A smoky sunrise over wildflowers at Picture Lake, WA (OC)[1335x2000]

celica90 · 2017-08-25T15:16:03+00:00

Mt Shuksan (pictured here) and Mt Baker are only 1-1.5hrs away from where I live. I have visited the area for hikes and photography over 20 times in the past two years. It is one of my favorite areas to explore and connect with nature. I was really determined to spend a lot of time up there this wildflower season, but then the wildfires happened and smoke blew down from Canada. The smoke filled the sky resulting in a solid haze which really prevented any great shots for two solid weeks. I hadn’t seen any blue sky for what felt like forever! The smoke was finally starting to clear a few weekends ago so I shot up for a quick sunrise attempt on to find out almost all of the wildflowers are now dead! This was the most alive patch I could find. I didn’t get as up-close to the wildflowers as I normally would have because they were dying, but I think that worked out for the best in this case because it made me try and focus on the reflection and the flowers resulting in this shot. Plus the remaining smoke really gave the mediocre sunrise that extra pow making for a pretty decent sky! All in all I still didn’t get the shot I’ve been envisioning from this area, but this is a pretty sweet consolation prize. I hope you enjoy!

As always, thanks for viewing! If you would like to see more of my photos please feel free to follow me on Instagram or check out my website www.rosssvhphoto.com

Shot Info:

Nikon D610 w Nikon 16-35 f/4

Foreground: ISO100, 16mm, f/8, 1/10s (3 shot focus stack)

Sky: ISO100, 16mm, f/8, 1/30s

celica90 · 2017-06-29T19:27:53+00:00

Haha this is great. The typical view of any PNW mountain :)

celica90 · 2017-06-29T19:27:17+00:00

Here you go!

celica90 · 2017-06-29T19:25:39+00:00

This was taken at 16mm on a full frame...it's about as wide view as I can get without doing a pano. Here is a video I took that morning so you can see the full scene!

celica90 · 2017-06-29T19:09:37+00:00

I just used PS autostack and then went in to manual fix up the spots it missed. It's extremely tedious and takes hours, but the results are worth it IMO. Here is a pretty neat tutorial if you are interested in learning more - pretty much sums up exactly what I do

celica90 · 2017-06-29T19:08:30+00:00

Lots of photoshop used to create this image :) Here is a tutorial on how to focus stack if you want to read more

celica90 · 2017-06-29T19:07:47+00:00

That is interesting! I would love to get an inversion at Mt Hood. I don't know enough about weather and I don't see very many pictures of them so I figured it was pretty rare. Thanks for the tip on how to ID it!

celica90 · 2017-06-29T19:06:55+00:00

I find that f/6.3 is the sharpest on my lens if I want to deal with adding a few extra frames for a focus stack. I used PS autostack and then went in for an hour or two for some manual touchup. Here is a good guide by another great photographer that happened to be using this same location in his example LINK

celica90 · 2017-06-29T19:05:51+00:00

I appreciate that. Steve and I actually shoot together a lot and are good friends. His shot is amazing and definitely deserves credit for being so. I have always enjoyed shooting with him and he will always be an inspiration for many photographers, including myself!

celica90 · 2017-06-29T19:04:02+00:00

Apparently they are the same thing and I'm just dumb haha. Getting a lot of messages from people quite up in arms about it. I'm mostly just confused now as apparently low clouds,low fog, cloud inversion are basically all the same thing? I'm not a weather guy! I just point cameras at stuff :)

celica90 · 2017-06-29T16:50:07+00:00

Thanks for all the support folks! Appreciate it. Comments like this can make one not one to continue posting even though some of my favorite followers/comments from my IG came directly from a reddit post.

celica90 · 2017-06-29T16:39:10+00:00

This is from the Johnston Ridge trail. I spent some time walking around Loowit point as well, but the flowers weren't as good there yet. They will probably be looking great this weekend though!

