Tad Gielow Photography

Mount Rainier National Park In The Rain And Snow

Mount Rainier –National Park In The Rain And Snow

My wife and I were planning a road trip from our home in Los Angeles to Seattle, Washington to spend a few days visiting our daughter.   On my itinerary was a day photographing in Mount Rainier National Park with the goal of visiting Paradise high up the slope of the mountain.  

The day for our trip arrived with some rain and what I hoped might be some snow at Mount Rainer.   I set out early in the morning with Dan, who had signed on for an all day Personal Workshop to learn more about his DSLR camera.  During the two and a half hour drive from Seattle to Mount Rainer we talked about the fundamentals of exposure:

• Aperture - The amount of light to hit the camera sensor.  Its like adjusting the blinds of a window.
• Shutter Speed - The length of time the shutter is open allowing light to hit the sensor.
• ISO - The sensitivity of the sensor.  Sensors have improved greatly over the past few years  and the problem of noise at high ISO setting has been greatly reduced, making ISO much more useful.
• Depth-Of-Field - Using the Aperture to control the sharpness in front of the behind the area of focus.

As we entered the park, we found ourselves in a lush forest of moss covered pine trees and a scattering of other trees showing off their fall colors.  

We slowly drove up a valley looking for interesting areas, we must have stopped at every turn-out because of something fun to explore, like the photographs above and below.  

With the temperature in the low thirties, we would jump out the car, grab the cameras, rain gear, run into the forest, photograph for a while, and then get back to the warmth of the car.

As we drove further up the mountain the light rain gave way to welcome snow, making it much easier to photograph as the snow can be brushed off the camera before it melts.

 

Higher up the mountain we encountered this large field of snow covered rocks that I thought made an interesting abstract image of positive and negative space.

 

One of the most popular places in Mount Rainier National Park is Christine Falls, named after the daughter of P. B. Van Trump who made the first documented ascent of Mount Rainier in 1870.  Years later, in 1888, he guided John Muir to the summit.

A little farther up the road, Dan spotted a lone maple tree in the midst of snow covered pines seen in the photo at the top of the post.  We spent quite a while taking in the surreal scene before we headed up the mountain toward Paradise. During the summer, the Paradise lodge and visitor center are teeming with people there to take in the beautiful alpine meadows and cool mountain air.   With the snow falling, the parking lot was near empty and the lodge was closed for the season, but it was still a gorgeous place to be.

PHOTO TIP:

Photographing in the rain and wet snow can be challenging because one usually needs a extra hand to hold an umbrella over the camera.   A solution is the AquaTech Sport Shield.  It fully covers the camera and lens and has small windows so you can see the lcd window and other key controls.   There is also an sleeve for your right hand to operate the camera while keeping everything dry, even in pouring rain.

Cross Country Road Trip, Part 2

Cross Country Road Trip, Part 2

A couple of posts ago I wrote about the first leg of a Cross Country Road Trip - Part 1 that took my wife and I from Washington DC to Rapid City, South Dakota.  Now for the second half.   We got an early start the morning after our wonderful visit to Mount Rushmore National Memorial with the goal of getting to Yellowstone National Park and hopefully get a room in one of the park lodges.  

We took a short side trip off of Interstate 90 to visit Devils Tower National Monument. As we approached the tower, I could see a few similar formations off in the distance, but none as fully exposed as the Devils Tower – nothing a few million years won't take care of.  

Here is a bit of tower trivia that we found hilarious:

As a publicity stunt, George Hopkins parachuted onto Devils Tower on October 1, 1941.  He was stranded for six days before he could be rescued.

Driving through the Monument, we had to, just had to, stop at "Prairie Dog Town" to watch the cute critters run around, eat a bit, sit up, look around to see what everyone else is doing and…repeat. 

After our visit to Devils Tower, we hit the road for the journey across Wyoming to the eastern entrance of Yellowstone National Park, a little outside of Cody, Wyoming.  We'd been calling the hotel reservation service from our car whenever we could get service to see if there was chance of getting a room for the night in any of the park lodges.  Their answer was, once in a blue moon someone might cancel, but otherwise, they were booked solid several months in advance.  They recommended checking at a lodge reservation desk when we actually arrived in the park.

We drove up to the Lake Lodge late in the afternoon, and to our surprise and the desk clerk's shock, there was one room left in the entire park – someone had cancelled at the last minute.  We booked it and managed to get one the next night too.  Wow, it was a dream come true for me, two nights inside Yellowstone park.

Later that evening, happily sitting outside on the wide plank porch of the Lake Lodge with a chilled glass of wine and watching the bison amble by, the lady sitting next to us mentioned how lucky we all were to be in the park when it was a full moon – actually, she said, tonight would be a blue moon, the second full moon of the month.

I got up early the next morning to go over to the "West Thumb Geyser Basin" which sits right on the shoreline of Yellowstone Lake.   There was only one other car in the parking lot and that turned out to be some fellow photographers, because, of course, morning light is some of the best light for this kind of photography.  After enjoying the boardwalk trail around the basin, I returned to my car to find a bull elk about fifty feet away in the adjacent meadow.

