Scolephoto

Yellowstone National Park

Sep 20

The week of Labor Day marked my first ever trip to Yellowstone National Park. I’ve actually wanted to incorporate a little more wildlife experiences in my photography the last few years. Heck- if you’ve ever looked in my “fauna” gallery on my site, you know it’s pretty bare! Anyways, my girlfriend stopped through the park back in June and was all too eager to make a return trip. Away we went!

Unlike most of my blog posts where I typically write up a journal or narrative for my outings, this time I just wanna rattle off a list of random thoughts-

Trip Research / Prep!

There are a couple of traditional print books about photographing Yellowstone such as this and this. I have both, and they’re not too bad (but a bit light on wildlife). Prior to my trip, I came across an eBook put out by photographer Dean Sauskojus (website here) called “The Ultimate Photo Guide to Yellowstone National Park” (and you can access the eBook info page here). Dean’s photography is wonderful, and his locational write-ups seemed to be fairly spot-on. I found it handy to be able to refer to the PDF on my tablet while out in the park. Anyways, I would definitely recommend the eBook.

Another tidbit of advice I had been told prior to my trip which I found true was that the distances between points takes a lot longer to travel than you might think. You might want to estimate up to 1.5x the amount of time you think needed in order to get between places by the time you want. You hear about “bear / buffalo jams” but we didn’t experience anything severe during our stay. It could just be the tendency to gawk as you drive, or just being extra defensive to avoid being surprised by something on the road. Case in point, we were driving back to Tower Junction after sunset on our last night and seemingly out of thin air, a small herd of bison was partially in the road, including a young bison nursing off mama.

I’m here! Now what?

One thing I’ve learned to do over time is to scale back expectations of what you can accomplish during the course of a day. Every day I had a sunrise and sunset spot selected but only a very loose plan to connect the two together. Let your hunches and curiosity tell you when and where to stop. Tangentially related, get some bear spray for your safety and protection. It’s designed for use against an attacking bear but any large wild animal can suddenly turn aggressive towards you. This video shows a bunch of teen and pre-teen jack-asses who have a run in with a bison (I would hope most of you wouldn’t be that foolish, though!). At one of my stops near Grand Prismatic Spring, we passed a solitary bison laying down near the Fairy Falls trail. As it turned out, the bison had a wound in it’s side from a sparring match with another bison. A wounded animal can be a dangerous animal and the bear spray was a reassuring item to have.

If you do happen to stop someplace, be prepared to draw a crowd. I’d like to tell you that the crowd will be animals but more often than not, it will be your fellow tourists. They end up deciding that you MUST be seeing something! After all, why else would you have stopped?? I was photographing Soda Butte Creek and Barronette Peak from the highway bridge over the creek when a car stopped on the bridge behind me. I initially ignored them but then a voice asked, “you looking at an animal of the view??” I answered “the view” and they immediately drove off.

Now, sometimes where there’s smoke, there *IS* fire. A few times, we pulled over (into an accepted parking spot) when we came up on a scene with dozens of other people park and gawking at something. The first time in the Lamar Valley, it was the appearance of a black wolf; the second time was in the Hayden Valley and there were up to four wolves in a chess game with a herd of bison. I guess my moral of the story is to let small groups of people enjoy themselves, if you can.

When you are out driving around, be sure to have your camera immediately available. Getting stuck in a bear or bison jam may give you an opportunity to get a nice close shot that you might otherwise
miss. We were stopped in one brief traffic snarl and off to our right was a fox hopping and hunting some prey in the field. While we were stopped, my girlfriend was able to snap a couple shots of it. Another time, we were driving back down from the Beartooth Highway and we passed a fox, happily trotted up the road with a fresh meal in its mouth.

