Category Archives: Pacific Northwest

Another Look at the Hoh Rain Forest

I was recently watching a video of a landscape photographer and he took a trip to the Hoh Rain Forest on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington. Nancy and I went there on a vacation a few years ago and I posted about it here. I decided to go back and look at some of the images from that visit and see what I liked. I had taken a bunch of photos in multiple locations on that trip and I found that I had not really given many of the shots any effort.

I decided to take a look at both those that I shared in the original post but also some “new” ones. I realized that a little effort made the images so much more interesting. The rain forest is so lush and there is so much green that it almost seems unnatural. I brought down the exposures a bit and did punch of the saturation a little. It does look a little overdone but I assure you it is actually a reflection of what the place is really like. I think digital cameras tend to tone down greens a bit and, when the place you are looking at is all green, this is a bit of a problem that needs to be addressed.

Oho is about four hours drive from where we are now. A bit of a trek for a day out but I think a trip over to that side of the peninsula is definitely something we should do again before too long. We can also check out the coastline over there which is really stunning.

Stored 737s

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After two month of shelter at home, I did finally venture out in the car to see something other than the house or my bike routes. I swung by Paine Field to see some of the stored Southwest 737s that are there. Planes seem to have been arriving and then heading out again so I don’t know what the overall plan is. They also seem to have moved from where they were when they first came in. I got to see a few of them scattered around near FHCAM.

These jets look like they are in place for a while. The nacelle inlet which is normally unpainted metal is currently covered in some black coating which runs on to the inlet blanking. The exhaust ducts are similarly blocked up. The jets are arrayed around the ramp and, while behind the fencing, the use of a monopod with a ball head and the remote shooting app from Canon allowed me to see what the shots looked like and to take the pictures. I went with a few panos since things are rather close to the fence in some places.

I hope these jets are back up and working before too long.

Omni 767s

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Omni provides a lot of charter work in the Seattle area, presumably military work for JBLM. The planes usually operate from SeaTac but then will reposition to Boeing Field. There is often an Omni 767 parked up at the south end of the field but I have not ever seemed to have been there when they are moving. More recently, I happened across one coming in to land after a short trip from SeaTac (I could probably have driven it faster given the routing that they had to take). It was nice to see one up and about so it prompted this post with a few Omni 767s.

Marine Corps Herc

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The heat haze was a bit of a problem on this day so I was hoping that they would roll out a bit long to get into usable range. They couldn’t have been more obliging. It turned out to be a US Marine Corps KC-130J. They didn’t exit early for the taxiway even though they could have done so with ease but instead rolled all the way to near me before exiting and taxiing back to the ramp in the other direction. This was very kind of them. I got them close enough in to have little in the way of heat haze and to get a decent look at them.

Video of Snoqualmie Falls in Flood

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More from my video editing catch up today. I posted about the Snoqualmie Falls being in flood earlier this year after extensive rain. I also shot some video that day. It gives a better idea of how the spray from the falls gets driven up the hillside near the viewing area whereupon is dumps down on the visitors. Here is the edited highlights.

Clouds Over Rainier

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If you live in the Seattle to Tacoma area, you get familiar with the phrase “the mountain is out” or “in”. This refers to Mt Rainier which can be shrouded in cloud or out in the sun. As a 14,000’ mountain, it is the most obvious landmark around here. It also drives its own weather systems so the clouds on the mountain are always worth a look. Not so long ago, I was quite taken by the cloud development over the mountain which was a bit different to what I am used to seeing. The boat in the front was not helpful but I wanted to get a shot of the mountain so went for it.

US Marshal 737 Moving People Somewhere Else

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This 737 was sitting on the ramp at Boeing Field, apparently getting ready to move. It showed up online as a variety of possible owners including Aramco. However, I thought I knew who it really belonged to and it did indeed turn out to be used by the Federal Government. I think it is part of the US Marshal service and I suspect it is being used to transport individuals that are not popular with law enforcement to a new location. I don’t know whether that is internal transport or deportation but I suspect I don’t want to be on one of those flights. They certainly don’t divert any funding to painting the jets!

How Desperate Do You Get in Quarantine? A Garbage Truck?

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Being quarantined at home and working from home means you have limited things to shoot. It also means you get to see things that happen during the day which you normally miss by breaking at work. I put the trash out on Monday evenings but would not normally see it being collected during the day on Tuesday. Now I see that. Also, I get to enjoy the engineering of modern trash collection and the skill of the operator sweeping in to pick up each can in turn. These little thins amuse the engineer in me although I guess I am probably a long way from the rest of the populous in this. For a small percentage of you, here is some video I put together of our trash guy. Let’s hope we get to go out again soon and I will look for more exciting subjects!

Misty 330s

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While at Boeing Field, you get a steady stream of traffic for SeaTac overhead. With Delta’s substantial presence at Seattle, the right time of day can mean a few widebodies. The A330 is a big part of their operations and we currently get the old and the new with the -300s and the -900 neos. The conditions looked pretty clear above me but there must have been a lot of moisture around because the jets seemed to be pulling a bit of vapor with them and going in and out of clouds that they seemed to hard to see without them there.

I played around with the processing a bit to see what I could do to show up the moisture more effectively. It gets a little more interest out of a shot that would otherwise not be worthy of any note.

Geese Washing Themselves in the Sammamish

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I’ve been catching up on some video editing while stuck indoors. During the Christmas break, mum and I took a walk along the Sammamish River. There were lots of geese floating downstream and they were busy washing themselves. This involved a lot of flapping and inverting themselves in the river. Of course, when I got close, they stopped doing it while their buddies further downstream seemed to be busy washing. I did finally get some footage of it so here is a short video of geese! Bet that’s just what you wanted to see today!