Olympic National Park

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My job requires that I travel a fair amount to my company’s facilities throughout North America. Luckily this means occasionally I get an opportunity to have the company pay for airfare to locations near some of the more fabulous national parks we have in the US. Right now I am sitting in a hotel in Vancouver, BC for just that reason.

When I found out Vancouver was on my schedule for this year I had to decide if I was going to shoot in the Canadian Rockies, on Vancouver Island or in Olympic National Park. I feel like I chose well when I decided to go to Olympic. I arrived in Seattle on Friday night and drove to Port Angeles. Saturday morning I began one of the better photography trips I have ever been on.

Sol Duc Falls near(ish) Port Angeles, WA. Get here very soon after sunrise on a clear day to avoid harsh light on the river.

It is hard for someone born and raised in Ohio to fully digest the landscape in the Olympic Peninsula. Towering western hemlocks, Douglas firs and big leaf maples exist on an incomprehensible scale, forming the canopy above a lush understory of ferns, spring ephemeral wildflowers, and fallen giants who fell to windstorms or old age. These downed logs slowly rot away nourishing the new growth springing up to take advantage of the new hole in the canopy.

Trillium Grandiflora - something I did not expect to see in these temperate rainforests.

Photographing woodland is extremely difficult. Chaos reigns in the understory and finding a coherent composition is, for me at least, a challenge. I walked through these forests holding my viewing card and raising it to look through and try to isolate vignettes in the wider scene that will make for a good photo. As usual, a good photo is all about the light. Several times during this trip i had my tripod set up and a passerby looked at where my camera was pointed and asked “what are you shooting?” to which I answered “the light”.

Hoh Rainforest - Not the greatest composition in the world, but the light coming in from the left and hitting the moss at least makes it interesting.

Two tools I used on this trip that were extremely helpful were my viewing card and my circular polarizer. If you don’t already know, a viewing card is a card with a cut out with the same aspect ratio as your sensor. You can use an old slide to do this, or you can cut one out for yourself. I’m lucky enough to have a brother who owns a metal shop and he was able to make a metal one for me. I may not always use it but I carry it all the time in my camera backpack. In these types of woodland scenes the viewing card is very useful in screening out some of the chaos and letting me see the potential compositions. A polarizing filter is critical for cutting the reflections from waxy and wet leaves and to an extent cutting through atmospheric haze. Every “keeper” shot I took in Olympic had a polarizer in front of the lens.

Merriman Falls in the Quinault area.

I am very thankful I got to enjoy a few days in this breathtaking park and look forward to going back for a longer visit since I barely scratched the surface on this trip.



Another Spring trip in the Smoky Mountains

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Last weekend was one of my annual spring trips to Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP). I go twice a year and participate in the photography workshops held at the Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont (GSMIT). It is always a highlight to see the instructors, GSMIT employees and participants at the workshop. Many participants come back year after year to see our Tremontster Family.

Fog in the valley below the Foothills Parkway. Spring colors are nearly as good, maybe better, than fall colors.

It has been a hectic spring at home with work travel, lots of yard work killing invasive plants and one thing after another needing to get handled during my free time. This means I feel like I never get time to go out with my camera and shoot (the reality is I haven’t prioritized that over other things). Heading down to Tremont for a weekend washes all of that away and I can get back into my comfort zone around friends amongst the natural beauty of GSMNP.

This gobbler in Cades Cove just couldn’t believe the hens wanted nothing to do with him.

Several newer participants in the workshop asked me why I keep coming back and going to the same locations again and again. Heraclitus said “A man can never step in the same river twice.” Even though until I just looked it up I would have sworn that a Native American said that, the same is true of photographing any location. It is constantly changing. Trees grow and fall, like they recently did in a bad storm in the Cove and at Tremont. The rivers change from a raging torrent to a lazy meandering stream revealing compositions that weren’t there before. Buildings age and are reclaimed by nature. Every single time I go back I find a new subject to photograph or a new way to photograph an old subject.

One of many chimneys left from the historic Elkmont area of the park. My first shot of one of the chimneys that I liked.

Of course the easiest answer to “Why do you keep going back?” is that I simply enjoy being around the people that put on and take part in the workshop. The instructors are always willing to lend a hand in post processing or to encourage me to escape my compositional comfort zone, the staff are some of the most dedicated conservationists you’ll ever meet, and being around 15-30 other photographers of every skill level can really challenge you to see new things as we all work on finding our inspiration.

Sunrise in Cades Cove. Who needs an interesting sky when you have this setting?

Now I have some more photos to edit and bags to pack as I am headed to Vancouver for work next week. Luckily I am going to be able to spend a few days in Olympic National Park while I am out there so I’m glad I got to stretch my photography muscles out in the Smokies.

In case you are interested, the next GSMIT photography workshop is in the fall, November 1-4, 2024. https://gsmit.org/event/autumn-brilliance-photography-workshop-2024/ for more information. I hope I will see you there!