Some Closing Thoughts

I came home from Yellowstone with about 1,400 photographs. Most of these were rapid “bursts” in order to capture some sharp shots of wildlife. After reviewing them, I still have some work to do with my use of a “wildlife” lens like my Bigma (the Sigma 50-500mm lens). This week I came across a few sites which discuss what’s known as long lens technique (this, this, and this) and I’ll be working to incorporate these techniques before my next visit to Yellowstone.

Website Update (and some commentary)

Aug 26

I’m pleased to announce that I’ve updated my website by adding nearly 40 new photos taken during the first half of this year. You can view those photos in my New Photos gallery. Normally, that would be the extent of my “new photo” announcement. This time, however, I’d also like to mention that I’ve also completed a large project where I have re-processed nearly every photo that is on my website (that’s 300+ photos).

I created my website about four years ago and a lot has changed since then. My experience, both in the field and with Photoshop, has grown tremendously. I’ve largely been focused on the present and the future but, earlier this year, I realized that I could do a better job of processing my oldest photos based on my current knowledge and skill set.

And so it began. I’ve posted a few before and after comparisons on my Google Plus account but I’ll share a few examples of what I’m talking about. One of the common mistakes I made was using a display that wasn’t color-calibrated. Eventually all serious photographers realize this mistake and incorporate color calibration into their normal workflow. Your not aware of it at the time but it slaps you in the face once you realize it. Here we have a waterfall scene along Deception Creek:

It should be obvious that the original photo (on the left) has a HUGE green color cast to it. However, once corrected, the difference is striking. Here is another example from the wildflower meadows on Mazama Ridge in Mount Rainier National Park:

After the correction, the colors of the lupine really pop and it’s not due to an increase in the color saturation! Another type of correction, although less common in my collection, was for dynamic range. Now consider this photo of fall color in the Wells Creek drainage on the north side of Mount Baker:

The foreground was in shade but the upper ridge where the fall color was located was in full sunshine. When I originally processed this photo, my abilities at the time could only accommodate the shadows or the highlights but not both. At the time, not even an HDR process could produce a satisfactory result. Through what I have learned since then, I was able to blend two exposures from the original single RAW file and I’m very happy with the results. Now the clouds, bright fall color, and cliff faces are not overexposed *AND* there is sufficient detail in the shade of the foreground.

Some photos were originally color but, after some reflection, I felt would have more impact if converted to black and white. This photo of Hemispheres at the Mount Baker Ski Area is a prime example:
This process took quite a while and seemed like it would never end. In the end, however, I am quite happy with the results and feel that is was well worth the effort.

Mazama Ridge 2012

Aug 22

There’s not much for me to say about Mazama Ridge in Mount Rainier National Park that I haven’t said in previous years here and here. Last weekend I made the trip down to view the wildflowers which were probably beginning their peak week. Great time as always and I ran into a few fellow photographers I’ve interacted with online over the last couple years.

As I hiked out after sunset, the low clouds that persisted all day at lower elevations finally began creeping up the Stevens Creek valley towards Reflection Lakes saddle. I stopped for a couple quick photos on the ridge and at Faraway Rock-

Snoqualmie Nights

Jul 31

I was up in the vicinity of Snoqualmie Pass last night, hoping to do some photography with the coming full moon. Despite forecasts promising cloud cover percentages of 6-13%, the stark reality of weather was significantly worse. The other lesson learned is that the moon travels a far lower path in spring/summer than later in the year. Last night, this meant that the moon never rose above a ridge to the south of my location (or really broke through the mostly cloudy skies for that matter).

The upside of the conditions were the opportunities to photograph a mix of clear patches of star filled skies along with fast moving clouds. Lemonaide from lemons!

Waiting for Auroras

Jul 20

Auroras are trademarks of the high latitudes such as Alaska, Norway, and Canada. It is much rarer to see them at the lower latitudes of places like Seattle. After a tremendous solar burst last week, that’s exactly what was forecasted for the weekend. Sometime in the early 2000s, I saw some aurora activity from the front yard of my house in Everett and it was mesmerizing. I desperately wanted to capture the auroras above some of our fine northwest scenery.

