The Terra Galleria Blog – QT Luong

The densely packed, brightly colored hoodoos in Bryce Amphitheaters are so stunning that missing to make a striking image from any of the overlooks is difficult.

However, if asked about my favorite overlook along the amphitheater, I would easily pick Sunset Point. Despite it’s name, Sunset Point is excellent through the day. Unlike other viewpoints, Sunset Point is situated within the amphitheater, rather than on the rim, therefore it offers you excellent views in more than one direction. The hoodoos are not as dense there than at Inspiration point, but still more dense than from other overlooks, and on the other hand, I prefer their placement along ridges here, esp. looking towards the Queen’s Garden. Last, Sunset Point is the trailhead to the Najavo Trail which lead you to two of best sights within the amphitheater.

Sunrise offers the most dramatic conditions, with warm and low light striking the hoodoos, but do not underestimate the possibilities offered by shooting backlit later in the day, to take advantage of the reflected light, in late afternoon, or even at dusk, where the even light reveals the subtlety of the colors. Winter multiplies the opportunities of contrasting verticality and ridges, blue shadows and red rock.

View all images of Bryce Canyon from Sunset Point
View all images of Bryce Canyon National Park

I’ve posted new images of the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

After last winter’s installments on the Western National Parks, this is the first of several installments about the North East (New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Maine, New York) that will be posted through the spring.

A highlight of the 2009 trip through New Hampshire was the Flume, a narrow granite gorge with 90 feet walls. Since this is a popular attraction, at the height of the fall foliage season, I was concerned that it would be difficult to work with a tripod on the boardwalk. I showed up right at the opening time. It turned out that the day I visited, it rained all the time.

A weatherized camera such as my Canon 1Ds mk3 is relatively trouble-free in wet weather. The challenge in photographing in the rain is to keep your lens front element dry, esp. if you are changing lenses a lot, as I do. A single drop of water will show as a smear in a portion of the image. Although this was a bit of a chore to operate, I was able to work in the pouring rain using a clamp to attach a large unbrella to my tripod. After spending most of the day in the rain, I was quite soaked myself, but It was well worth it. Not only the rain kept the crowds down, but it enhanced the colors of the vegetation, and provided a nice, even light.

You can see Mount Rainier, the centerpiece of Mount Rainier National Park, more than 100 miles away. The mountain looks huge even from Seattle. While within the park, you can see Mount Rainier from almost everywhere, several lakes around the mountain offer particularly scenic compositions where you can include the reflection of the mountain.

When exploring the park, another wondrous sight, much smaller, lies right at your feet. Fed by the largest snow accumulation in the continental US, wildflowers carpet the sub-alpine meadows below Mount Rainier. I have not seen more dense, reliable, and diverse displays in North America at such an accessible location as the meadows along the trails of Paradise. Because of the heavy snow pack, the flowers do not really start until well into summer, usually mid-July, often peak in early August, and last into early September.

At Reflection Lakes, situated a few miles south east of Paradise, along the loop road, you can enjoy all of those sights at the same spot.

As often, the reflections are clearer when no or little sunlight hits the lake. Close views of flowers benefit from a soft light and a windless time. The mountain views are enhanced by cross-lighting. All those elements point to sunrise, which will be quite early in summer !

I’ve posted new images of Berkeley, CA. Berkeley was the first place where I lived in the US, from 1993 to 1995. Since then, I have traveled widely in the country. I’ve seen many places that are closer to great wilderness areas than the 3-4 hour drive to the Sierras. However, if we were talking only about the cities themselves, I have still yet to see another place I’d prefer to Berkeley.

So this may come as a surprise, but prior to this new release, there was only a dozen of images of Berkeley on the website. Part of the reason is that my standards have raised in the intervening years. What I though was a good image did no longer satisfy me, if only for small details (for instance images of buildings taken without perspective correction).

But I think the main factor is that I’ve tended to overlook the place I live as a place to photograph, a pattern I’ve unfortunately repeated (and seen repeated by others) many times. We often do not see the place where we live as a destination to explore. Sometimes, out of town visitors with guidebooks may help us discover a thing or two. If we do not pay attention, it’s only when we become far away that we are interested, yet proximity and familiarity should help us do our best work.

