Tag: National Parks

Tonquin Valley Sunrise 6

Tonquin Valley Sunrise 6

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I’ve been working on an initial edit of my images from last week in the Canadian Rockies. My plan is to post 1 image each day this week of my favorite images from the Tonquin Valley. Here is the first one! This is from the second sunrise that I spent at Surprise Point. I got up that morning to perfect calm conditions on Amethyst Lake for a reflection, but there were no clouds at all. So, I did my best and this is a beautiful image from about 30 minutes after sunrise.

Lituya Bay Brown Bear

Alaskan Brown Bear in Lituya Bay

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I’ve been meaning to share this nice brown bear that I photographed during my visit in June to Lituya Bay on the outer coast of Glacier Bay National Park in Alaska. My buddy and I spent several hours following this gorgeous bear as it worked its way along the shore eating grass. We kept moving my inflatable to position ourselves to be able to shoot into the nicest sections of flowers, in case the bear happened to walk through them. I really like the eye contact that I got in this image. The bear was only about 15 meters away from us. I tried to keep my 15hp outboard engine idling, just in case the bear decided it did not want to be photographed. However, the engine died a few times, which made my nervous. Whenever I am around bears I am always surprised how disinterested they are in me. It is hard to convey that feeling to people who have never seen a bear in the wild. I used my Canon 5D mkII, 500mm f4 IS lens, at f4, 1/160 sec, at ISO 400. I was also hand-holding it, which gets hard with that big heavy lens.

One more note. I will be at Glazers Camera in Seattle this Saturday from 10-2 as part of their Gitzo Days promotion. I will be giving a free short presentation at 11. Please stop by and say hi.

Hoh Rainforest 1

2009 Bellevue Arts Fair

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I am super excited to be participating in the Bellevue Arts Fair again. It has been 5 years since I last participated, and though I have done a number of art shows around the country since then, none has generated the enthusiasm I received at Bellevue in 2004. My booth location is I-12, which you can find on this map. The forecast predicts weather in the 90’s for later this week, which guarantees that the fair will be busy. I look forward to seeing you there!

This image is another one from my recent private workshop that I lead for a client of Olympic National Park. It was only 2 weeks ago today that we were out on the coast getting rained on. We took advantage of the gloomy weather to focus on rainforest compositions. We certainly got our fill of green, mossy pictures. This photo was taken along the Spruce Trail in the Hoh Rainforest. I created it with my Canon 5D mkII, 17-40 lens, f16, 1 sec, ISO 100, Singh-Ray LB Warming Polarizer, Gitzo Basalt tripod, & Acratech Ultimate ballhead. Oh, yeah, and a lot of patience waiting for the decisive moment when the leaves were perfectly still from a total lack of a breeze.

Sol Duc Vine Maple

Sol Duc Vine Maple

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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.

Hoh Rainforest 3

Hoh Rainforest 3

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I just returned from a 1 week private photography workshop/tour that I lead for a client of Olympic National Park. The trip started last weekend with a sunny 80° day in Seattle. We drove down to Mount Rainier National Park for the first night with ambitions to photograph Reflection Lake at sunrise. The weather changed while we were sleeping, and when we woke up it was cloudy and 40°. So after getting skunked, we started our drive out to our main destination for the week in typical NW crummy weather. I kept telling Dan, that this weather was going to be great for our ambitions to photograph in the rainforest, but that it might not be great for photographing beach sunsets. Over the next 4 days, it mostly drizzled or poured on us, but we took advantage of the weather to photograph the spectacular greens of the temperate rainforest. I spent a lot of time walking around looking for patterns and unique mossy things to photograph. I really felt like I pushed myself photographically in a way that I have never done before in the rainforest. It is not an easy place to see the pictures through the chaos of branches and leaves. I was especially drawn to backlit leaves that just glowed green. I had fun, but it is again sunny and 80° here in Seattle. I’ll be outside working on my tan this afternoon.

Lamplugh Glacier Lupine 1

Lamplugh Glacier Lupine 1

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On my recent trip to Glacier Bay National Park, I returned with my boat to my favorite anchorage in the west arm of the bay at Reid Inlet to spend a few days exploring the beautiful scenery. One of my favorite photographic locations in the park is the Lamplugh Glacier. During my previous visits, I created some of my favorite landscape images on the moraine bar in front of the glacier at low tide. I have also seen photos of lupine in bloom with the glacier in the background, but had never been there at the right time to see it for myself. This time I was very fortunate that the lupine was going off! I spent one overcast afternoon patiently sitting with my camera set up and my finger on the remote trigger waiting for the wind blowing off of the glacier to stop. I was trying to shoot at something like f22, 1/6 sec, and ISO 200-400, but the wind just never completely died down to allow the flowers to sit still long enough for the picture I was after. (I have zero tolerance for wide angle flower shots with flower movement.) So, I came back the next day and was rewarded with a few long pauses in the wind that allowed me to create this beautiful photo.

Torch Bay Sea Otters 1

Torch Bay Sea Otters 1

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After spending 5 days in Lituya Bay, we headed back towards Cape Spencer and Elfin Cove in very calm sea conditions, but heavy overcast clouds. My cruising guidebook said that there were a lot of sea otters in Torch Bay, so since we were passing by we stopped to have a look. Normally, sea otters in Alaska disappear when they see you coming from 1/4 mile away. (This is probably a genetic trait of some kind from the few sea otters that survived the fur trade!) We found some super friendly/mentally challenged sea otters that let us follow them around for a few hours. I usually hand hold my 400mm f4 DO IS lens on the boat, but I had let another photographer borrow it. Instead, I had his 500mm f4 IS lens. This lens is not meant to be hand held for 3 hours. Dominik was kind enough to pilot the boat while I set up my tripod and gimble head on the back deck. I was also fortunate that my boat has an enclosed canvas back deck because it was raining while I was trying to shoot. This is one of my favorite images. The momma kept diving down to forage and when she returned to the surface she had to eat pretty fast before her baby came over and demanded its share. Kids are all the same, aren’t they?

