Category: waterfall

A Dream About Water

I’ve wrote about light painting before and I’ll likely write more again as this really fascinates me in photography. For me it is a lot of fun playing with lights, a lot of creativity as I create something that was not there in the first place, and a lot of surprise as most of the time what I get is unexpected.

Here is an image that got me very excited about light painting again. I spent a day photographing fall foliage in Kubota Gardens in Seattle (I’m still working on post-processing those photos). At dusk as it got dark enough for exposures to go up to 30 seconds I started playing with light painting with two waterfalls I found in the gardens.

I found the upper waterfall to be more interesting of the two because it had red leaves caught in the stream and I could get a more dynamic image with foreground and background.

There were two new things I played with this time. First, I brought two different flashlights: one had cool light and the other one had warm light. So, I could do not only light painting but also color painting. The other thing that I played with was focus, shifting focus in the middle of light painting. This created dreamy effect.

For those interested in more technical details here is how I took this image. The camera was on a tripod, aperture wide open (f/4 for the lens that I used), shutter was 30 seconds. It was pretty dark already, my camera was not able to focus just using ambient light. First I would use very powerful warm flashlight. I would point to a rock in the middle of the frame and focused the camera using auto focus. I would turn off auto focus then. Turn off the flashlight, so it does not light up something accidentally, and release shutter. Then quickly with the same powerful warm light I would trace the waterfall and the creek back and forth a few times to ensure that individual spots or streaks of light a now visible. That was taking me about 5 seconds. Then I would turn off flashlight and defocus the lens. The rest of 25 seconds I was using weak cool flashlight to light up sides of the frame while the camera was out of focus. I did this ten times or more, every time getting a different image – I love the element of surprise. This I think is the best out of the series.

A Dream About Water
A Dream About Water

Unexpected Happens

Photographing the same place again and again is like visiting an old friend.

A couple of weekends ago I went to Olympic Coast for 3 day photographic trip. I decided to start this year with visiting my old friend: Second Beach. By far it is my favorite beach for photography. There are so many different opportunities there.

While driving there I noticed something else that caught my eye: an amazingly saturated greenery of fresh spring leaves. It was amazing. The result was that I spent most of the day time during those three days in a forest.

Now let me welcome you to Olympic Peninsular forest in spring.

Imagination

This photo is just for fun. If you let your imagination run wild it can help you see interesting shapes around you. Like I saw a shape of a humanoid caught in a frozen waterfall.

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Same Place – Different Look

One interesting thing about nature photography is visiting the same place at different times of a year. Last spring I took a photo of one of the waterfalls on Change creek. Back then the trees were covered with fresh green leaves. Green moss was covering rocks.

I went to the same place about a month ago and it looked recognizable but at the same time very much different: bare trees and snow covered rocks.

Thru the Leaves

Traveling in a company of other photographer is both fun and educational. We can pick up ideas from each other, extend each other’s knowledge and creativity. On one of such trips I picked up an idea from other photographer to photograph waterfalls thru leave or include leaves and branches as a framing element in the photos.

Here are two photos from that trip that gives the idea of what I mean. The first one uses branch as framing element and the graphic of another branch being moved by air forced down by the waterfall. In the other the branch is the main compositional element. I liked the graphic lines of the branch.

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Intimate Waterfall

Long time ago I photographed waterfalls from a side to keep myself and equipment away from the water. One thing that I’ve started doing this year is working into water and photographing waterfalls from where the water flows.

Being in the water makes experience much more vivid. I can be more intimate with a waterfall; look at it face-to-face; take a photo of waterfall with water coming onto me. I hope it gives my photographs that intimate look.

Of cause, I have a special boots to keep my feet warm in freezing water. The boots themselves are kind of interesting development of a human mind in itself. Rather than fighting the water trying to keep your feet dry they let the water in and that water seals the boots. The little amount of water that got in is quickly warmed up by your body and the feet stay warm and cozy.

It sounds so much like what photographers do – letting the world around to sink into them and then lock it in with a camera.

Spring Spring (Homestead Creek)
Spring Spring (Homestead Creek)

Second Love Like First Love

I used to be in love with waterfalls ages ago. Then for some reason I stopped photographing them. Maybe I photographed too many of them. Maybe because in area I live in they are very common and photographing them was a cliché. Or maybe I stopped seeing anything new in them.

I don’t know if it is a mere coincidence but after visiting Death Valley – one of the driest places on the Earth – last spring I fell in love for the second time with waterfalls and with moving water in general.

Fortunately I live in area where waterfalls are common. I’ve been driving like crazy around visiting waterfalls that I have not visited for ages. I’ve been photographing creeks with water tumbling over the rocks. I might get stuck at one place for long time finding new and new images in the same spot.

Bridal Veil Falls
Bridal Veil Falls, Washington

Spring Is In The Air

Spring… What do you do to us. Emotions over the top. Creativity spruces.

After dreadful winter rains nice spring weather came to Pacific Northwest. And I cannot stop photographing. I have not sorted thru all the photos from Death Valley trip yet and I already took photos of cherry blossom, that I have not even looked thru, tulip festival, that I only quickly looked thru.

Today I wanted to hike up to some waterfalls, stopped on the way there to check out a creek running over the rocks and got stuck there for hours photographing the creek, rocks, flowers, reflections. I have not even made to the trailhead to the waterfalls that I was originally planning to go to.

Here is one of the photos from today’s trip:

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I really need to step up processing of all my photos.

PS And today while reviewing photos in camera I accidently navigated to the first photos on the card a discovered interesting images of plum blossom that I have not even download off the card yet.