There have been some near misses in terms of seeing auroras over the last couple years and that gave me some time to figure out where to go. Over time, I finally found my “spot” in the Baker Lake vicinity of Mount Baker. My location looked to have a great view of both Mount Shuksan and Mount Baker and was fairly accessible. Predictably, the weather slowly degraded as Saturday arrived. Clouds would be bad enough but persistent afternoon thunderstorms in the mountains really threatened to ruin any chance we had.

As the afternoon went on, the storm activity seemed to tail off and so we gave it a go. Surprisingly, the Forest Service roads were bone dry; the thunderstorms never dropped their payload in this area. Despite some concerns about having to hike on snow to our destination, everything ended up being snow free. Even better, the site I had researched turned out to be great. Mount Baker remained cloaked behind thick clouds but Mount Shuksan had a horizontal slit across its mid flanks. I think the struggling optimists inside of us hoped that the pockets of blue sky were the beginnings of a clear night sky.

Below us, the Baker Lake valley was filling with clouds and gradually creeping up the valley sides. Sunset drew closer and closer bringing color to the various clouds across the sky. As daylight continued to fade, so did our hopes for clear skies in this area. After sunset, the clouds finally swallowed us whole. It was still early enough to come up with a Plan B. It was tough but some reports of clear skies back down in Snohomish County lured us back closer to home. The Mount Pilchuck trail head was our Plan B and two hours of driving later, we were there.

Clear skies were directly overhead but clouds filled the northern skies. no auroras were visible to the naked eye. Or were they?…..While taking some night shots, my peripheral vision seemed to catch a shimmer in the sky. Clouds were still thick so I wasn’t sure what I saw. On one of my shots, there was a small green orb. The auroras! Sadly, that would be all that we would see. It was now pushing 2am; we now accepted the bitterness of defeat and drove home. Hopefully soon, the skies will cooperate and we will capture the auroras. One of these days…

Sunday Sunset

Jul 10

I spent Friday and Saturday night’s out with my girlfriend chasing sunset in the Cascades. In both cases, the sunset’s came up short and meekly went away. It should come as NO surprise that Sunday evening, while sitting at the computer working on something, my girlfriend came up to me and asked, “Steve, do you have your camera? Come quick!..”

Sure enough, I get to the back porch to see an enormous radii of god rays and layers upon layers of puffy clouds. Ah yes- the sunset I wanted came a day late. Monroe gets some fantastic sunset light but (honestly) doesn’t have much going for it for foreground compositions. The best thing I could do was walk over to the ball fields behind Frank Wagner Elementary and maximize the sky in my photos. Enjoy!..

East Side 2012

Jul 08

Last weekend I returned to the East Side trail in Mount Rainier National Park. I’ve described the trail in a previous blog post so I’ll just add a few comments about this year’s visit. We had braced for rainy weather but managed to avoid it for most of the day. There might be some sort of rain shadow effect for the Chinook Creek valley (roughly anything south of Chinook Pass and east of the mountain) because we experienced some moments of sun and blue sky while the White River valley to the north of us had constant rain. The rain finally reached us on our hike out when we were only 2 miles from the trail head.

Both of my visits occurred in the month of June but the water levels were higher this time around. I think my future visits will be in September so that we can enjoy lesser flows instead of walls of white water. Despite the low elevation of 2800 feet, the north end of the East Side trail still had a few stubborn patches of isolated snow. Granted, they weren’t anything to be concerned about but it was the last day of June!

We took a break in the area of the Chinook Cascades and were visited by a Dipper. I expected it to fly away by the time I wrestled my camera and zoom lens out of my backpack but it cooperated and stayed a while. I tried taking some photos of the white water crashing in the background while the bird chirped away. From there, we stopped at Stafford Falls since I wasn’t very happy with the results from my first visit. The water levels were too much so I abandoned my plans to enter the water for some different perspectives (I had brought my chest waders).