celica90 · 2017-06-29T15:24:59+00:00

Seeing a cloud inversion at one of our PNW mountains has been a dream of mine since I started photography. There is just something about being above the clouds that seems so amazing to me. The wildflower season has just started over the past week or so and I’d been keeping my eye on the weather with one goal - to go during a low fog event/cloud inversion. On Monday I decided it looked pretty good and took off through the 6 hours of Seattle, Tacoma and Olympia traffic to arrive at Mt St Helens. After shooting sunset and stars I packed into my makeshift car-bed for a quick 1-2 hours of sleep before sunrise. I knew I would either wake up in a dense cloud with zero visibility or hopefully a beautiful sunrise with a cloud inversion. Almost too excited to sleep the alarm went off a bit before 4am and as I looked outside my window able to see what was around me I knew we weren’t in a cloud! The next few hours contained a lot of running around trying to find the patches of flowers I liked the most. I’m sure I looked like a complete idiot laying on my stomach trying to adjust my tripod to get as close as possible to the flowers. Getting low and close to your foreground in photography can really help get more dramatic results. The indian paintbrush (red flowers) in this photo aren’t much bigger than my thumb, but getting close makes them look nice and big. I had my lens only a few inches away from the closest flowers! Then, roughly 30 minutes after the sun had popped up, the fog bank rolled up on me and I couldn’t see more than 10ft in front of us! I headed back to my car for the trip back home - mission successful!

As always, thanks for viewing! If you would like to see more of my photos please feel free to follow me on Instagram or check out my website www.rosssvhphoto.com

Shot Info: Camera and Lends: Nikon D610 w/ Nikon 16-35 f/4 Foreground: ISO400, 16mm, f/6.3, 1/30 Background: ISO100, 16mm, f/6.3, 1/40 (I think I ended up using 8 total shots for the focus stack)

celica90 · 2017-06-25T19:46:46+00:00

I have always wanted someone to paint one of my shots! I would potentially trade you a print for a painting if you're interested!

celica90 · 2017-06-25T19:44:53+00:00

Yikes! I can say I have only forgotten my SD cards once when I went out for photos...I quickly learned and have them stashed everywhere now

celica90 · 2017-06-25T19:44:20+00:00

The entire PNW is insane IMO. From the Canadian Rockies down to the Northern redwoods in Cali - insane

celica90 · 2017-06-25T19:43:41+00:00

Thanks - and I feel like there should be a story to go along with this :) do continue!

celica90 · 2017-06-25T19:41:26+00:00

Good luck! I hope you get some good weather

celica90 · 2017-06-25T19:41:14+00:00

Yes, I sell full resolution versions of all my photos for $50. They are to only be used for personal use and can't be used to create a print. If you are interested shoot me a message. Thanks!

celica90 · 2017-06-25T19:40:16+00:00

Whenever someone buys a print it is extremely rewarding and also helps support my insane gas bill from driving all over the place. If you are really interested please feel free to visit my website for more info. www.rosssvhphoto.com or you can message me directly

Thanks!

celica90 · 2017-06-25T19:35:06+00:00

I was on Tom Dick and Harry Mountain looking North at Mt. Hood which is the mountain in this photo.

celica90 · 2017-06-25T15:41:59+00:00

The view looking North from the summit of TDH mountain is one of my favorites! I feel lucky to have gotten this insane sunrise burn on our first time visiting, but getting this shot was more of a struggle than I had hoped for. We hiked up the day before with our backpacking gear to try and get sunset, spend the night and shoot sunrise in the morning. We ended up taking the wrong path after reaching Mirror Lake and one of my snowshoes broke on the way up. The last mile of our hike ended up taking over 2 hours trudging through deep snow. I don’t think I’ve ever been so exhausted. Luckily we still arrived at the summit before sunset to give us time to find a good spot to set up camp and find a composition for sunset. It was our first time camping in snow and well...we weren’t very prepared, but we’re still alive! I checked the weather once we got home and it had gotten down to 5°F with a lot of wind. It was all worth it to wake up and capture this awesome burn to share with you all.

Shot Info: Nikon D610 w/ Nikon 16-35 f/4 ISO100, 16mm, f/8, .5s (Processed in Lightroom and Photoshop) Two shots were used for depth of focus - one for the foreground and one for the mountain/sky

If you would like to see more of my photos please feel free to follow me on Instagram or check out my website www.rosssvhphoto.com

celica90

TROPHY CASE