Tag: water

Close by

Do I really need to travel far to make photos? Just last weekend I’ve discovered a hike which is only half an hour of driving from my house and yet it has some beautiful waterfalls, creeks and alpine lakes. Well, I have not got to the lakes yet. The two times I went to that hike I got caught up too much with the waterfalls. There are four(!) waterfalls in just the first two miles of the hike.

I still see several image to be made even with closer waterfalls and with the furthest I’ve got to so far I’ve just scratched the surface so to speak. Now I plan to make it all the way just to see everything that it has to offer.

I’m still in awe if the beauty of the place I live in.

Fall Color Along Hwy2

Good images like good wine need time to age. This images have been parked parked on my hard drive for two months. I’ve been coming back to them slowly processing and reprocessing them. They were taken along highway 2 in Washington state near small town Leavenworth.

The fall foliage is beautiful there. This is probably the most beautiful and most popular place in Washington for fall foliage.

Strolling thru Kubota Garden

Sometimes plans don’t work out and I’m glad they don’t. One weekend another photographer and I were planning to hike up a mountain trail to photograph a lake in snow. When time came my buddy bailed out and I did not want to risk hiking in snow after dark alone. Instead I went to Kubota Gardens in Seattle and spent a day there.

Typically, when for places like parks or gardens close to home I try to find time during week or go with family during weekend for one or two hours to do photography. This was the first time I spend whole day in one relatively small garden. And it felt really good – photograph without rushing, lying under a tree, taking time, observing.

I’ve fell in love with this garden.


Early Morning Mist


Let Me Offer My Hand


Passage


Bush on Fire


Due Drops Caught in a Web


Simple Yellow on Red


Lying on the Ground Looking Into Sunny Sky


Explosion


Butterfly


Light

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

Imaginary Worlds: Soothing Moon

While Sun for me is something strong and powerful, Moon is soothing and quite. It is on the other side of the world. Dreamy and sleepy. What can be better than sit at night covered with a cozy blanket looking at shimmering surreal world in a moonlight.

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Quiet Story

In my experience photos with amazing light such as sunsets and sunrises are most popular among viewers. Yet I have a lot of photos that don’t have grand scenery or amazing sunset but tell a quiet story about the place. Such as this one of a seaweed left on the rocks of Rialto Beach as the water recessed during low tide.

I’m not sure what to do about them. They fill small gaps in the story about Olympic National Park, making it more complete. At the same time I feel like the story becomes too long, especially a story about such diverse place as Olympic National Park.

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On the Other Side

I went to Olympic National Park again, just 3 weeks after last time. The last time it was all about visiting old friends. This time it was about making new.

I like the saying “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” by Marcel Proust. It has been my guide in photography for long time. But… sometimes we can let our mind rest and let legs do the work.

I did visit a place I had been to many times – Rialto Beach – but this time I walk past Hole in the Wall, further than I’ve ever been before. I was enjoying excitement of exploration, walking the ground I’ve never been to before, soaking in new landscapes.

That’s where I made this photo at twilight. It has some mysterious feel too it, strangely attracting the eye. I’m wondering if its mystery has anything to do with a you-know-which movie.

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Minimalizm

There was something new in the way I photographed Second Beach this last time which was different fro previous times. Many photographs are very minimalistic with vast open spaces of sky and ocean. I’m wondering if that an influence of Michael Kenna’s and John Paul Caponigro’s work.

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Many Faces of the Same Place

It is amazing how many different photos can be made in the same spot and of the same subject. Look at this photos for example. The same sea stack at Second Beach, just different atmospheric conditions, different light and different exposure.

And here is a couple of photos with a different angle:

Yet one more angle:

More photos of this place from my earlier trips can be found on my website: http:///www.vitphoto.com/?folio=Olympic.

Patience is a Virtue

Patience is a virtue for landscape photographer. Waiting for the right weather, for the right light takes indefinite amount of time.

In Olympics when it rains it pours. But it can stop as suddenly as it starts. This is my favorite time to photograph as I get great cloudy sky. All I need is a bit of patience.

On my second day of the last trip to Olympic Peninsula I woke up to a pouring rain. Well, what could I do about that? Nothing, really nothing. What I can do is to read a book or a magazine. And that’s what I did. I was sitting in a car in a pouring rain reading thru a recent issue of Lenswork. Once I was done with it I moved onto a photography book.

By the noon the rain stopped. I got out of the car put on my backpack and headed to Second Beach. I was rewarded with great skies. Just the kind I like.

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