Lituya Bay Sunset 1

Lituya Bay Sunset 1

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After trying to visit Lituya Bay the previous 2 summers, I was finally successful last week! My friend Dominik Modlinski joined me for a 12 day cruise that included the outer coast of Glacier Bay National Park. My boat Serenity is a 22′ C-Dory, which is a pretty small boat for cruising in the Gulf of Alaska. I needed a perfect weather forecast to insure our safety, and this time we got it. After departing Juneau and cruising to Elfin Cove, we began the 60 mile journey up to Lituya Bay in calm seas, but low visibility. We joked that we were cruising on a lake, rather than the North Pacific Ocean. The National Weather Service didn’t predict any big storms, so I knew that we were going to be able to safely run up and back within a week.

Lituya Bay is a spectacular location that few people visit. It has a long dark history that culminates with the July 9, 1958 mega-tsunami that yielded the largest recorded wave in history. The wave was initiated by an 8.3 magnitude earthquake which caused the mountainside at the head of Crillon Inlet to collapse into the bay. The resulting “splash” sent a wall of water up the opposite mountainside to a height of 1,720 feet. As the wave turned and continued, it destroyed every tree in it’s path up to 100 feet about the water before exiting the bay.  Three fishing boats were anchored near La Chaussee Spit at the time, and only 1 boat and its crew survived.

The native Tlingit people were afraid of Lituya Bay. The pre-European Tlingits had a horror of death by drowning, which interrupts the soul’s cycle of cremation and rebirth, giving rise to baleful beings called Land Otter Men. Lituya Bay had many, and when angry they were known to shake the bay and flush it clean of living things. Russians of the Bering expedition found the bay in 1741, but lost 15 men there in the vicious seas. In 1786, the explorer La Pérouse also lost 21 of his men in the extreme tidal currents at the entrance to the bay. In 1853 or 1854, a great wave swept the bay and killed all of the native inhabitants. Other recorded waves came in 1899 and 1936, but by this time, no one lived in the bay any longer due to its fierce reputation.

With all this dark history on my mind, why then did I want to visit Lituya Bay you ask? I have always been an adventurer whether it was extreme alpine climbing or swimming in the deep blue with whales & sharks. I strive to visit places that are just a bit on the edge.  I am bored otherwise. While in Lituya Bay, I definitely felt a bit uneasy by the history of the place. I always felt the presence of the bay’s tragedies in my mind like a guillotine ready to drop at any unsuspecting moment. However, the pure beauty of the place and the incredible amount of wildlife that I saw while visiting convinced me that it is a primeaval paradise. These lupine in bloom along La Chaussee Spit at sunset one night are a testament to life’s eternal cycle of death and rebirth. Lituya Bay for me was a dream realized. I do not know if I will ever be fortunate enough to go back, but I hope to some day.

Torres Dramatic Sunrise 1

2009 Edmonds Art Festival Juried Gallery

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I am proud to announce that my image “Torres Dramatic Sunrise” won 1st Place in the Photography category at the 2009 Edmonds Art Festival Juried Gallery! I was notified while I was in Alaska last week. The following information is from one of my previous posts.

I created this image in Chile’s Torres del Paine National Park in the region of South America better known as Patagonia. I’ve been familiar with these mountains since well before I even knew what a mountain looked like. I was first introduced to the Patagonia clothing company by my Uncle Jerry way back in junior high school while growing up in Michigan. While I was very active in rock-climbing and mountaineering during the 90’s, I read a number of amazing stories about climbing the famous granite spires of the region. Even though I am no longer interested in technical climbing, I had always wanted to visit these legendary mountains and in 2007 I finally had the opportunity to do so. I loved the spectacular scenery so much, that I went back in January 2008. I did not have enough time during my first trip to backpack to the famous Los Torres viewpoint, so I made it my main objective on this second visit. It is a 16 mile roundtrip hike up to the Torres campground, so in order to photograph the mountains at sunrise you need to camp overnight.  I took enough food and equipment to spend 5 days and had uncommonly good weather. Every morning, I would get up an hour before sunrise to hike up the ridge to the famous viewpoint and wait for the sunrise. I did this 4 days in a row, and on my final day I got lucky when the clouds parted for a brief moment and the sunrise light illuminated the spires in golden light. It takes a lot of energy to travel that far for a few images, but the results are worth the effort.

Yosemite Falls Reflection 1

Yosemite Falls Reflection 1

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I just got back from a relaxing week in CA shooting with a few friends in Yosemite and Big Sur, visiting a friend in the Bay Area, and then attending an old college buddy’s wedding at Disneyland. Did I mention that CA is way too crowded for me?

This is a nice reflection image that I took early one morning of Yosemite Falls from the meadows in the Valley. It was a beautiful spot without any other photographers around. You might notice that this image is larger than what I typically post on my site. I’ve had a lot of requests for larger images, so I intend to redo my entire site this year with larger images that will also have a watermark on them again, since I have been having some problems lately with people using my website images for commercial purposes without my permission. I am also working on updating my blog to a WordPress blog that will have a lot more features like search-ability, SEO, and RSS feeds in the next couple of weeks.