In the Woods

Snow has been clinging to the sides and tops of tree branches for almost a week now, but that will end today as the temperature warms above freezing. I'll be sad to see the snow go, but definitely won't mind it being a bit warmer! 

Oh, the Weather Outside

(Pacific Northwest version), not exactly "Let it Snow", unless you're above 4,000ft. today. 

The Evergreen State

 Fall in the Evergreen State. 

Let the gray days begin. 

Linking to Weekend Reflections.

Overcast

Uninspiring light on my walk this morning.  The sun was almost breaking through the clouds, but changed its mind. But I have to admit, I do like this shade of misty evergreen that hovers in the balance between green and gray.  The photo reminds me a bit of a paint chip card. I think I have this on my mind because my parents have a really great gray-green paint in their mud room, but I think it's a little warmer green than this. Looks like I need my own paint chip card!

Fall in Washington State

When people think of Washington, they usually think evergreens, and we have our share.  But a typical fall scene here often includes moss, fog, and big leaf maples.

Evergreen Chorus

Same view as last week's purple sunrise photo, Purple Haze, and same fog too. The WSU campus is on a hill, so if it's foggy then the campus either tends to be in the fog when the rest of the town isn't, or above the fog when the rest of the town is. In this case, the fog was only east of campus, which is countryside heading toward Brush Prairie. I've left this photo in color, just to give an idea of what the light looked like that morning.  It was a very bright fog, and I suspect it burned off within the hour.  I was on campus with my camera around 9am, and I consider myself lucky to have arrived under such pretty weather conditions. Great low-lying fog two days in a row!

Mt. Hood Study

My cropped version

Michael Kenna: Huangshen Mountains Study 47 (2010)

As I mentioned in an earlier post, this week my artistic photography class is working in black and white.  And our teacher suggested that if we had been studying artists so far, we should try studying a photographer this week.  So I am studying photographer Michael Kenna, who does very ethereal, high contrast, black and white images. There was a bright, thick fog at the Washington State campus when I returned Thursday morning, and I was particularly interested in the scene I've captured here, because fog created such a large tonal range from white to dark. That range made this a good photo to use for a Michael Kenna comparison!  It reminded me the most of the series he did from Huangshan, China, because all those images were diffused with fog and mist. I've read that his photos are often made during nighttime, with exposures up to 10 hours long!  This accounts for the dreamy quality his images achieve.  Mine certainly lacks that feel. He also shoots with a medium format camera, giving a square image, so I've cropped my photo to a more squarish format (which is against the law in my photography class, so we'll see what comes of that!)

Coda

The third in my sunrise series catches the waning pastel light of this amazing morning. It definitely had me shouting encore, and I'm vigilantly getting up before dawn each day in anticipation of another spectacular scene before the month is out. Encore! Encore! 

Purple Haze

In yesterday's Mt. Hood sunrise photo, there was a little section of pink in the lower left of the photo. Today's photo is focusing just slightly to the left of that area. The light was so interesting here, glowing in the low lying fog. Plus the tree tops sticking out of the fog gave the scene a surreal view. It's interesting, because the entire sunrise was this pinkish lavender color, but the clouds directly over the mountain in yesterday's shot were interpreted by the camera with a much warmer light color. I like this photo a lot more, not only for the light color but also for the otherworldly scene. Part two of a three part sunrise series.

Linking to Skywatch Friday.