Crocus vernus
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A closeup of two Crocus (Crocus vernus) flowers in the backyard last Spring.
This photograph was a bit of an experiment. I wanted to have a shallow depth of field that would blur the background. Since these flowers were at different heights, having them both in focus was not going to occur along with a shallow depth of field. I might have been able to get these both in focus with an aperture of f/16 or higher, but this would not have the background bokeh effect I was looking for. So this is a blend of two exposures shot at f/2.8 each focusing on the top of one of the flowers. The two exposures were then merged in Photoshop. I like the effect this created, and it shows that a “focus stack” doesn’t have to have everything in focus through the composition.
More photos of Spring flowers and gardens can be found in my Garden Photos Gallery.
Tags: bokeh, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 macro, closeup, crocus, crocus vernus, flowers, focus stack, gardens, macro, purple, spring
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Sunset at the Pitt River
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I am always learning new techniques in Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop, and often a consequence of this is the desire to revisit older photographs and reprocess them. A lot of my older photos were processed using methods that were time consuming and sometimes not that effective. Finally learning to use masks was a gamechanger, for example. There are a lot of these photos where I am happy with the processing, but others that I have started to revisit in order to process them with my current vision of how they should appear. Thankfully my new methods are a lot faster, and the occasional revisit to an older photograph doesn’t take me nearly the time it used to.
This photograph is a good example of one where I wasn’t happy with the initial processing. I like this photo – but the initial version has a foreground that was too dark, the colours were slightly reddish, and there were a few other brightness issues I wanted to fix. I think this processing balances the colours much more faithfully to the original scene as I remember it, and deals with the darker foreground. You can read a bit more about the things I learned while actually photographing this scene in the original post.
Tags: british columbia, Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM, graduated neutral density filter, mosquitoes, mountains, pit meadows, pitt marsh, pitt polder, pitt-addington wildlife management area, rivers, sunset, wetlands
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Fall Colours at Silver Lake
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Silver Lake Provincial Park
Another photograph I made this Fall at Silver Lake Provincial Park in the Skagit Valley near Hope, British Columbia. I was fortunate on both of my trips here last Fall to have a near perfect reflection on the lake – I only wish I’d had even more hours of light to work with all the possibilities!
I posted a panorama made on the same evening in a previous blog post. I also have a gallery in my newly organized image archive dedicated to Silver Lake Provincial Park you may enjoy.
Tags: autumn, fall, fall color, fall colour, fraser valley, hope, lakes, provincial parks, reflections, silver lake, silver lake provincial park, skagit valley, water
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Mount Shuksan Sunset
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This is one of my newly processed photos from Picture Lake in the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest – featuring the iconic Mount Shuksan. In October 2011 I again photographed this location and now that I have my website gallery organized I have finished off the processing of images from that trip. This photo (and the horizontal version) has a bit of a different look to it than the others I processed from the same evening.
More photos of Mount Shuksan and the surrounding area can be found in my Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest Gallery.
Tags: alpenglow, fall color, heather meadows, mirror, mount baker wilderness, mount baker-snoqualmie national forest, mount shuksan, mt. shuksan, north cascades, picture lake, reflections, sunset, washington state
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Liberty Bell Mountain
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Both of these photos were made at Washington Pass in the North Cascades of Washington State. I am never quite sure how to label these things – always thinking in the past that this was part of North Cascades National Park. Washington Pass lies outside of the National Park boundaries and is actually part of the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest, though I think the Washington Pass overlook is maintained and patrolled by National Park staff.
Back in October I visited the Washington Pass area with Alan Majchrowicz. We first hiked up to Blue Lake which was surrounded by some great Fall needle colours in the Alpine Larches. I’d not seen larches before so this was especially interesting. Next Alan showed me this fantastic meadow near Washington Pass which has great view of Liberty Bell Mountain (top) and Kangaroo Ridge (bottom photo) and a wide array of interesting foregrounds.
Kangaroo Ridge After Sunset
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The first example of these can be found in the first photograph of Liberty Bell Mountain. There were many small patches of water in the meadows, some even containing small fish – which I found interesting considering how long this area is under snow each winter. There were also numerous long dead tree trunks laying horizontally on the ground which made for some good foregrounds as well. In the first photo above I liked how all of these seem aligned to point right to Liberty Bell Mountain.
The second example of foregrounds elements I enjoyed were the Narrow Leaved Cotton Grasses (technically a Sedge – Eriophorum angustifolium) which I had not seen before. The small tufts of cotton like seeds on the stems made them a bit more interesting to me. While I think the nice post-sunset “belt of venus” light in this second photo works better, I do have another composition from the same area that shows off the grasses/sedges a little better.
While I am just beginning to scratch the surface of photographic possibilities within the North Cascades area I think this spot near Washington Pass will definitely be a stop I wish to make next year after the thaw!
Tags: belt of venus, cotton grasses, earths shadow, eriophorum angustifolium, grasses, meadows, mountains, narrow leaved cotton grass, north cascades, okanogan wenatchee national forest, sedges, sunset, washington, washington state
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I have spent some of the last few weeks reorganizing the galleries in my Image Archive. Exactly how to organize this number of photos is always a dynamic situation, but I think that my current setup of “Galleries by Subject” and “Galleries by Location” will make it easier. All the galleries are still listed below, but if you want to browse for something relatively specific – this will be an easier way. I also made many new galleries that will work better under this new arrangement such as a gallery for each season of the year and individual British Columbia Provincial Parks.
