Tag: Photography

Sierra Club Wilderness 2010 Cover

Sierra Club 2010 Wilderness Cover

Posted on

My above image, taken in Denali National Park in August 2006, is the cover photo of the 2010 Sierra Club Wilderness calendar! I’d visited this pond in 2005 but I never got this kind of light, or even saw the mountain. In 2006 I tried a few times to photograph Denali from this spot, but never got the mountain itself until my perseverance paid off with this dramatic and striking image. There are hundreds of ponds near the Wonder Lake campground and I’d walked by most of them, deciding that this was the nicest one that framed the mountain. It is  accessible via a strenuous 1 hour hike southwest of the campground. I missed the fall colors in Denali this year, but I am flying up to Anchorage on Monday to look for fall colors around the Chugach & Kenai for the next 10 days.  Wish me luck.

Tonquin Valley Sunrise 3

Tonquin Valley Sunrise 3

Posted on

Here it is!  My favorite photo from my backpacking trip into the Tonquin Valley last week. Out of 500 images from 2 days of getting up at 5am for sunrise, backpacking over 40km while carrying my 50lb pack, & driving 1280 miles round-trip, this is the one that caught my attention the most. I can probably process and edit about 20 more images for my stock & publishing needs on top of the 4 that I have already posted here, but this is the one that I am most proud of. Why you ask?

1. Amethyst Lake was almost completely calm from where I was standing all the way across to the Ramparts, giving me a perfect mirror reflection.

2. The clouds were particularly symmetric above the Ramparts, but also in the reflection. I also like the way that the summits of the peaks are just barely in shadow, too. Very mysterious.

3. I like the dark gray color of the clouds and the direct front light on the mountains. This combination of yellow light & gray skies always looks very ominous and dramatic. Also, I find that publishers & art clients prefer blue skies, white clouds, & earth tones over the neon red/orange/yellow images that are more popular with photo contests.

4. The foreground rocks have a pleasant warm tone to them. Behind me, the sun was blocked by a large cloud which acted like a giant soft-box in the sky. During these few minutes, the sun would occasionally pop out and cause my shadow to be cast on the rocks, which I found distracting.

So, what do you think?

Tonquin Valley Sunrise 5

Tonquin Valley Sunrise 5

Posted on

This spectacular image from the Tonquin Valley was taken about 15 minutes after I took what I consider to be my best image from my backpacking trip in Jasper National Park last week. About an hour and a half after sunrise, the light, clouds, & shadows gave me a brilliant series of images to choose from. I was so enthralled by the scene before me, that I had to remember to shoot, let alone switch from horizontal to vertical compositions. Most of the time the reflection was ideal with only small ripples, but at some moments it was absolutely still giving a mirror image of the Ramparts! What an awesome place to shoot without a single other photographer around. Keep that in mind next time you are taking pictures at a popular national park viewpoint!

Tonquin Valley Sunrise 8

Tonquin Valley Sunrise 8

Posted on

As promised, here is my second image of the week from my backpacking trip into the Tonquin Valley in Jasper National Park. (As long as I have internet access in Whistler this week, I’ll be able to post the next 3 images after today.) This images was created an hour after sunrise on the same morning as my previous post. The sky was a brilliant blue, but there were almost no clouds to add any drama. I learned long ago that anytime I have a perfect mountain reflection in a lake, I SHOOT IT!!!!! (Especially when it requires a 40 km round-trip backpacking adventure, and 1280 miles of driving.) Luckily, a couple of wispy clouds on the eastern horizon began to block the sun, casting some pretty fantastic shadow patterns on the Ramparts. It was amazing to watch the shadows dance across the face of this enormous escarpment. This is my favorite image from the second morning’s shoot. My next few posts will be from the first morning when I had some clouds!

Tonquin Valley Sunrise 6

Tonquin Valley Sunrise 6

Posted on

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.

Berg Lake Sunrise Reflection 1

Berg Lake Sunrise Reflection 1

Posted on

I just spent 4 days earning this spectacular sunrise image of Mount Robson. I drove all day last Thursday from Seattle to Valemont, BC so that I could catch a helicopter ride on Friday morning to Berg Lake. The weather started out OK, but quickly turned lousy. I spent all day Saturday & Sunday in the campers shelter next to the wood stove, reading my book, and trying to stay warm while it was miserable outside. Both nights I experienced some terrifying thunderstorms that deposited fresh snow on the mountains down to an elevation not too far above the lake. I was getting grumpy and frustrated to say the least. I called my dad using my Iridium satellite phone for reassurance about the weather. The forecast said that it was going to be nice by Monday. I kept my fingers crossed. Sure enough, when my alarm went off yesterday morning, it was almost totally clear! I probably should have set my alarm for 15 minutes earlier than I did because the first light was already hitting the top of the mountain. I threw on my clothes and took off running to my “secret spot”. I arrived just in time to set up my camera to capture this perfect reflection of Mount Robson with a lenticular cloud on it’s summit.

In case you do not keep up with me already on Facebook & Twitter, I posted a bunch of iPhone photos & videos yesterday from my trip. I’m having a lot of fun and hope that you enjoy following my adventures.

Lituya Bay Brown Bear

Alaskan Brown Bear in Lituya Bay

Posted on

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

Posted on

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

Posted on

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

Posted on

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.