It was a loud boom. The shockwave from the blast shook everyone up. Through the windows of the shack, we could see the summit of Fuego bathed in orange. It was a cone of glowing gold against a inky blackness of the night sky. Rocks were still exploding upwards, taking long arcs in the sky before the long hand of gravity pulled them back. An ominous cloud of smoke emanating from the summit was barely visible against the night sky, illuminated only by the glow of lava and embers.
The volcano erupted every 20 mins like clockwork. First arcs of lava shot up in the sky, followed by a loud boom, followed by even more eruption, and followed by fine ash landing everywhere. However, timing the capture while keeping the lens clean from ash and condensate proved to be a chore. This was one of those captures.
Acatenango
Antigua Guatemala
Wonderwall
One of the perks of being stuck at home is to go back and comb the archives for hidden gems. The improvement in editing techniques can lease new life to old images that I had discarded as 'uneditable'. Lightroom's capabilities to selectively filter regions based on luminance and color ranges have proved invaluable in this.
This was one such image, which proved difficult to edit at the time I shot it (6 years ago) due to the high dynamic range. While I did take a few bracketed exposures of this scene, and shot a few others with a graduated ND filter, the former lacked sharpness due to lack of a tripod to keep the camera steady, and the latter introduced visual artifacts that were proving challenging to remove. With the new capabilities of LR, I was able to control exposure in a much better manner, and restore the photo to what I actually experienced at the scene.
Gifford Pinchot National Forest
WA USA
A New Winter
The winter has been slow to come by in the Pacific Northwest in 2023. A warmer than usual winter meant that snow fell instead as rain, and the precipitation has been lower than expected for this time of the year (60% of normal). The last week saw the first major winter storm to hit the mountains, coating the Cascades with the light layer of fluffy snow.
I managed to make one last hike out here before the holidays hoping to catch alpenglow on a snow-covered Mt Shuksan. This was one of the compositions I made while freezing out on a mountain-top.
Happy New Year. And here is to hoping 2024 is just as colorful.
Mt Baker Snoqualmie National Forest
WA USA
Summer Greens
I use the long slow winter days to pour over archives to see if I found anything interesting. While going through thousands of photos I had shot in the Palouse region over the past few years, I found these four classic pastoral landscapes. Often, these would be of rusting shacks or vibrant red barns set against a lush farmland framed by a deep blue sky. It took a while to find these locations and find matching compositions, but these four worked.
Palouse
WA USA
Pike Place Colors
A couple of weeks ago during one of those dazzling winter sunsets, the sky turned to a fiery spectacle. Bands of colorful clouds arced across the entire sky, turning slowly from yellows to reds to purples as the sunset progressed. While walking around the market, I found the blazing sign of Pike Place Market highlighting the fiery colors behind it. Composing this frame while minding vehicular traffic and people proved to be a challenge.
Seattle
WA USA
Blues and Reds
Seasons Greetings
A few days earlier, I posted about the difficulty of capturing sunrises since it is so hard to predict when and how the colors would hit, and whether there would be a 'burn' of significant color. This particular sunrise, featured above, had everything going for it. Until the last moment. The colors just tinged the horizon a few dozen miles away, and spread nowhere else. In this frame, I tried to make the most of the 'burn'.
Tahoma State Forest
WA USA
Astra Lumina (Star Light)
Astra Lumina was quite the experience. Pulsating lights and lasers synchronized to an acoustic soundtrack shaped and bent to different shapes to highlight different patterns, all within the confines of a beautifully manicured garden, made for an immersive experience. Photographing the show proved to be a challenge especially in the low light and constantly moving crowds.
Seattle
WA USA
Into the Fog
Hiking above the inversion layer, a thick layer of fog below you, is certainly alluring. It feels like you are above a sea of clouds. But hiking into the inversion layer is a whole new experience. The harsh light and the associated shadows get soft while trees and rocks now have a gentle blur. Occasionally, the fog highlights shafts of sunlight passing through the trees.
In this winter scene, all these effects came into play on a sunny day in a snow-covered landscape. I captured a few shots of this fleeting scene just as the fog started to thicken again.
Mount Baker Snoqualmie National Forest
WA USA
Kodachrome color
The winter in Seattle has been upping its game with spectacular sunrises and sunsets over the last few days. While I missed out on some of the action, I was still able to catch a decent bit of color.
Here is one from a foggy morning where the fog almost managed to play spoilsport, clearing just in time for the colors in the sky to shine through.
Seattle
WA USA
Winter sunrise
A while back, I sat down and thought about the effort that goes into sunrise photography, and I realized that it wasn't easy. It requires sacrificing sleep (and likely your previous night), hiking in the dark in unknown terrain, relying on multiple forecasts for a good sunrise and hoping they hold, and praying that you are not too late for the colors if they show up. In contrast, sunset photography is not as complex as there are fewer variables to consider since many of the unknowns become known. And if the forecast doesn't hold, you can always turn around. A colorful sunset is usually the 'icing on the cake' for a dayhike, whereas a colorful sunrise is the act you are putting all your hopes on and sacrificing a lot for.
This was one such sunrise for which I woke up at 2 in the morning and endured a 3hr drive and an hour of hiking to get to. Thankfully the forecast held, and the effort paid off.
You can purchase my 2024 calendar, which features the above image for December, at this link. And as before, all proceeds get donated to the Sierra Club Foundation
Mount Baker Wilderness
WA USA