The other goal I had on this trip was to photograph Ohanepecosh Falls from below at water level. There isn’t a trail so it would take some investigating to figure out a possible way down. I was happy to discover a fairly easy way down that wasn’t very dangerous. Again, the higher water levels somewhat diminished what was possible since the downspray from the falls were far reaching. We experienced our first drops of rain while at the falls which was a bit odd because there were patches of blue skies and a clear view of Shriner’s Peak across the valley from us.

All in all, it wasn’t the most “productive” outings but it is one of the more solitary hikes you can enjoy in Mount Rainier National Park. We only crossed paths with a couple on our way out and that was it. Big old growth, crystal clear streams, and lush green forest – what more could you ask for?

Snoqualmie, I Hardly Know Thee

Jun 19

I don’t like crowds when I’m outdoors so making the decision to visit someplace notorious for crowds is crazy for me. The I-90 corridor up to Snoqualmie Pass is the place where ALLLLL of Seattle decides to go to when they want to go for a hike. That explains why I’ve only done one hike in the 13 years that I’ve lived in Washington. So what would lure me back? Franklin Falls.

I’ve been searching for locations to match an idea I have and Franklin Falls fit the bill. Franklin Falls is accessed by the ever popular Denny Creek trailhead and it is EXTREMELY popular. It’s only a mile from the trailhead to the falls but it turns out that you can also get there much quicker via a side trail off of a switchback of Forest Service Rd 58. Crazy simple!

Anyways, Saturday was a cloudy day with showers coming so it was a perfect day to make a first visit. Lots of Trillium were in bloom in the area and there were still pockets of snow despite a modest elevation of 2700 feet. Spring melt is underway and the falls were quite full. The spray from the falls filled the amphitheater and quite a ways downstream as well. Much like my experiences at Tamanawas Falls on Mount Hood, I had to constantly dry my lens of water drops before every photo. I was only taking some test photos so we only spent about a half hour at the falls. Almost on cue, the horde of visitors began!

Within 10 minutes, 15 people appeared so it was time to go. We continued up Road 58 towards the pass to visit another unnamed waterfall near Alpental. It’s similar to one located at the Deception Falls picnic area. Here, though, the South Fork Snoqualmie River drops and crashes into a rock wall and then spins 180 degrees before continuing downstream. It’s tough to shoot becase some of the I-90 structural elements can sneak into your frame.

Next up was a 0.25 mile stretch of the river downstream of this waterfall. It’s a little ways down and away from the road but we had some glimpses that piqued our interest. There was a little more snow in the trees here so we had to be careful about collapsing undercut snowbanks. As it turned out, this stretch of river has several really interesting features. Despite being so close to the westbound lanes of I-90 (literally below them), you couldn’t hear the traffic. The looming rain finally made its appearance and that signaled that it was time to move on again.

The last location in this part of the valley I wanted to check out was the Ashael Curtis Nature Trail. It’s your typical short loop trail through a forest with some old growth-esque sized trees (but still held much evidence of prior logging including springboard notches on a stump). I don’t know the history of this particular nature trail but it does appear as though it has been hammered by storms. There’s lots of windfall debris all over the place which made things a little too difficult to come up with good compositions. The large trees are still worth visiting, though!

To finish off the day, we headed west back towards North Bend and took Exit 38 to go check out Weeks Falls in Olallie State Park. The falls are wedged between a dam upstream and a hydroelectric spillway on the downstream end. I imagine that the falls were probably more aesthetic before humans made “improvements.” The advection fog which we observed forming over the South Fork Snoqualmie River in the Denny Creek area was now making its appearance at the top of Weeks Falls.

Compositions are tough here so I focused on more intimate scenes. After a little while, full fledged rain began and it was time to call it a day. It was only a recon outing but I’m definitely excited about what I found. I’ll have more to share from this area in the future.

