Pawnee Grasslands, Colorado

In late July, I found myself in Fort Collins, Colorado with a week to kill between a portrait shoot and a wedding shoot (of the same couple) on the 18th and 25th.  I pulled up a map and took a look around for something that might be interesting to visit. Since the weather wasn’t very stable, I decided against a hike in the mountains and decided instead on a short drive to the Pawnee National Grasslands, about an hour to the East. I had driven through before and I’m always taken by the panoramic vistas and dramatic clouds of the plains.

Barbed Wire Fence: Pawnee Grasslands, Colorado.

The drive was a pretty one, with the dark clouds occasionally sprinkling my car with rain. The light had plenty of potential: the sun breaking through the clouds led to some nice bright spots to contrast with the dark background clouds. I stopped my car here and there along the roadside, and was confronted with the quintessential landscape photography problem: I’ve found a beautiful place… how do I make it into a beautiful photograph? Unfortunately, this wasn’t one of those “f8 and be there” situations. There was grass and sky, but not a whole lot else to form into a composition.  I started looking for patterns in the grass, but found that it was to sparse and scrubby, most of the time. The first thing that I focused on was a barbed wire fence. Trite? Perhaps… but at least it was something to start with.

Eventually, I found a windmill that looked promising, but it had started to rain and the scene quickly lost most of its contrast… but not enough to be interesting. I drove a bit further and stopped just in time to catch the sun burst through and light up the wet road like a distant river. It turned out to have been more spectacular in person than when photographed.

Sunbreak over Pawnee Grasslands, CO

Further down the road, I saw something lying in the grass, perhaps 50 feet away. It looked wooden, but I couldn’t tell what it was otherwise… but it seemed like it might be worth investigating, so I tromped over. It was just an old book shelf that someone had set up for target practice. Needless to say, the ground was also littered with broken bottles, pierced aluminum cans, and a bit further away, empty shells. I didn’t take many photos, and moved on.

I eventually came to pullout near a big, flat field. There were no fences or structures, no hills to speak of, but the clouds and rain were making cool patterns in the sky, so I though I’d just stop and see what I could do. It turned out that the ground was mostly covered with cacti, which made moving around slow and getting low-angle shots dangerous. There were, however, some bright yellow flowers here and there… one looked like an actual sunflower, but most of them looked like something more invasive, as they appeared mostly along the roadside.

The photo at the top of this post was taken at this stop, as was the photo below. The dark rain clouds in the sky formed a natural ceiling for the photographs to the east, and I eventually found a nice patch of grass (I had been looking… I was visiting grasslands, after all) to place in the foreground.

Grass at Pawnee National Grasslands, CO

Clouds Darken the Sky over Pawnee Grasslands

Fireworks in Lake Stevens, WA, July 4, 2009

Last summer, down near Boulder, CO, I decided to set up my tripod and experiment with a cable release and “bulb” to try to capture the local fireworks display. The results were pretty respectable, as far as the fireworks were concerned, but there was no sense of place… they could have been anywhere in the world. I was shooting towards the eastern horizon, which is flat and featureless along the Front Range.

This time around, I thought that I’d try to get a little bit more of the location. Here in Lake Stevens, there is an official, municipal fireworks display, but it is frequently overshadowed by the dozens of private displays that occur around the lake. My intention was to capture the effect of the multitude of simultaneous displays, and when I looked through my viewfinder at the darkening evening sky, I knew that a wide angle lens wasn’t going to cut it. Instead, I decided to take several shots and stitch them together to create a panorama. You can see the result at the top of the page. Even at full screen, it’s not quite big enough to get the full effect… but I’d recommend clicking on the photo anyway. The full resolution file was roughly 35 megapixels.

It’s difficult to decide how realistic this photo is.  The exposures of each individual photo were about 10 seconds long, so they did capture multiple explosions  in such a way that they appear contemporaneous in the final photo.  Additionally, there are 4 photos stitched together, so there are about 40 seconds represented, but they’re not the same 40 seconds across the entire finished piece.  So, in real life, there was no single instant in time (whatever that means) that looked like this photo.  However, if I had used a wide angle lens instead, and stopped the aperture down two stops and left the shutter open for 40 seconds instead of 10, and then cropped down to this portion… you’d see this photo, plus many more fireworks that I missed in the 30 seconds that each of these areas were not exposed. I think that the duration of the exposure actually allows the camera to capture something that conveys the experience much better than a fast, motion stopping shot would have.

