Like every photographer, I have a “bucket list” of locations I have yet to visit, but where I want to eventually shoot. In the immediate Northwest area, my top “must-photograph” locations going into 2010 were places such as Shi-Shi and Second Beaches, the lavender fields at Sequim, more of the Oregon coast, Crater Lake, and [...]
Traditionally, I’ve always considered the annual Pacific Northwest “photography season” to begin with the first daffodils appearing in the flower farms of the Skagit Valley (whose much better-known tulip season begins about a month or so thereafter). Last year, after the notorious 2008-09 winter, the daffodils didn’t make their first appearance until mid-March, and weren’t [...]
As the end of the Northwest “shooting season” draws near, I (along with many other of the area’s photographers) find myself rushing to get in as much of autumn as I can before hunkering down to the coming four-to-five months of steady rain, slate-gray skies, bare branches, and brown vegetation. (Not that there’s nothing to [...]
While rewarding, the Hoh Rain Forest is, by far, the most difficult forest subject I’ve ever shot. Compared to the Hoh, other forests in Washington state (including the Sol Duc Trail, Grove of the Patriarchs, and so on) have a certain flow — there’s a layering of trees, undergrowth, rivers, and other features that make [...]
We all have our dreams of having the “perfect” something-or-other: the perfect job, the perfect house, the perfect girl- or boy-friend, etc. For nature photographers, it’s “the perfect shoot” — one where you arrive at a location, instantly find great foreground-background combinations in ideal lighting conditions, and merely have to set up your equipment and [...]
