Point of the Arches and Shi Shi Beach, Olympic National Park

Posted on November 5, 2013 by Andy Porter

I have camped at many places. Sometimes you find a spot with such beauty, such a personality that you fall in love.

Point of the Arches is one of those places for me. When the tide is out the beach stretches beyond the sea stacks. Wandering among the tide pools, excited to see what’s next, I am astounded at how much things change each time I visit, yet stay the same.

The sound of the waves, first muted and now roaring create a soundtrack that calms and thrills. The gulls and wind add their parts to the symphony.

A fire at night and the feel of sand and smoke.

The stars and darkness crashing.

Perched on the edge. Taking it all in.

Enchantments

Posted on October 19, 2013 by Andy Porter

The Enchantments is an area with in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, near Leavenworth, Washington.

Crammed into a small area there are myriad lakes, tarns and jagged peaks. One of the many allures of the Enchantments are the larches which turn bright orange and yellow in the fall. The juxtaposition of (hopefully) blue skies, green spruce, orange larch and as we encountered, white snow, is a wonder on the eyes!

To camp overnight requires a permit. To get a permit involves entering a lottery and hoping for good luck!

Earlier this year I decided to apply for the permits and was lucky enough to win a permit for October. However the weather at the start of October was horrific, high winds, a veritable deluge of rain and in the upper alpine zones, snow. By the time my allotted time came around things started to brighten up, and so, off I went.

Parking area

Foot Bridge at the start…

Fall Colors on the way up

I managed to recruit two hardy souls to come along and we headed over Stevens Pass to Leavenworth and on up to the Snow Lakes Trail head. the first days hike was a little more than 10 miles and 4,000feet of elevation gain and we camped out on a sand bar along the shore of Upper Snow Lake.
Upper Snow Lake
Day two brought partly sunny skies and we hoisted our heavy packs for the 4 mile hike up to Lake Viviane. The trail was steep in spots and there was much snow. The area around the lake was very windy, and it took some time to find a flat, sheltered place for the tent.
Lake Viviane

Lake Viviane

Lake Viviane
The snow was as much as 2 to 3 feet deep in places. But so many people had traveled over the path that hiking was relatively easy.

At night I tried a few starry sky shots…

The 3rd day we awoke early to more sun and clouds and headed further up, on towards the Upper Lakes.

The mix of clouds, sky, larch and snow was perfect.

Leprechaun Lake was especially photogenic!

By late afternoon the skies looked decidedly dark and so we made our way back down to Upper Snow Lake and back to the car the next day…

I am definitely planning on entering the lottery again for the next years hiking season!

Cypress Island

Posted on September 3, 2013 by Andy Porter

Visited Cypress Island this weekend. Took a few shots of the sun, moon and stars. Oh, and water and a few boats, too.

Milky Way from Artist Point, Aug. 6th

Posted on August 7, 2013 by Andy Porter

I made my way up the Mount Baker Highway to Artist Point and managed to capture a few images of the Milky Way…

Astrophotography Images and Techniques

Posted on July 14, 2013 by Andy Porter

I have been working on nighttime imaging for a while, trying different exposures and post-capture processing.
This image was one of my first attempts. I hiked in to a location with very little ambient light, actually I went there to capture meteor images last August. I shot this at f3.5 at 30 sec and 800 ISO, using a Canon t2i and an 15-85mm lens. I tried using various settings of ISO, but had the idea that I should not get much above 800-1200iso.
The image was shot in the RAW format, opening it in Photoshop I made several changes:
The noise reduction and sharpening was used heavily to reduce the graininess
Lens distortion correction
Fill light was used to brighten the image and Recovery to decrease the brightness on the tent
Vibrance, Clarity and Contrast were also significantly increased.
I saved the image as a jpeg and opened it in PS (I was using CS5 for this image) and went on to select the sky, and using Levels brought out the contrast by moving the slider to the right (to the start of the peak) and to the left down to 220. here is the result:

This year I got myself a new Canon 6D and went to Washington Pass, along the North Cascades Highway to take pictures. I was careful to choose a night with clear skies and very little moon.
This image was shot at 8sec, f4.0 and 25,600 iso. There is a setting on the camera for “High ISO Noise Reduction” and I set this to high. I tried to keep the shutter speed low, 10 sec or less, to make sure there was no blur from movement of the earth, etc.

Again, I shot this in the RAW format. Photoshop CS5 was not able to open the RAW images I shot with the new Canon 6D, so I had to upgrade to CS 6…
Here are the basic modifications made to the RAW image:
The sharpening was used heavily, BUT no Noise Reduction
Lens distortion correction
I increased Vibrance, Saturation and Highlights
Here is the result:

Going back to the image later I felt that there was still to much graininess and so I went back to the RAW image and greatly increased the Noise Reduction, then I saved the image as a jpeg and opened it in PS (I was using CS6 for this image) and went on to select the sky, and using Levels brought out the contrast by moving the slider to the right (to the start of the peak) and to the left down to 220. Here is the result:

I am much more satisfied with the version.
Please feel free to let me know which variation you like the most, and if you can, why!
And if you have any ideas, tips or suggestions, I am very interested.

July 4th Fireworks and Carnival!

Posted on July 8, 2013 by Andy Porter

At Riverfron Park, Sedro-Woolley, Washington

Liberty Bell, North Cascades and the Milky Way

Posted on July 4, 2013 by Andy Porter

I took these images last night, about midnight, at the Washington Pass Overlook on the North Cascades Highway. The mountain in the foreground is Liberty Bell.
Set the camera at f/4, 8 to 10 seconds and an ISO of 25,600.
Captured as RAW images and some slight mods with PS 6.

The Watchman in the Moonlight, Zion National Park

Posted on June 14, 2013 by Andy Porter

Liberty Bell, North Cascades

Posted on May 10, 2013 by Andy Porter

Point of the Arches and Shi Shi Beach, Olympic National Park

Posted on May 9, 2013 by Andy Porter

Fantastic weather and a waning moon brought me to the coast on Saturday in another attempt to capture some decent nighttime images.

Sunset comes before starlight.

This image is facing north along Shi Shi Beach. There were probably 30 people camping along its arc. Several campfires interspersed…The orange glare is from the settlement of Neah Bay.