Another Seattle Evening: Downtown and Mt. Rainier

Last Monday afternoon, as I was driving down to Magnuson Park in Seattle to meet a client, I noticed that Mt. Rainier was clearly visible on the southern horizon. In fact, there was hardly a cloud in the sky, and I thought that it would be a great chance to get some photos of the skyline with its signature peak looming in the distance, unlike the previous photos.  When my client still hadn’t shown up  25 minutes or so after our scheduled time  (she contacted me later to explain that she’d been a bit late), I decided to swing by Kerry Park again to see how the view was panning out.

The sky was blue.

Clear Skies in Seattle

Even with the mountain visible, though, the monochrome sky made for a somewhat dull backdrop. Since I was earlier than I needed to be, I decided to just sit on one of the benches and enjoy the afternoon. The light had not yet begun to warm with the late afternoon, and I didn’t see much point in setting up a tripod, but I did snap a few photos here and there.

Before long, a short tour bus pulled up and a group of tourists piled out to take in the view. Apparently, they had just returned from an Alaskan Cruise. I met (and photographed) a woman from Pismo Beach, but unfortunately, as soon as she mentioned where she was from, my mind instantly jumped back to a Bugs Bunny Cartoon that I had seen as a child, and I didn’t really catch her name. Diane? Maybe. Perhaps she’ll read this and correct me.

In any case, as the evening wore on, it became clear that most of Seattle had had the same idea. A photographer came by with her wedding couple (?) and a couple of nice Canon dSLRs, and several other photographers started setting up tripods. One gentleman (who looked familiar, but I can’t place the face…) set up a beauty of a digital medium format (Mamiya… I think with a Phase One back) on a carbon fiber tripod. Pretty slick.

I knew that the photos that I was going for were cliche. I’m willing to accept that. Sometimes, it’s just fun to get some nice looking but very typical shots. Still, as the crowd of cameras grew, it started to be a bit much for me. I stuck around and took a few shots, but as it turned out, without much in the way of clouds, the light was much less interesting than it was in the previous shoot, so I was content to head on home a bit before the others packed up.

On Sunday (March 21) I took the ferry over to Bremerton to meet with a couple whose wedding I’ll be shooting in a couple of weeks. It was a typical March day: scattered rain showers, clouds, and the occasional sun break. I broke out the camera so that I’d have something to do on the hour long ferry ride in each direction more than anything else, but it’s always fun to try to capture an interesting photo with flat, boring light.

From the back of the ferry, heading from Seattle to Bremerton.

I took this shot as we pulled out of Seattle, obviously. What grabbed me were the warm colors of the rust in the back of the ferry contrasting with the greens of the water as it was churned up. The cloudy Seattle skyline was just so typical, it made a nice simple background. OK, not a fascinating photo…but I like it nontheless.

The ferry ride itself was pretty quiet. Actually, it was pleasant: hardly anyone on board, no screaming kids, nobody seemed to be pre-occupied with the impending work week and making loud and important plans on their cell phones.  There were some teenagers sitting behind me discussing their weekend exploits on their way back home from the big city. I did hear a lot more about vomit that I’d have liked.

The interior of a Washington State ferry, heading from Seattle to Bremerton.

I shot the second photo from my seat towards the front of the vessel. I liked the curves of the ship, but not enough to want to get up and really try to make something out of it. The resulting photo actually captured the mood of the place pretty well.

I met with the aforementioned couple about 10 minutes after arriving in Bremerton and had a cup of tea with them at the ferry terminal’s Starbucks. They were both very nice, down to earth people, and we were quickly able to decide on a photography strategy that would be feasable for me (working alone) and would fulfill their needs as well.

After a quick walk around the waterfront, I found myself back on the ferry bound for Seattle. On the return trip, there were some sunbreaks which I hoped would hold out until I got to Seattle, but the clouds rolled in again before I was close enough to make any use of them.  I did see a couple of sea lions, but the rest of the trip was much like my previous crossing.

Pulling into Seattle, I saw a pattern that I liked in a couple of buildings, and took this shot.

Just a quick post here to test how this is going to work.

A few weeks ago, we had a nice sunny day, so I decided to go down to Mukilteo waterfront to take some photos. The light was great, but the beach was really crowded, so I didn’t spend as much time there as I’d have liked.

mukilteo lighthouse in the late afternoon

Walking past the lighthouse to the ferry terminal, I saw a great blue heron perched on a dock railing. I only had a 200mm lens with me, so I couldn’t get as close as I would have liked, but it did stay still for a bit, even as the ferry pulled in behind it.

A blue heron at the Mukilteo ferry terminal

Just as I got close enough to get some good detail, it decided to fly off down the waterfront.  I decided to wait for the ferry to pull out again, and stole a quick pic as it headed towards Whidbey Island.