Posts Tagged ‘mount rainier national park’
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)
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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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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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Hiker at Silver Falls
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Both of these photos were made at Silver Falls on the Ohanapecosh River in Mount Rainier National Park this past August.
Over the years I have often avoided having people in any of my photos. After all – I am usually there to photograph nature, not a bunch of people! Often in busy locations there was some waiting while the other visitors walked out of my composition. Now, however, I tend to include those people in a photograph for a few reasons (and then photograph it again when they’ve left). First, I may potentially like the composition more with the people than without later when I edit my photos. Secondly, certain locations don’t show the scale of the scene very well, and including people can give the view a better sense of overall size.
Silver Falls
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I had viewed other photographer’s photos of Silver Falls before my late Summer trip to Mount Rainier, but really didn’t understand how large the falls actually was. The vertical photo at the top of this post is not only more interesting because of the hiker standing there looking at the Falls, his presence helps show you how large the rocks and surrounding area really are. I am not sure that could be accomplished without him in the composition. The second photo here I like a lot – but I do think the scale could be shown a bit better had that hiker still been there!
In my previous post I showed a few images of people enjoying the wildflowers at Tipsoo Lake (also in Mount Rainier National Park) – and I think the people there help the photos a lot as well, though for different reasons than above.
Tags: hikers, mount rainier national park, ohanapecosh, ohanapecosh river, pacific northwest, people, rivers, silver falls, washington state, waterfalls
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Tipsoo Lake Wildflowers
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Almost 2 months ago I went down to Mount Rainier National Park to view the wildflowers. Last week I posted some photos I made at Tipsoo Lake. Even on a weekday a National Park will be a busy place, so there were a lot of people hiking the trails and taking photos. For some compositions I waited for the people to be clear of my frame, but for others I tried to photograph what the people were doing on the trails. There was a lot of pointing and photographing this great display of wildflowers.
Tags: alpine aster, anenome occidentalis, arnica latifolia, aster alpinus, broadleaf arnica, broadleaf lupine, castilleja miniata, cell phone photography, hiking, lupines, lupinus latifolius, mount rainier national park, paintbrush, pasque flowers, people, photographers, photography, recreation, tipsoo lake, trails, upper tipsoo lake, washington state, western anenome, wildflowers
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Western Anenome
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In mid August I went to Mount Rainier National Park to view what was promising to be an impressive display of wildflowers. As the weather at the Paradise area generally did not allow for viewing of the mountain itself, I headed to Tipsoo Lake to see the display there. I was not disappointed! While I have not seen a full display at Paradise, which is rumored to be a bit better, I was quite impressed with what I saw at Tipsoo Lake. The first photograph here is of some Pasque Flowers or Western Anemone (Anemone occidentalis) seed heads that were nicely backlit by the setting sun near Upper Tipsoo Lake. There are also a few Paintbrush (Castilleja miniata), Broadleaf Lupines (Lupinus latifolius), Alpine Aster (Aster alpigenus), and Broadleaf Arnica (Arnica latifolia) in that photo.
Here are a few more wildflower photographs made around Tipsoo and Upper Tipsoo Lakes:
Tags: alpine aster, anenome occidentalis, arnica latifolia, aster alpinus, broadleaf arnica, broadleaf lupine, castilleja miniata, lupines, lupinus latifolius, mount rainier national park, paintbrush, pasque flowers, tipsoo lake, upper tipsoo lake, washington state, western anenome, wildflowers
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Upper Tipsoo Lake
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About a month ago I was at Upper Tipsoo Lake in Mount Rainier National Park during sunset. My main focus there was the great display of wildflowers, as the mountain itself was being a bit shy with the clouds. I was lucky enough that while making this photo the silhouette of Rainier showed through the top of the clouds along with a nice bit of sunset light. A lack of a breeze to mar the nice reflection was nice too!