How much have you explored or photographed the place where you live ?

Crater Lake is always stunning at first sight. No other lake combines such a nearly perfect large circular shape, deep blue color, and uniformly sheer surrounding cliffs almost two thousand feet high. However, past the first impression, many of the viewpoints around the lake lack either an unobstructed view, or interesting features.

For this reason, I usually concentrate only on a few locations along the 33-mile drive that circles the lake. Of these, the first I would recommend is the fire lookout on the Watchman. Mt Scott is the highest peak around the lake, but it is slightly distant, while the Watchman raises directly on the lake rim, above tree line. In addition, the Watchman is right above Wizard Island. By far the largest of the two islands in the lake, Wizard Island has an interesting shape that varies with viewpoint. From most locations on the rim, the top of Wizard Island merges with the opposite rim, but on the Watchman (even just at the trailhead), you are high enough to separate them.

The trailhead to the Watchman is about 4 miles from Rim Village. The trail is 0.7 miles each way with an elevation gain of 300 feet. Although the main attraction are the expansive views from the top, in summer, there are also a great number of wildflowers along the trail. From October to early July, he trail is usually covered in snow. From late autumn to late spring, the road from Rim Village to the Watchman is normally closed.

The Watchman is a great place to capture a rising sun above the lake. Then, in early morning, the lake is backlit, but by late morning, the sun rises high enough to reveal the incredibly blue color of the lake. The lake is at its more intense blue by mid-day, in summer, on a calm day. I have found the color to be less intense in the afternoon.

If you’d like to capture the whole lake, you’d need an unusually wide angle lens. A 17mm will not suffice, the first two images below were shot with a 20mm and 24mm respectively. A panoramic format would work best since the foreground isn’t that interesting. The last image was done by stitching together two 17mm frames. It was not taken from the top of the Watchman, but rather from the overlook close to the trailhead, which is an alternative if you don’t want to hike the short, but steep trail.

View more images of Crater Lake National Park

I have posted new images of Yosemite National Park from November 2009.

Although I have engaged in a range of activities in the park, this was the first time I came wearing formal attire. Lanchi was there too, wading the slushy snow in an elegant dress. The occasion was an invitation by Dayton Duncan to attend the Bracebridge Dinner, a wonderful five-hour long Christmas dinner at the Ahwanhee Hotel, enlivened by beautiful music and a large cast of performers in renaissance costumes.

I was told several times that no pictures could be taken at the event, however the next day I found a few new nature images in the park. In El Capitan meadow (a spot that I designated as my favorite in Yosemite National Park), the fog made it possible to create evocative images that emphasized the starkness of the trees in ways that I hadn’t seen before, despite my repeated visits to the location.

The last image of Lower Yosemite Falls may look like just another waterfall image, but if my calculations are right, that is the only time of the day (very early morning) and year that such an image can be made. The waterfall in a deep recess, and at other times of the year reached by the sun only at mid-day, by which time the angle would not produce a rainbow. During peak run-off times, the strength of the spray does not even approach that closely you (and your front lens element) getting soaked.

Returning fittingly to Yosemite, this installment concludes the series of updates to National Parks of the West that I have been posting this winter.

I have posted new images of Sequoia National Park.

Last summer, I visited the last easily accessible site in the park that had eluded me, Crystal Cave, one of only five caves open to visitors in the National Parks (the others are Mammoth Cave, Carlsbad Caverns, Wind Cave, and Lehman Cave in Great Basin). I was glad to have waited that long. Because the visit has to be in a guided tour during which tripods are not permitted, it would have been more difficult to photograph during the film days. I was able to take advantage of technology advances, setting my camera at ISO 1600, which let me handhold in dim light with my 24-105 stabilized lens. I also used this high sensibility setting to make the night photograph that appears in the previous blog entry.

The cave itself is reached after a windy drive, and then a half-mile hike down a canyon where waterfalls are found. Tickets need to be purchased at a visitor center, rather than at the cave entrance or trailhead.

