Its a testament to persistence. I live about 45 minutes from this viewpoint, Jonsrud Viewpoint, near Sandy Oregon. Because this is fairly close, and so cool looking, an image form here has been on my list for a long time. And I go, often. Every time a strikeout. This is the first image I have ever posted from here. I have been there about 6 times, and I finally walked away with an image I liked.
This is a tough spot to shoot. It has great fog in the valley in the morning, but sunrises back-lite Mt. Hood. You can shoot a sunset, but then you don't get the fog. You can see this in many of the mages people post from here. They have fog, and good color in the sky, and then they wash out Hood in the processing and it looks horrible. You just can't get it all when you shoot from here unless you let your tripod sit there all day and shoot both. However, then creeps in the third issue. Clouds. If you live in Portland you know, Hood is a cloud magnet. If you want a sunrise with clouds to catch the color, then you often (99.999 percent of the time) loose Hood in those clouds. If you see Hood, you usually have no clouds. To get hood with clouds around her but not obscuring her, you need patience, and tons of it.
So in this image, I opted for the fog. Clouds came in about 10 minutes after I shot this, but they swallowed Hood. Sigh. Not an easy place to shoot.
The last challenge, the right tripod location. You have to get here early to get the primo tripod spot. Here, I had to show up 1.5 hours before sunrise and wait there, to steak out my spot. When I walked away there was about 12 photographers there. I can't imagine how many there would be if the conditions were even more ideal.
So my hat is off to anyone who got the great trifecta- detail on Hood, colored clouds in the sky and fog in the valley. Its a near impossible feat.
Tags: fall color landscape hood sandy river water stream fog clouds sunrise tripod canon oregon mountain
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Having no color in the sky and overcast clouds on our recent trip to the Rogue River, what does one shoot in these conditions? Waterfalls.
I have had some recently say that my photo-stream is a bit heavy on waterfall images. Guilty. However, living in Oregon, its hard not to gravitate to these liquid masterpieces. I do try to shoot other things too, I swear. At the same time, I will not apologize (too much), or slow my collection. I love getting out and soaking the feet. These are all close and they are fun to shoot. It helps that family likes to see these too, so we can all go and be together. Not this time though. Read on.
This waterfall is on the Rogue River, our first time venturing down into the southern wiles of Oregon. This is Pearsony Falls, part of the Avenue of the Boulders area of the Rogue. I set out to this one alone, the family stayed at the campground nearby. I was a bit rushed shooting this waterfall. See, not only was my light fading, but in the parking area there a set of what I can only call tweakers. They were skulking about, eschewing miscreant effervescence without trying. A true feat to be sure. They were all drinking, swearing and throwing beer bottles at the restroom walls. I think they were Democrats too! That's real trouble (kidding). There were no cars in the parking lot but mine. Odd. Yes, I had my gear with me, but I was also worried that I may come back to a damaged car as they played that age old Amish game, see-who-can break-the-cars-glass-first, (not my favorite game); or worse, my car could be gone altogether (not an Amish game, but possibly a Chicago game). It would be a long walk back to the campground from here. I hoped the falls were right there, close by. Nope. It was down a long, dark trails with thick tree canpoy that felt like a tunnel. I thought I saw eyes looking at me. The trail seemed to take forever, I could certainly not hear my car anymore from here. So when I finally got to the falls I felt like I needed to get the shot and get goin'.
Well this whole process had built up in my head by this point and brought on a good case of the heebee-geebees (I have no idea how to spell that). They could have followed me and may have been getting ready to play push-the-square-guy-into-the -river (they play a lot of games here I guess), or just jump me for the gear. Joke would be on them, everyone hates the 6D Mark II and the street value is crap...I digress. The glass could get them some good tweak-juice or whatever tweakers get hopped up on. Either way, I was jumping at every sound. Shoot, look around, shoot, look around. Not the best way to focus on creating magic. Also not the best way to focus on not slipping into the river myself and later explaining away the fact that I was soaked by creating the story that I fought off tweakers who were jumping me for my gear.
You know what, scratch all that, lets go with the fake tweaker story on this one. It was a close call that night on the Rogue...
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Tags: waterfall landscape river stream oregon rogue boulder boulders tripod long long exposure color trees nature outdoor
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We had tried to shoot a sunset on this entire trip. Almost every night we got skunked. It was either snowing with severe overcast or just no color. On this night we were panting when we took this one. If you have not been to Hovenweep, they have a main trail called the Rim Trail. This circles a large canyon with great Anasazi/Puebloan ruins on each side of the canyon. As the sun was setting on us, we found ourselves on the wrong side of the canyon, we were on the west side. To get the canyon in the image, naturally, you need to be on the east side. We ended up timing it well, but there was not that much color to work with at its best.
Let me know what you think.
Tags: ruin indian native dwelling rock sun sunset color sky tripod
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This is Butte Creek Falls in Oregon. Its been on my list for a long time, but the trip there got so much longer recently when they closed the road that goes to it. There is another way to get there, but its miles, and miles longer. Turns out some vandals darn near burned the place down last year, and because its on private property, the utility company that owns it closed the road. Don't you love it how just a few rotten people can cut off access to something like this?!?
Anyway, this waterfall has a great cave behind it. Caves behind falls are not that unusual here in Oregon, we have seen plenty, including some quite famous ones in Silver Falls State Park not too far from this one. The difference here is the size of this cave. This image is a panorama of the scene. While processing it the image I thought it resembled an eye with water in the middle. Given the story of the cut off road, and the fact that so many lost access, I felt the title was appropriate. I should be thankful I suppose because it has really taken this waterfall off the grid. I left the cute gal in the corner of the image for scale (my wife).
You can see the powerful force of water in this image, look at the size of the tree on the right and all the logs inside this cave!
Enjoy, let me know what you think of the amazing backside of water. Sorry for those of you who don't know Disney, that's a Jungle Cruise joke. I used to drive Jungle Cruise boats three of four lifetimes ago.
Tags: waterfall oregon cave color landscape backside jungle cruse
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This is an older image that came up on a slide show that runs form my backup disks. Its kind of a way to offer the forgotten images a second chance. If something catches my eye, I will pull it out, blow the dust off it and let it get posted.
This is Lower Lewis Falls in Washington. Yes, that ledge looks like a diving board, and many in the summer use it as such. Its a long drop to the bottom and landing the dive correctly is key, because the rocks below are not that forgiving if you miss. I have posted a few of this waterfall, but never from the top. Let me know what you think.
Tags: waterfall lower lewis washington landscape nature forest river stream
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