Sol Duc Vine Maple

This is another beautiful green temperate rainforest image that I took last week while leading a private photography tour of Olympic National Park. This image is from the Sol Duc Valley on the way up to the iconic Sol Duc Falls. About 1/2 way to the falls is a very scenic little stream covered in green moss that is often photographed. About 3 winters ago, one of the big storms caused a terrible amount of flooding in the area, and a lot of the moss that covered the boulders was washed away. I was out there last year and did not even take a picture while leading a private workshop. This year, I decided to walk up hill to scout for better photo ops. A good 10-15 minutes above the bridge that crosses the stream, I found some much more pleasing mossy boulders than lower down and proceeded to spend several hours taking pictures.

This is my favorite image. This vine maple overhung a nice section of moss covered rocks and had some really cool delicate branches. Even though there was no wind blowing, this image was incredibly difficult to photograph as the leaves were ever so gently bouncing, making long exposures blurry. I was trying for the largest depth of field possible by shooting within 2 feet of the foreground leaves while trying not to fall into the stream on the slippery rocks. I finally got one image while shooting at f16, 3.2 sec, and ISO 400. You gotta love the backlit leaves during a photo shoot in the rainforest! Also, you better like the color green.