Lewis River Drainage 2012

Jun 13

To put the cap on my trip to Oregon, I once again made the side trip to the Lewis River drainage on my way back home. If you recall my post from a year ago, my first visit to this area came with sunny skies. Forecasts for my return visit this year was showers so I was sure to have better conditions for waterfall and stream photography. My first stop was Curly Creek. I’ve been unsatisfied with my standard photo of the falls from its public viewpoint and I know there’s a way down to the base of the falls. My goal was to try and reach it.

My first thought was to hike alongside the margin of the Lewis River from a spot about 0.5 miles upstream. After some consideration on site, I decided to double back to a campground located along Curly Creek and attempt to parallel the hike to its base. Some waypaths existed around the campground and provided a start. There was a nice waterfall located next to the campground that I decided to photograph. The sun appeared just as I set up my gear; so much for those showers!

There was one bonus that came with the sun- a low mist has hanging over the creek, upstream of the waterfall and it was now backlit thanks to the sunlight. After taking my share of photos, I packed up since I still had a ways to travel to reach the falls. The waypath I used would appear and disappear but the travel wasn’t as ornery as it could be (no devil’s club!). That’s not to say it was easy- I sweated a ton but did make it to the rim of the Lewis River. The final distance was the toughest and the sketchiest. I was so close- but I didn’t feel confident that I could descend safely. The only course of action was to turn back. After all, the waterfall will still be there!

Regrouped and refreshed back at my truck, I headed further up valley to the Lewis River waterfalls (which I never visited last year). On the way to the Lower Lewis Falls trailhead, I spied a few roadside attractions which I made mental notes of; I would try and visit them on my way back to I-5. Lower Lewis Falls is the largest of the three waterfalls on the Lewis River and the easiest to view. After parking, the viewpoint for the falls are a mere 100 yards away atop the high cliff. I didn’t stay long since the views are limited..

My last stop up valley was the Middle Lewis Falls trailhead. The waterfall isn’t very far (only a 0.5 mile hike upstream), and unlike Lower Lewis Falls, you can get fairly up close to Middle Lewis Falls. The river drops 33 feet and crashes into a broad piece of bedrock literally right next to the trail. It’s quite a powerful scene, especially in springtime when the river level is high. Those high river levels made the waterfall a solid wall of whitewater. Before calling it a day, I made a few stops at some locations that caught my eye while driving in. It was a nice end to a trip that had a rocky start!

Winds of Change at Mount Hood

Jun 11

It was three hours until sunset and this is how things were shaping up. What to do? After finishing up my hike to Ramona Falls, this was my dilemma. Although the mountain was fairly socked in, you can see that there is a tall lenticular cloud structure building up behind it. I decided that, when sunset did come, the lenticular cloud was probably going to be highlight. Clearly from this vantage point, I wasn’t going to see much; i needed to move but where? On the first day of my trip, I drove the entire length of Lolo Pass Road to the actual pass and this gave me the knowledge of where I could photograph the mountain, and what to expect. From this simple action, I now knew that I should head to the last viewpoint nearest the pass. It situated me in a more northerly position instead of the northwesterly position that the photo above was taken at. As I drove to my destination, I passed another photographer who had staked his claim not far from where I was previously. I had to smile because I knew that my destination was going to be better suited for what was to come. Boy was I right! The next hour until sunrise was a photographing frenzy. I kept alternating shots between my Sigma 17-70mm lens and my Pentax DA 55-300. The colors from sunset definitely not the best I’ve ever seen but the cloud movement and dynamics certainly were. The wind currents kept changing the view in front of me, almost like shaking an Etch-A-Sketch. True to my hunch, the tall lenticular cloud behind Mount Hood acted like a magnet for any of the colors of sunset. Minute by minute, there was always something to photograph. Like many sunsets, this one just faded away without fanfare. I honestly didn’t expect much of a sunset but I was dead wrong. I’m just glad that I had done a little bit of homework to put me in the best possible position to take advantage of it!