Tag Archives: color

Hints of Color in the Cascades

We took a trip into the mountains to see whether the color in the trees was good. We have actually had some lovely colors in our town but a trip into the Cascades is always nice anyway. While I have seen some really colorful shots from up there, our route did not seem to be as vibrant. The leaves were actually more impressive lower down as we were driving to the mountains. However, when we were up at Washington Pass, I decided to use a longer focal length to isolate some of the areas that had color in them.

It is fair to say that things were a little less colorful than I had expected but the little bursts of color that were scattered around the hillsides did make for an interesting contrast. Only a couple of weeks later, the snow had shown up and WSDOT had closed the pass for the winter, so it was good to be there when we were!

Diablo Lake Changes with the Seasons

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As fall heads towards winter, I want to make a trip up to the North Cascades Highway. It won’t be too long before the snow sets in up there and WSDOT stops clearing the road and allows it to be taken over by snow for the winter. A sunny Saturday provided a good chance for a trip, and we stopped off at the overlook for Diablo Lake while we were passing. Previous trips have shown how the color of the water in spring can be really vibrant. The water running off the mountains brings lots of sediment with it. The Skagit River will look quite milky in spring.

At this time of year, the color of the lake has changed noticeably. Similarly, the river looks more normal without the particles suspended within it. The comparison of the lake color from the different seasons is quite dramatic.

Fall Foliage for the Bothell Maples

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The road on which our office was located when I first moved to the PNW has some lovely trees. As fall gets underway, these trees can turn a lovely shade of red. They attract a large number of people that come to photograph them or photograph themselves in front of them. The favored spot for doing this is in the middle of the road and it is strange how unaware some of the people are that they are standing on an active road with cars coming either side of them regularly.

Most of the drivers know the area is popular at this time of year but some do get rather frustrated by the almost suicidal approach of the wandering photographers. I am a touch more cautious as I walk along the street. There is plenty of opportunity to walk out and get a shot and then retreat rather than just loiter in the way. I don’t think the trees were at peak color when we swung by but they certainly looked nice. Will I get back for a second look? We shall see…

CAG Growler is Clean

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A trip to Coupeville is always going to be a bit hit or miss. Will the weather play ball, will the jets show up, how much will they bounce, how many of them will there be, will they be RAG jets or operational squadrons? All sorts of options. I was really happy that the weather suited a pattern direction that was better for photography, but it was mainly cloudy so not quite as good-looking light. It was the Rooks of VAQ137 that were bouncing so that was cool, and they brought their CAG jet. Getting this in its nice colors was cool. The jet was operating clean which was slightly disappointing but, fortunately, the other jets that came in were carrying pods.

This Valley is Pretty Green!

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I may have lived in the Pacific Northwest for a number of years, now, but I am still amazed at times by the moss that grows on so many surfaces here. The shaded and damp conditions are ideal for moss growth, and it surely shows. The special thing is how the light will pick up the surface of the moss in the gloomy areas of shade and make it seem like it is glowing. It really is something special and something that I find hard to show effectively with photos.

Still, I continue to try. These shots are all taken in the valley at Granite Falls. No lack of moisture down there, I can confirm! Looking at the branches of almost all the trees (and plenty of exposed rock surfaces for that matter), you will see moss everywhere. Looking up towards the light, it really does seem to get highlighted. I shall continue my quest to get the right photo of moss indefinitely!

Wet Leaves Are So Vibrant

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Fall means leaves and, at least in the Northwest, it can also mean rain. The rain helps accelerate the dropping of the leaves, but it also does a nice job of making the colors look at their best. I was out at lunchtime and saw these leaves on the ground in the parking lot. I couldn’t walk by without taking a few shots.

Red Bark

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The arboretum in Seattle is unsurprisingly home to many interesting varieties of trees and plants. One tree that caught my eye was (perhaps) a type of willow that had bark that peeled to reveal an intense red coloration beneath. Sometimes these colors don’t seem to show up as well in an image but I fortunately had a polarizer with me and that took out some of the reflection and glare and allowed the color to show up well. Cropping in tighter seemed to make more sense, too.

How Green Is Diablo Lake?

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The water running out of the mountains along the North Cascade Highway brings a lot of sediment with it. The result of this is that the rivers and lakes that form along the route of the pass have a distinct green color to them. The Skagit River in Newhalem has a clear green color to it. However, the more dramatic demonstration of this coloration is visible at Diablo Lake. This lake that is formed behind Diablo Dam has a very green appearance. It looks like it must have been created artificially but it is just the result of carrying the minerals down from the mountains above. Of course, a polarizer does a good job of highlighting the color when the reflections are removed.

Trouble Printing Due to Color Management

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The number of emails I get each day telling me about amazing offers is substantial and they almost never survive more than a cursory glance. However, Walgreens were doing 60% off poster prints and I had been reworking an image I had done a while back of the Bembridge lifeboat. I had changed the titling, added a logo and repositioned the images slightly and wanted to reprint it. The original print was done by MPix but I figured the Walgreens print was so cheap, why not give it a go.

I tried to upload the jpeg that I had exported from Lightroom but they said its dimensions were too large. I went in to Photoshop, resized it, changed the color space to sRGB and saved as a jpeg. This I uploaded to Walgreens without any trouble. I should have been worried at the time that the screen thumbnail looked a little muddy but I ordered the print. Later that day I went and got it. Sure enough, it was dull. (Another print I got at the same time was fine so I figured it wasn’t just their printing being poor.)

I went back to the image in Photoshop and it was set to sRGB as I expected. Poor colors are most likely to be a color management issue. I then went to the properties of the files in Windows Explorer and, for some reason, the color space of the Photoshop created file was not defined. It was on me and not Walgreens. I took the original image and exported it from Lightroom with a limit on the long edge and uploaded that one. It looked fine this time and the resulting print – another offer came up fortunately – was exactly as I wanted. In these comparisons, while taken with my phone, hopefully you can see how different the colors are. The oranges are particularly harmed on the boats and even the rust dust thrown up from the slipway. I thought I had done it right but still had an error creep in. Lesson learned.

Rufous Versus Anna’s Hummingbirds

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We have plenty of hummingbirds visiting our back yard. They may look different depending on the angle the light hits their feathers but up until recently I had thought that they were all the same species – the Anna’s hummingbird. Then we got a visitor that seemed different. First, instead of having a grey look to the feathers, it was a lot more brown. The other difference was the sound of the wingbeats. Instead of the whirring noise we were used to, this one had a higher pitched sound almost like a click as the wings were hitting each other. It sounded quite distinctive. I trip to my big book of birds suggests that these may be Rufous hummingbirds. For the birders amongst you, I hope you will advise if I am mistaken.