We then headed out on the all day circle tour of Yellowstone that would take us to Old Faithful, Midway Geyser Basin, Filehole Lake Drive, Gibbon Falls, Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone Falls and then back to the Lake Lodge.  The photograph above and below are from the Midway Geyser Basin.

Beside the geysers and mud pits, the colors that come from the pools of boiling water interesting details to capture.  The photo above shows the deeper blue pool giving way to a very shallow area where algae grows changing the colors from glue to yellowish brown.

For this photo, I thought I would concentrate on the brilliant blues of the deepest part of one of the Midway Geyser Basin pools.   The water temperature in these pools approaches two hundred degrees.

After this very long day of driving around the park , we settled in for another evening of sipping wine on the front porch of the Lake Lodge and watching the sky over Yellowstone Lake, but that sunset looked too good to resist.  I grabbed my gear and walked the few hundred yards from the Lodge to the show of the lake and what a sunset it turned out to be, the photo at the top of the post was the grand finale. 

I arose before sunrise the following morning with plans to photograph Yellowstone Falls from Artist Point.  Although it had been warm during the day, it felt a little chilly in the morning, so instead of my usual shorts, I put on some jeans and put a coat in the car, just in case.  My Boy Scout training of, be prepared, came in handy because I arrived at the empty parking lot at Artist Point, the outside temperature a chilling thirty five degrees.  I had the overlook to myself for a few minutes and then was joined by another photographer who was wearing shorts and a hooded sweatshirt.  He froze his tail off.

One can see why this overlook is called "Artist Point" as the falls and the colors of the surrounding valley look just like an oil painting, especially in the first light of day.

We lingered around the park for while and then drove out the southern entrance and went through Grand Teton National Park and Jackson, Wyoming on our way to pick up Interstate 15 that would take us home.

Taking my wife by complete surprise, (she was pretty done in and had fallen asleep in the car) I managed to sneak in one more national park stop at Bryce Canyon National Park.  We arrived very late and very tired, but this side trip was well worth it.  

So much so, we are planning to return to Bryce Canyon next April when the lodge inside the park opens for the season.  Hopefully, by that time, we'll be a few pounds lighter and actually be able to hike some of those trails at the 8,000 foot altitude without crashing and burning.  If we live to tell the tale, that'll be another post!

Weekend In Mammoth

Weekend In Mammoth

My wife and I were able to get away from the heat of Los Angeles recently and spent a weekend at the Tamarack Lodge on Twin Lakes by Mammoth Mountain.   Things did not start out smoothly as we arrived late and spend almost an hour trying to find our cabin in the dark with a rather poor map.  After almost an hour of searching, we finally settled in after midnight.   We awoke in the morning to a glorious day in the Sierras and spent the day exploring the area and making use of the many miles of bike trails the run through the forest between the numerous lakes in the area.  The second night, we turned in early so we could be up at sunrise to take a walk around the lake in the morning light.

Just a short distance from the cabin we found this boat dock on the perfectly still lake. Normally when photographing a scene like the one above, if I set up to properly expose the sky at the top, the reflected image in the lake would be way too dark.  Setting the exposure for the reflected sky would create a almost white sky at the top.  

The answer, a Graduated Neutral Density Filter.  These filters are indespensible for situations like this.  In my camera bag, I always carry two Singh-Ray Galen Rowell Graduated Neutral Density Filters.  These filters are darker on the top and clear on the bottom with a transition that is either hard or soft.  The image to the left shows a three stop hard transition filter and a two stop soft transition filter.  I used the two stop soft for the photo about and set my exposure for the sky at the top.

Another way to accomplish this would be to take two photographs, one exposed for the sky at the top and one exposed for the reflected sky and use Photoshop the combine the two.   Coming from years of photographing with film, I still prefer to get it right in camera.

A little later at another spot of the lake, we looked across to see that smoke from fires at the nearby campground settling over the area.  Again, I used the two stop soft graduated neutral density filter and added a polarizer to control the reflection coming from the lake as I wanted to capture some submerged roots, logs, and rocks.

On our way back to our cabin we walked through a patch of beautful tiny flowers and I just had to stop, break out my macro lens and have some fun.

The size of these tiny, delicate flowers is very decieving, this clump is only about two inches wide.   To capture this, I very carefully set up my tripod so as not the disturb the many other plants around and oriented the camera so that the front of the lens was just a few inches away so the clump of flowers would fill the frame.

Although the weekend started out a little rough, it sure ended up being a wonderful and peaceful get away.

Hummingbirds

Hummingbirds

I was working in my backyard and noticed one of my cats being very still and starring out the window up into a Camellia bush.   It took a couple of minutes but then I saw it, a tiny nest with two juvenile hummingbirds.   I set my my tripod and camera and over the next few days I kept going out the checking up on them and photographing them.   And then one morning, they had both climbed out of the nest to take their first flight. Fortunately for me, one of the hummingbirds was in no hurry to fly and very nicely posed for me.