Tags: collections, galleries, image archive, images, photos, pictures, website
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I always find it difficult to narrow down a years worth of photographs into one list of the “best”. It is a good exercise, however, to really sit down and go through your work and determine what images best fit your current vision for your photography. I did this back in 2010 and 2011 as a part of Jim Goldstein’s project and I am please to enter my images again for this years version.
All of these photographs are available as Fine Art Prints.
So in no particular order these are the “top” (probably better termed as favourite) photos I have made in 2012.
Kalamalka Lake Provincial Park Spring Panorama
(Coldstream, British Columbia)
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: bald eagle, balsamroot, bellingham, birds, birds of prey, bridges, british columbia, broadleaf arnica, broadleaf lupine, bubo scandiacus, Canon EF 1.4x Extender II, Canon EF 70-200mm f/4 L IS USM, common paintbrush, cosens bay, delta, district of kent, fall color, fall colours, first narrows bridge, flowers, fraser valley, fraser valley bald eagle festival, haliaeetus leucocephalus, harrison, huntoon point, japanese maple, kalamalka lake, kulshan ridge, lakes, larrabee state park, lions gate bridge, lupines, magnolia, mount baker wilderness, mount baker-snoqualmie national forest, mount rainier national park, mount shuksan, mountains, night photography, okanagan, owls, queen elizabeth park, reflections, silver lake, silver lake provincial park, snowy owls, spring, stanley park, sunset, suspension bridge, thompson okanagan, tipsoo lake, top 10, trees, usa, vancouver, vernon, washington state, wells peak, western anenome, wildflowers, wildlife
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Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus)
and Mount Woodside
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Last weekend I headed out to the Harrison and Chehalis River area to photograph Bald Eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) with Seattle area photographer Steve Cole. This was the last weekend of the Fraser Valley Bald Eagle Festival. There were not that many tourists or photographers around, though I tend to avoid photographing areas that might contain crowds of onlookers. I was pleased to be able to view some very nice looking adult Bald Eagles from a vantage point closer than I usually find them. Views of large trees full of Eagles are easy to come by in the Fraser Valley this time of year, ones that are in good range of my 70-200mm lens (even with the 1.4x extender attached) are few and far between. So I am happier with my results this year compared to previous attempts.
Bald Eagle
(Haliaeetus leucocephalus)
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The first photo above of an Eagle sitting in a snag works quite well for me because of the snowy backdrop. A Bald Eagle photograph with a snowy mountain behind it just seems more authentic than the backgrounds I am usually able to find. The mountain here is Mount Woodside which sits between Harrison Mills, Aggasiz and Harrison Hot Springs. The Eagle was photographed along Morris Valley Road in Harrison Mills.
The second Bald Eagle photo here was made along side the Harrison River near Highway 7. A stop at Kilby Provincial Park had not yielded any eagles that were close, so we backtracked to this spot as Steve’s girlfriend had noticed some Eagles feeding near the Harrison River Bridge. It is always good to bring a spotter! Luckily this one adult was still sitting on the pilings and hung out long enough for us to make some photographs before flying away.
Bald Eagle
(Haliaeetus leucocephalus)
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The third and last Bald Eagle featured here is perhaps not quite as photogenic as the first two, but I always appreciate it when wildlife is perfectly happy being near me when I have my camera ready. This eagle sat up on these rocks above the road for quite some time, then flew away, circled back and selected a new spot – and repeated this a few times. Maybe he/she was just too full of salmon and was looking for a better vantage point over the valley while digesting the last meal.
Steve has also posted an account of this trip on his blog including a bit of uncomfortableness with another photographer who thought he was just too special to be friendly to others.
Tags: bald eagle, bald eagle festival, birds, birds of prey, british columbia, Canon EF 1.4x Extender II, Canon EF 70-200mm f/4 L IS USM, chehalis, district of kent, fraser valley, fraser valley bald eagle festival, haliaeetus leucocephalus, harrison, harrison bay, harrison river, kilby historic site, morris valley, morris valley road
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Wildflowers at Rainier
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Broadleaf Lupines (Lupinus latifolus), Western Anenome seedheads (Anenome occidentalis) and Common Paintbrush (Castilleja miniata) in Mount Rainier National Park in Washington State, USA.
Earlier I made a few posts showing various wildflower scenes from Mount Rainier National Park. Having edited most of my wildflower images from that trip at this point, I have to say that so far this image is my favourite. It doesn’t show a field filled with wildflowers, but more of an up close perspective. The Broadleaf Lupines (Lupinus latifolus) are certainly the highlight but I like the single Common Paintbrush (Castilleja miniata) flower and the Western Anenome seedheads (Anenome occidentalis) on the side. The yellow flowers which are most likely Broadloeaf Arnica (Arnica latifolia, while not in focus – do help add some color to the scene overall.
Perhaps another reason I like this image is that it was rather difficult to actually make happen. It was windy at Tipsoo Lake that day, and the stems of these flowers aren’t rigid enough to resist swaying in the breeze. So I required a lot of patience to make this particular photograph, but I liked the composition a lot so I stuck with it!
Tags: anenome occidentalis, arnica latifolia, broadleaf arnica, broadleaf lupine, Canon EF 70-200mm f/4 L IS USM, castilleja miniata, common paintbrush, lupines, lupinus latifolius, mount rainier national park, paintbrush, tipsoo lake, washington state, western anenome, wildflowers
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About Michael Russell Photography
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