Fir Island Sunrise

Posted on October 24, 2017 by Andy Porter

This last Sunday morning was forecast to be wet and miserable.

Somehow the clouds parted and the sunrise was long and varied, dark clouds, rain, then rainbows and sun!

Here are a few pics.

Fir Island Sunset

Posted on October 10, 2017 by Andy Porter

Fir Island is located at the mouth of the Skagit River. You can get there from Best Road, go west on Rawlins until the road stops and start walking. Its very wet and soggy, in the best of times.

There is sort of a trail that leads out to the closest mound of rock. Its an easy relaxing walk. The sky is filled with sounds.

I make it to the small hill and climb up for the view. The mouth of the Skagit River sweeps out to the sound.

The sun is starting to set and so I head back.

Soon I am assaulted by waves of color.

Its hard to keep walking.

Sunset atop Big Rock

Posted on July 19, 2017 by Andy Porter

Big Rock lies along Highway 9, just south of Clear Lake. The promontory juts up a few hundred feet affording a nice view of the valley.

: Big Rock

: Big Rock

Samish Island Sunset

Posted on June 11, 2017 by Andy Porter

Images captured years ago, now seeing the light of day…

It was just one of those utterly unbelievably colorful sunsets.

There is no way to fake those colors!

: Samish Sunset 2

: Samish Sunset 1

Skagit Valley Spring

Posted on May 17, 2017 by Andy Porter

Here are several images from the last week, roaming under Skagit Valley Skies…

Samish River Boat

Posted on March 17, 2017 by Andy Porter

Along the Bayview Edison Road there is a small bridge over the Samish River. The end of the river curves west as it opens into the sound.
The sweeping are is filled with grass and an old, abandoned boat.

This next image is more recent, yesterday in fact and you can see the top of the boat has gotten smashed. The green is starting to arrive, and that wonderful grass will be back soon.

Skagit Valley Tulips and Daffodils- 2017

Posted on February 12, 2017 by Andy Porter

Last weeks snow was short lived, the last few days temps have been inching up towards a balmy 50 degrees. Today I did a bit of reconnoitering in the tulip zone.

The daffodils fields have sprouted, the green little shoots about 2 to 3 inches high…

How long until we see flowers? My experience is that on sunny warm day (sunny and temps in the 50’s or 60’s) the flowers speed up by a factor of 5 over a regular day (temps in the 40’s and cloudy).

So, if we get a solid 4 or 5 days of warm, it wont be too long. If the cool temps hang around, maybe we’ll see Daffodils at the end of Feb. That’s what I am betting on.

The La Conner Daffodil Festival web site has a link to the current Bloom Map, and you can see where the various types of dazzling flowers will pop up amongst the tapestry of fields.

The last 4 years have seen the bloom dates get earlier. Last two years have seen the tulip fields getting topped before mid-April!

So, stay informed, as the blooming can change fast, but generally plan for the last week of March or first week of April, latest, to pay a visit!

The Official Site of the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival holds the key to all you need for a fantastic visit for Tulip Festival.

If you don’t love lots of traffic, try to avoid Saturday and Sundays between 10am and 5pm. Pretty much any other time will find you a lot more space!

I tend to head over for sunrises, any day for sunrise is good. Even on the weekends there are very few people for sunrises. And the weekdays are wonderful for sunset shooting.

Tulip Festival Photo Tours

I provide Tulip Photo Tours for anyone interested. These half day Photo Tours are a blast, we’ll visit as many of the best fields as we can, and along the way I will offer any advice (if wanted!) about exposure and composition. Here is the link to find out more.

: Tulips Photo Tour

: Skagit Valley Tulips

: Tulips and Stormy Skies

: Daffodil Sunset

: Skagit Valley Daffodils

Flickr Explore

Posted on June 20, 2016 by Andy Porter

Flickr Explore

If you’ve taken a photograph at any point since 2004, chances are you have heard of Flickr. Whether shot by professional or amateur, advanced or novice, more than 6 billion photos have taken up residence on Flickr, the Web’s most popular image hosting community. Each day the best images are selected for Flickr Explore.

Explore is Flickr’s way of showcasing the most interesting photos within a given point in time — usually over a 24 hour period.

Flickr receives about 6,000 uploads every minute — That’s about 8.6 million photos a day! From this huge group of images, the Flickr Interestingness algorithm chooses only 500 images to showcase for each 24-hour period. That’s only one image in every 17,000!

My Flickr name is i8Seattle. Here is a link to my Flickr page!

So far I’ve had 34 of my images showcased on Flickr Explore.I must admit that its a pretty big win for me when one of my images is chosen for Explore!

Here are a few of MY favorites.

: Padilla Bay Sunset

: Govan Schoolhouse

: Skagit Valley Tulips

: Sahale Camp

: Palouse Falls State Park Moonlight

: Diablo Lake

: Mount Shuksan, North Cascades

: Balloon Festival

: Twin Lakes

: Maple Pass

: Lupine at twilight

: Sahale Camp

: Glacier Peak

: Diablo Dam

: Sunset at Copper Ridge

: Isolation Lake Panorama, Alpine Lakes Wilderness

: Open Window

: Daffodils

: Tulip Festival

: Skagit Valley

: Skyline Divide

: Tulips at Sunset

Come with me out on a Night Sky Photo Tour or North Cascades Photo Tour!

Skagit Valley Barn at Sunset

Posted on May 14, 2016 by Andy Porter

Skagit Valley Barn at Sunset

There is something about an old, weathered wooden barn that captures the imagination. I guess barns in general are cool, but to grab attention the barn needs to be made of wood AND look like its seem a bit too many winters.

That gives it a certain character, a personality. barns re great photo subjects anytime. Autumn is always a wonderful barn season, with the fall colors. But for me, spring is the time! Bright green meadows and fantastically colorful skies make a barn image complete!

There are many barns strewn through the Skagit Valley and I was lucky to catch one of my favorites on a night just right for picture taking!

BTW, if you have an interest in capturing Night Sky Images with old barns and buildings, this coming new moon, June 4th, I am leading a night sky class to Eastern Washington to capture Milky Way images and old abandoned buildings. Here is the link for more info!