Art Exhibit at this year’s Edmonds Art Show. The show runs June 18th – 20th so if your in the area, stop by. It’s free and there’s plenty to see!..

Spring is here

Apr 25

For me, the official end to winter comes with the closing of the Mount Baker Ski Area at the last weekend of April. Of course, finishing winter with fresh powder and no lift lines is somewhat cruel but it’s also a fine way to end a season. The month of May could shape up to be very busy for me since I have a number of photography ideas to pursue. It all (hopefully) starts next weekend!

Going Green Again

Nov 18

Another foolish weekend in the rain down at Mount Rainier National Park and along the Carbon River valley. I had some regret for NOT taking a particular shot last week so I decided to head back down to get it. Once again, the weather was steady rain and a complete challenge to keep my camera & lenses moisture free.

This was the shot I noticed last week:

I also took advantage of the hike in to explore the old growth forest:

Green Lake

Nov 08

My first visit to Washington State was in the summer of 1992 and I spent a week with my best friend staying with his aunt and uncle. His uncle took us out on a few tourist type outings down to Mount Saint Helens and to Mount Rainier National Park. I was in awe of everything I saw but what left a lasting impression on me was a simple hike to Green Lake in the northwest corner of Mount Rainier National Park. I can’t explain it but the stillness and peace of the setting has always been something I’ve looked forward to. Now that I live here, the opportunity to visit Green Lake in a winter setting is really special to me.

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Back in 1992, accessing Green lake was pretty easy. The trailhead lies at the side of the road halfway between the Carbon River Park Entrance and the end of the road at Ipsuit Creek Campground. Flooding in the late 1990s changed all of this and sadly, the road can no longer be driven (and most likely will never be repaired). What used to be a 1.8 mile hike is now requires a 3 mile hike along the road just to reach the trailhead. The extra hike along the road makes this a long day but the flip side is that it allows you to enjoy the temperate old growth forest that would normally blur past you while driving the road.

On this particular outing, I expected rain and hoped for snow at the lake (both of which I got). I also enjoyed the entire day in solitude. At the lake, the weather was steady light rain with some brief sleet. After 2 1/2 hours of hiking in the rain, I was saturated and slightly chilled so I was not able to stay as long as I would have liked. After some quick pictures and lunch, I was headed back and trying to take photos of all the things I made a mental note of. I’ll have to make a return trip just to explore the forest along the road..

Buck Creek

Sep 21

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Weather once again forced a Plan B selection. During my recent trips along the Mountain Loop Highway, Buck Creek caught my eye so I made it my destination this weekend. Buck Creek is located just east of the Mount Dickerman trailhead and drains the east slopes of the mountain. It would be easy to miss if it was not for the one lane controlled bridge crossing. The creek has been eroding the downstream bridge abutments prompting Snohomish County to put in the protective measures. There is no trail here so this outing was a good old Cascade Bushwhack.

AFter gearing up, I headed upslope. After 50 yards, the creek actually has two paths to follow- the main channel which is on the left and a flood overflow channel on the right-hand side. I opted to follow the main channel. Water flow by this time of the year is substantially less than during the peak snowmelt months of early summer. What is striking is the width of water flow during significant rain events. Flood related debris carried downslope seems to cover an area 20 yards wide. This is DEFINITELY a place you do not want to be during flooding!

The creek is a steady series of cascading levels and pools along with several large logjams of flood debris. Progress upstream isn’t bad for roughly 1/3 of a mile but gets more challenging due to a large area of flood damage and slope failure. Given the time of day, I decided this would be the end of my exploration on this occasion so I headed back down. Interesting area and one that I’ll return to in the future..

Mount Rainier Sunset

Sep 14

I’ve been trying to attempt this trip for the last couple weeks but the weather hadn’t cooperated until this past weekend. The destination was Tolmie Peak and Eunice Lake, which are located just 2 miles north of Mowich Lake in the northwest corner of the park. I thought Eunice Lake would provide a nice foreground in contrast to the mountain during sunset and it was still relatively close to the trailhead (which would reduce the time and distance of hiking out in the dark).

90 minutes after starting, I found myself atop Tolmie Peak one hour before sunset. Two things immediately became apparent- tonight would not be a spectacular sunset and the better vantage for photography is WELL below the summit on the 1st switchback up from the lake. Rather than miss any of the sunset light, I opted to stay put at least until the best light had faded. There were no clouds to add interest but Rainier did receive some warm orange light during the peak of sunset.

After Rainier lost its direct light, I quickly packed my gear and flew down the trail back down to what I consider to be the better vantage point (at the lower switchback). I didn’t have much time so I quickly set up to snap one shot that included more of Eunice Lake and the mountain.

Once complete, I put on my headlamp and headed back to the trailhead. The trail to Eunice Lake is completely in forest and, once dark, is REALLY dark! I’d be lying if I didn’t admit some nervousness while hiking out alone. Every trail looks like an Edgar Allen Poe tree by the pale light of a headlamp! This day might not have been the best but there’s great potential for future visits..

Edmonds Art Show Approaching

Jun 15

As mentioned previously, I have two pieces that will be part of the Juried Art Show at the Edmonds Art Festival which is next weekend (June 19-21). I’m very happy with how the two framed pieces came together so stop by the festival if you’re in the area. It’s free!

Photographing Snow…

Mar 30

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.

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:

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.

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:

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:

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!

Steve Cole Photography

Pacific Northwest Landscape / Nature Photography