Tag: valley

Elhwa Valley

There is a viewpoint overlooking Elhwa Valley along Route 101 on Olympic Peninsula. I’ve passed that viewpoint many times on the way to the Olympic coast. I’ve stopped some of those times appreciating the vast expanse of the valley, and the mountain peaks, sometimes bear, other times covered in snow, and the fog sitting in the valley or clouds clinging to the mountains or leisurely travelling from one mountain to another. No matter the season there are always clouds there, and the view is never the same.

I have not been able to take a good photo of it for a quite simple reason. The viewpoint was likely done long ago. Since then, a fresh growth of young trees has obstructed the view.

Technology came to the rescue. The last time I went there I took a drone to fly over those annoying trees and get a clear picture of the valley. After that I spent time looking at the view, trying to memorize as much as I could the colors and the feeling of the place.

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There are a couple challenges in painting using a photograph as a reference. First, photographs miss a lot of information that a human eye and mind can capture. I have not yet succeeded in painting from a photograph of a place I’ve never been to. It was not the challenge in this case.

The other challenge is that there are too many details in a photograph. I quickly get lost in the details and lose focus on larger shapes.

Recently, I’ve heard an interesting suggestion from another artist to paint upside down, it confuses the mind and instead of seeing trees, mountains, and rivers, it sees triangles, lines, and other shapes. And it helped.

The first layer of this painting was done upside down. It was very confusing and made no sense. But it was easy to follow: big triangle here, smaller triangle over there and a curvy line in between.

Then I turned it the right side up. My mind started putting things together. It did not happen immediately. A picture of a valley was appearing in front of me, almost like magic.

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Then there was a fun part to this painting. I needed to blend the edges between the brush strokes to soften the sky. The easiest way was to use fingers for that. And so I did.

To avoid messing up the values and temperatures I used different fingers in different places. At the end I had a palette of 4 sky colors on my fingers from darker and cooler to lighter and warmer. The child in me said “let’s play”, and I started adding details in the sky using my finger palette.

Fingerpainting is not only for kids, adults can do it too.

My Oil Painting Journey: The Beginning

Covid was quite disruptive for our everyday lives. A lot changed at that point. We had to cope, to overcome, to adapt.

I won’t delve into all the emotions and challenges I had to deal with, except one: the extra free time I had to fill in. I did not have to go to the office and as it turned out commuting took up a significant part of my life. Working from home, I suddenly got all that time back. I did not want to spend all that time wallowing in misery about all the plans that were ruined by covid. So, I needed to find something to occupy myself with.

Let me step back a bit. Actually, let me step back a lot. When I was a kid one of the dreams I had was to paint. I don’t know how it happened, but I convinced myself that I don’t have an aptitude for painting. I did not even try. Instead, I turned to photography as my outlet for visual creativity. It was quite limited at that. I was always frustrated that image would not come out the way I saw the scene. The photograph was more exciting and captivating in my memory than in camera’s memory. Yet, I persevered and, hopefully, produced some interesting images, while dreaming about painting all that time.

Now let’s step forward again to the time when covid started. I had a lot of extra free time and a lot of uncertainty about the future. The uncertainty was causing a lot of anxiety and I wanted to anchor myself in some activity I would be passionate about.

That’s when I remembered about my childhood dream. I contacted an art teacher (and amazing artist) and started taking oil painting lessons. I had to buy a lot of supplies (funny enough at the beginning I told the teacher that at least painting was not as expensive as photography, and now I can say I was wrong).

I was deeply committed to learning the craft. I painted every day. I would do still-lives at home: I would pick some fruit I had in the kitchen or put some random stuff on the table and start painting it. Weather permitting, I would take out my easel somewhere close to home (since all parks were closed) and try to paint landscapes.

Learning was not easy. There was a lot of frustration at inability to layout on canvas what I had in my mind. In the worst fits of it I broke canvases and brushes. There was a lot of despair at the lack of progress with me sitting and crying. But I persevered through being tired, confused, exhausted.

At this point I am more comfortable with color; I can play and experiment with it without making my paintings look garish; a couple of my paintings are in a gallery. But as with anything else, the more I learn the more I know how little I know.

Looking back at the three years that passed I can see interesting patterns in my learning, and I’d like to share some tricks or key concepts I learned. (I won’t pretend that I have any authority or qualifications to teach, I simply have a few things to say.)

The Light 2

The morning in the backcounty of the Monument Valley started with rain. The sky was overcast. There was no sunrise.

We photographed anyway because we were there. It is better to do than do not. I photograph whereever I am and whenever I am. Who knows when is the next time the opportunity like that presents itself.

After about an hour of photographing we decided it was time to go back. As we packed up the sun broke thru the clouds. The was only one whole in the clouds and a spot of light was slowly moving across the valley lighting up its different features creating new and new images.

We’ve unpacked and started photographing the same place all over again. This time in a new light.

