Posts Tagged ‘fall colour’

Group of Small Mushrooms

group of small mushrooms in campbell valley park, langley, british columbia
Mushrooms
-click to enlarge-

   I made this photo in a favourite local park – Campbell Valley Regional Park in Langley, British Columbia. There is not much in the way of wide open scenery here, but it is a great place to focus on smaller things such as mushrooms, wildflowers and occasionally birds. If you have read my previous mushroom posts over on Google+ it will come to you as no surprise that I have not identified this species of mushroom.

   I would normally shoot something like this with my macro lens, but in this case I was not going to be able to get close to this log at all without destroying a lot of underbrush, so I setup my tripod on the trail and used my 70-200mm lens to “get closer”. I am not against placing items in a scene, but for this particular photo I did not place the Maple leaf – it was already laying there. I do have another version of this photo without the leaf, but I believe the above composition is stronger with the leaf in place.

Yakima Peak at Tipsoo Lake

yakima peak tipsoo lake frost

   This shot of Yakima Peak behind a frosty Tipsoo Lake in Mount Rainier National Park was yet another learning experience. I learned that if you set your alarm on a hotel clock radio, check that the time is set properly. As a consequence to my lack of due diligence, I missed sunrise, but I did see Tipsoo Lake for the first time so it wasn’t all bad.

   On this particular morning I estimate that it was about -10°C (14°F) which was a bit chillier than I had anticipated. All the frost had heaved up the soil on the trail a few inches which made walking on it a bit tricky in spots but I think the crunching sound helped wake me up a bit. Sometimes I wish I could stand the taste of coffee. This turned out to be a bit late in the season for good fall colour at Rainier but I still like this shot of Yakima Peak rising above Tipsoo Lake with the foreground of frosty wildflower stems and leaves. A week later and this area had about 2 feet of snow. I can only imagine how much must be up there right now.