This summer’s Photography Life road trip has come to an end, but not before a final visit to Olympic National Park. After dropping John off at the Seattle airport, Nasim and I spent a couple of days exploring Washington’s dramatic coasts and rainforests, taking some photos and filming the remainder of our Composition chapter. Hopefully you have enjoyed these quick articles from the road. I certainly have had fun sharing our experiences!
Although we were staying in Forks, Washington — one of the rainiest cities in the US — it was completely dry for our entire visit. This would have been perfect weather for a vacation, but it wasn’t what we had wanted for landscape photography. The trees were still very beautiful, but they didn’t have the same saturated colors that can be found after a nice rain. Still, you have to work with the landscape around you, and Olympic was a great place to be. We found some waterfalls that gave nearby foliage some beautiful colors, so it wasn’t impossible to take some interesting shots.
NIKON D800E + 20mm f/1.8 @ 20mm, ISO 100, 6/1, f/16.0
The coastline was my personal favorite part of Olympic, especially owing to the lack of rain. The beaches had a low-hanging fog that worked well in photos, which dissipated around sunset. Dramatic clouds are always welcome, but the foggy gradient of colors that we saw was still quite beautiful.
NIKON D800E + 20mm f/1.8 @ 20mm, ISO 100, 16/10, f/5.6
Hiking to that beach was a challenge. The only path was to climb through a half-mile maze of fallen trees which had washed ashore a thin, man-made peninsula. To make matters worse, the light was fading quickly. I made it to the right spot in time, but only barely. I decided to stand in the water to take this photo, which was fine, but I didn’t have any spare socks or shoes for the hike back in the dark. Sometimes, landscape photography is a demanding job 🙂
That’s all for this trip. It has been a wonderful journey, and it was great to hang out with Nasim and John along the way. They are incredible people, and I admire their knowledge about all things photography and otherwise. Hopefully, we will have more articles and behind-the-scenes clips to share with you all as we continue to work on our landscape video!
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