Tags: governors ridge, lakes, mirror, mount rainier, mount rainier national park, reflection, silhouette, sunset, upper tipsoo lake, washington
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Narada Falls
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A few weeks ago I visited Mount Rainier National Park in the hopes of viewing a full display of wildflowers at the Paradise area of the Park. Unfortunately, this was not to be as clouds obscured the mountain from the Paradise side and most of the Tatoosh Range for the duration of my stay. However, I did come away with many photographs I am quite happy with. As is the case with many of my visits to the park, the weather has changed my plans – but as always there are all manner of great things to photograph near Rainier. I was fortunate to be at Rainier during the same time as photographers Rob Tilley and Gary Hamburgh. After we met up at Paradise we decided that a trip to Narada Falls would be better than dealing with the clouds at Paradise.
Narada Falls
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I have always found the short walk down to Narada Falls to be worth it regardless of the weather. I don’t always photograph there but I found the lower water levels of a few weeks ago photographically interesting. They also came with much less spray to keep off of my lenses and camera. After trying a successful experiment at Eureka Falls I’ve been using my 70-200mm lens to focus on the details of many waterfalls I have encountered. I still enjoying the overall view of a waterfall, but sometimes cutting out the extraneous details can be a more visually pleasing photograph.
Tags: mount rainier national park, narada falls, paradise river, washington state, waterfalls
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Christine Falls Triptych
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When I originally made these series of photographs in Mount Rainier National Park I had intended to stitch them into a vertical panorama. I have tried a few of these before but find that displaying them on the web is not easy. You also need to pick very special subject matter to make them interesting – in my opinion even more so than a horizontal, more traditional panorama. While stitching this vertical together last night I decided it really didn’t work for me – so I thought of making 3 of the images I shot into a triptych. I haven’t done this before, but I think it works well with these 3 images.
Apparently this sort of thing is popular enough for a few people to have recently asked me if I ever do this with images – which is what gave me this idea in the first place. Do you think I was successful with this attempt? Do you ever shoot images specifically for this sort of presentation?
Tags: christine falls, mount rainier national park, triptych, waterfalls
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Late Evening Light at Mount Rainier National Park
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Save your photos! Well, some of them.
Sometimes I read how others delete all the shots they aren’t immediately happy with, not just those that were out of focus etc. As I have written before I do go through and quickly delete photos that are obviously not up to par (focus accidents, test shots etc) – but then I tend to sit back and digest them for a while. Immediately after I shoot the impressions I have of the results may not be very objective. I wait for a while to process most images so I can more clearly see what is going on, and to distance myself from my initial expectations. Even after some distance and thought I do not always get things “right” in my choices, and sometimes images fall through the cracks.
The image here is one such example. This is a late evening shot I made in Mount Rainier National Park in October, 2010. Ricksecker Point is a good vantage point for Rainier itself, but unless you get some really special light things will look just like all the other “iconic” shots from the same spot. I had gone there hoping to get some good sunset shots near the Tatoosh Range but this just wasn’t going to happen with that day’s conditions so I started looking for alternative compositions. I noticed the glow of the late evening light on these fir and cedar trees and made a few photographs of what I saw. When I first looked at these at home though, they did not really seem to stand out.
A few weeks ago I was going through some of my folders of photographs from 2010. I like to review things occasionally and look over shots I have passed by in favour of images that, at the time at least, appear stronger. I noticed this shot and was somewhat surprised I had never really noticed it before. It had not been a throwaway but was not selected for bigger things at the time either.
I am curious what other photographers do with the shots they initially think are “borderline”? Do you purge everything but the strongest images right away or do you sit on a lot of shots so you can evaluate them later?
Tags: abies lasiocarpa, abies procera, alpenglow, alpine, cascade mountain range, cascade range, coniferous, eagle peak, mount rainier national park, mountains, national park, noble fir, north america, pacific northwest, post-processing, ricksecker point, subapline fir, sunset, tatoosh range, thuja plicata, united states, washington state, western red cedar, workflow
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About Michael Russell Photography
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