The Experience

Long time ago, when I only started doing photography more as artistic pursuit than a record of personal life my focus was completely on making stunning images, images that captivate viewers. If I came back from a trip with no great images because weather did not cooperate or my creativity was on a break, I would have been depressed: the trip was a failure. And if I brought great images I would have been extremely happy.

Now I travel more and more for experience. The experience of being somewhere. The experience of living there. The experience of being one on one with the nature, or being with likeminded friends, or being in another culture.

Don’t get me wrong. If I make a great image in the process I’m still excited like a kid for a new toy. But I enjoy the full experience and enjoy it independently of whether I make great images. Making photographs only makes me more acute to the world around making me, more sensitive to the experience.

One of the memorable experiences on the last trip was a trip to the backcountry of the Monument Valley with a local guide. We were lucky to get some decent light and I got some exciting images but photography was only a part of the experience.

I also enjoyed being in the wilderness, the food cooked on the coals of a camp fire, the dinner by the campfire, sleeping in a tent surrounded by the noises of the wilderness away from industrial noises of the modern houses, the waking up to the rain bouncing on the tent in the morning urging me to get my boots into the tent before they are filled with water, the eerie silence when all birds and critters suddenly went silent just as the sun hidden by the clouds broke the invisible line of the horizon, the hot coffee on the chilly morning as the campfire was dying down with no one feeding it more logs.

That is the full experience. That is worth living for.

The Spring is Here

spring has come to Skygit Valley. Last weekend I went there to photograph daffodils but ended up photographing less daffodils and more of other scenes of Skygit Valley rediscovering it for myself. Even when there were daffodils in the frame they were taking very little part of it.

First, my attention was captivated by the snow geese taking rest in Skygit Valley during their regular migration.

Then I got fascinated by the smoke and steam coming from tall pipes and blending with the sky.

Then I noticed puddles in the fields and was looking for interesting reflections.

Then I went after complete abstract shots like this.

Then after lonely trees.

Then finally, by the end of the day I finally stood by a daffodil field. Even then I more enjoyed how the sky was painted with clouds then the flowers themselves.

Power of B&W

I cannot believe I have not published a post to my blog in so long. It is enough to slip one week without posting and then another week and then not writing becomes a norm rather than exception. Time to break out of that habit. Expect lots of image in rather random chronological order over the next couple months.

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It is one of a rare hot summer weeks in Seattle. The temperature is constantly over 30 during day and nights are warm and humid. On the days like today I want to throw all food out of the fridge and close myself in it. It is a nice thought that I doubt I’ll ever make come true. I’m not that desperate. But that certainly makes a memory of the last winter refreshing. And that’s the memory I want to share with you today.

I love color to the point when I just photograph some color without even any subject. But sometimes the color is a distraction, a nuance that does not add anything or maybe even takes away something. In those case black-and-white image might still be more powerful. I find black-and-white especially working well in winter. One of the main reason is likely that there is not much color in winter in the pacific northwest mountains. The only color is the tone of the sun light breaking thru the clouds and that one is typically weird.

Like in this case the Sun broke thru the clouds just for a moment putting a spotlight on a bunch of trees in a valley. The color was strange but black-and-white tonality of the scene was beautiful.

Tulip Fatigue?

Every year there is a tulip festival in Skygit Valley. It is probably one of the best events in the northwest. It attracts a lot of people and that includes photographic crowd. I’ve photographed there many times of the years.

This year I went to photograph there too. Strangely enough I ended up with no photographs of tulips. I photographed workers picking up bunches of tulips for sale. I photographed dirt roads, fences, trees, and everything else around except tulips. Do I have tulip fatigue and don’t respond visually to fields of tulips anymore?

Workers Picking Tulips
Workers Picking Tulips

Bus at the End of the Road
Bus at the End of the Road

Dante’s Peak

Day 5, Noon

What an amazing breathtaking view of Death Valley opens up from Dante’s Peak!

The elevation gain of Dante’s Peak is so high that the temperature drops 15C comparing to the the temperature at the bottom of the valley. I got there in t-shirt and shorts but quickly had to put on long-sleeved shirt, warm jacket and gloves to keep myself warm.

Here is a panorama with Badwater in the front (click on the image to see bigger size):

View from Dante's Peak

Here is horizontal photo of the part in the distance:

View from Dante's Peak

And here are is a vertical:

View from Dante's Peak

Tunnel View at Sunset

Tunnel View at Sunset

I was on a trip to Yosemite last week. Now I’m back home and started working thru the photographs that I took on the trip.We were very lucky – the sky was gorgeous three out of four days we spent in Yosemite.

Here is a classic "Tunnel View" of Yosemite valley. This photograph was taken at sunset on the first day of our trip.

I find myself constantly drawn to black-and-white photography. This image is a great example of where black-and-white look great (and better than color one) for my taste.

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