Sequoia National park is named after the trees it protects, the giant sequoias, the largest trees on earth. The heart of Sequoia National Park is the Giant Forest, an area of just 3 square miles that include dozens of sequoia groves, amongst them General Sherman tree, the most massive living thing on earth. While there are other areas of the park dense with sequoia groves, none is as easily accessible.

Because of that, the area around General Sherman can see heavy visitation, particularly in the summer. Moreover, several trees there (including the General Sherman) are fenced. However, a walk around the Congress Trail (easy 2 mile paved loop), which starts at the General Sherman tree, will let you get away from most of the crowds, and discover many other equally impressive and more approachable trees. Those include a number of photogenic clusters (the House group and the Senate group) and other presidential trees. In particular, a side trail offers a good view of the McKinley tree. Huge fallen logs and a stream can also be seen. For an even more peaceful setting, try some of the other trails that connect to the Congress Trail.

The sequoia trees are so tall that they are difficult to photograph. From the ground, I found out only two possible approaches: either point the camera up to capture the whole trees with wild converging lines, or try to capture only the base of the trees, maintaining their parallelism with a perspective control (shift) lens. The first approach works in a range of conditions, including a sunny day, a day with thick fog, and at night, while for the second approach I prefer the softer, but directional light of dawn or dusk that will reveal the texture of the bark. If you have other ideas, please comment !

Protecting most of the Olympic Peninsula, Olympic National Park comprises three regions: the Olympic Mountains, Pacific coastline, and temperate rain forest. Located in an area notorious for its wet weather, situated near the coast, and near high mountains, the western forests of Olympic National Park receive receive annual precipitation of about 150 inches, making them the wettest spot in the continental United States. Saturated with rains, everything is covered with living plants, making those forests luxuriant and primeval.

The two main rain forests are Hoh and Quinault. Of the two, Quinault is the quietest, maybe because it is further from Port Angeles, the gateway to the Park for most visitors. Hoh has more mosses, however the undergrowth at Quinault is more rich, and there are more streams and cascades.

To explore the rain forest, hike the fairly short Maple Glade, Cascading Terraces, and Irely Lake trails. An interesting sight in the area is the Big Cedar, reached through a very short trail 2.0 miles up the North Shore Road from hwy 101. A little known fact, Quinault features the largest trees in the world outside of California. For waterfalls, you can start on a trail at the Graves Creek Campground and hike towards the Enchanted Valley and turn back when you run out of time. One day I’ll have to return to all the 13 miles, leading to a valley that I’ve been told is one of the most beautiful you’ll ever see.

Heavy rains drench the forest in the winter and early spring. In late spring, the vegetation is at its lushest, and frequent cloudy days make it easier to photograph in the forest.

Redwood National Park protects a forty mile long stretch of foggy California coastline, home to the earth’s tallest plants, the giant redwood trees. The national park is made up a patchwork of state parks. Situated in Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park, the Damnation Creek Trail is unique in that it lets you experience both a rich virgin redwood forest environment and a isolated black beach in a cove with sea stacks offshore. You are sure to find a measure of solitude and tranquility in those ancient forests, and on the coastline.

To find the trailhead, drive 8 miles from Crescent City along hwy 101, to a marked small pull-out area on the west side of the road, near mile marker 16. The trail is 5 miles round-trip, with 1000 feet of elevation loss, that you’ll have to climb on the way back.

Even if you do not hike all the way to the Ocean, the beginning of the trail offers one of the most beautiful redwood forest environments in the park. Giant ferns carpet the forest floor. The hilly character of the trail and its witswitchbacks offers you more varieties of compositions than the flat forest trails.

If you visit during the last weeks of May or the first weeks of June, you will be treated with pink and purple rhododendron blossoms that climb high overhead. That particular section of Del Norte Coast Redwoods is only one in three of Redwood National Park where such blossoms can be found in great density. They create a wonderful accent amongst the dark woods, popping up on a foggy day. I have found that the more fog in those forests, the better the photography. Fortunately, as fog is the frequent visitor that allows the redwoods to thrive, if you stay a couple of days, you’ll likely to encounter some.

View all images of Redwood National Park