The Terra Galleria Blog – QT Luong

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

I’ve posted new images of Zion National Park from 2008. I was with my family, and the conditions were not particularly favorable, with no atmospheric drama, the vegetation still bare (this was late March), but the snow long gone. Yet I found a few new images on that trip.

Hiking the Riverside walk (no Narrows this time), I noticed for the first time the “Desert Swamp”. I guess on my previous trip, on the way to the Narrows, I was too much in a hurry, while on the way out, it was just dark.

Lacking landmarks besides the Checkboard Mesa, as well as designated trails, the Zion Plateau offers many possibilities to make your own discoveries by scrambling cross-country. We found a small wash where the walls have been sculptured by water like some of the better known slot canyons.

The lone pine on a swirl is a subject well-known to photographers, one that I had photographed in the past on two occassions. On this visit, a half moon invited me to try a new angle, which I found emphasized the bonsai-like quality of the tree.

Glacier National Park preserves a part of the Northern Rockies that belongs to one of the most intact mountain ecosystems in America, where grizzlies, wolves, moose, mountain goats, and big horn sheep still roam. The heart of this environment is easily accessible from June to mid-October. During those months, you can drive the Going-To-The-Sun road, an engineering marvel that takes you above treeline, crossing the Continental Divide at Logan Pass, 6646ft (2025m).

Almost all the visitors to Glacier National Park stop at Logan Pass, and you should too. After only a mile and half on an easy trail (starting as a up hill boardwalk, then leveling off), you reach the Hidden Lake Overlook, amidst stunning alpine scenery in all directions.

Although the view of the deep glacial valley, lake, and Bearhead Mountain is certainly spectacular, the light can be difficult to work there. You will be pointing the camera towards the SW, so the mountain would be backlit starting from the afternoon. Because the lake is in a deep depression surrounded by tall mountains, it is in the shade in early morning and late afternoon. I have not tried myself to photograph the location in those conditions, but I guess that with proper contrast control methods (grad filters or HDR) an early morning view could work fine. For a late afternoon view (which would also require contrast control), I’d crop out Bearhead Mountain and instead focus on the peaks South and East of the lake. With an additional 3 hours, you could try to follow the trail to the edge of the lake to seek other viewpoints.

Even if the Overlook views do not work for you, on your way to the overlook, you will walk along alpine meadows covered in July with wildflowers, and surrounded with distinctive looking peaks. Numerous streams and cascades can be found. After you reach the level section of the trail, you will most likely come to close distance with mountain goats. They are so unafraid of visitors, you can often use a wide-angle to include them in the scenery. That’s the only place in the National Parks that I know where you can reliably approach those animals at such close distance.

Have you been to Logan Pass ? What did you think ? If you have memories to share, please comment below. Feel free to link to your own image galleries if you have photographed there, especially if you managed to get nice landscape images !

View more images of Glacier National Park
View more images taken from Hidden Lake Trail