Photographing Mt Rainier from Puget Sound
As part of the launch of my Puget Sound guide with SNAPP Guides, I wrote a blog post for SNAPP Guides describing five great spots to photograph Mount Rainier from the Puget Sound. Be sure to check it out here, and leave a comment letting me know your favorite spots to shoot The Mountain.
A Visit to the Amazon Spheres
Last January, a new Seattle landmark opened – the Amazon spheres. Located in downtown Seattle on the Amazon campus, the spheres are three spherical conservatories created to give Amazon employees a bit of nature in which to work and relax. The spheres contain over 40,000 plants from cloud forests throughout the world. The spheres are three to four stories tall and formed by more than 2,600 panes of glass.
Last week, Tanya and I had the opportunity to visit the inside of the spheres as part of Amazon’s Take Your Parents to Work Day – our daughter Janelle works for Amazon. At the time, I only had my smart phone with me and all the images shown here from inside the spheres were captured with my phone. As it turned out, the following day, Tanya and I visited downtown Seattle again. This time I took my regular camera, and while Tanya did some shopping, I visited the spheres for some outside shots.
The spheres are a popular attraction, but if you want to visit the inside, you will need to do a little planning ahead. Visits are restricted to Amazon employees and their guests on Mondays through Fridays. The spheres are only open to the general public on the first and third Saturdays every month from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Further, reservations are required. Reservations can be made up to 30 days in advance at this website. Times available for the next opening on October 6th are already about half full; so if you want to visit, be sure to make your reservation well in advance.
The sphere website states that photography inside the domes is for personal use only and that flash and tripod use is prohibited. However, I asked one of the Amazon security personnel yesterday about tripods, and she said they are okay. I guess it pays to ask.
Puget Sound Guide Now Available!
I’m proud to announce my photo guide to the Puget Sound region is now available on SNAPP Guides! The guide covers 58 spots for great photography in the Puget Sound region from Bellingham to Olympia (exclusive of Seattle, which is covered in a separate guide) including 125 sample photographs. For each spot, I give advice on when to go and how to shoot the best images.
The guide is available for both Apple and Android devices. To download the guide, first go the Google Play Store or Apple’s App Store and install the free SNAPP Guide app. Once installed, you can download several free sample guides to see how it works. To download my Puget Sound guide, select Shop from the main SNAPP Guide menu and either scroll down or search for Puget Sound.
SNAPP Guides currently offers guides to 67 places around the world and more are being added (like the Palouse guide I am working on that should be available sometime next year). Each guide provides detailed information on photographic locations including what to shoot, when to go (both season and time of day), directions to get there (including GPS coordinates), a map of the location, a physical rating for the site, and what type of lenses and equipment you might use. The guides also interface directly with The Photographers Ephemeris to quickly give sunrise and sunset times at each location.
My Puget Sound guide costs $7.99. Other guides offered by SNAPP Guides vary from about $4 to $15. Below are several screen shots of the guide.
The guide opens with a main menu to browse spots, view the spots on a map, look at any spots you’ve previously marked as favorites, read about the guide, or learn a bit more about me as the author.
Selecting Spots from the main menu bring up the spots listed in order of distance from your present location.
Here’s another example.
Selecting Map from the main menu brings up a map with all the spots. You can zoom in to locate and select individual spots.
Selecting on a spot from either the list or map brings up the details for that location, including the day’s sunrise and sunset times and the current weather conditions.
Here’s another example. The top shows a sample photograph and tells about the spot. For most spots, you can swipe over to see more sample images. The Bloedel Reserve, for example, has four sample images.
By swiping downward, you can learn about what to shoot at the site and what type of equipment will come in handy.
Swiping down further gives suggestions on when to go and other details about the spot.
Continuing downward, you get a physical rating for the spot and directions on how to get there.
At the bottom, there is a map, GPS coordinates, a link to The Photographer Ephemeris, and links to other information.
Smoke Correction – Reducing Smoke Induced Haze
Though clear now, the skies of Washington State, and indeed most of the Pacific Northwest, have been very smokey almost the entire month of August. The smoke is from wildfires, both in the United States and Canada. I fear, with climate changes, this may be our new “normal” for August, as smokey skies have been prevalent in August the past several years.
As long as the smoke is not too thick, smokey skies can have some advantages to landscape and travel photography. Though I tend not to, some people like the sunsets provided by smokey conditions. I do, however, appreciate that smokey conditions can soften light and can extend golden hour conditions by changing the color of sunlight. On the other hand, they can also dim sunlight so that the light during the actual golden hours is weak.
In my opinion, the disadvantages outweigh any advantages gained. I am fond on blue skies and wide vistas. Smoke can suck the blue out of the sky and obscure views with haze. I also like to use telephoto lenses to pull in distance subjects. Obviously, this does not work so well if there is a lot of smoke.
On my trip to the Palouse last month, the skies were quite smokey. Not smokey enough to totally ruin the trip, but I certainly did not have ideal conditions. The Palouse is known for its blue skies with great clouds. On my last trip, the sky, though clear, was more of a dusky gray. It was also cloud free on except for one day. So much for the wide sky shots I often favor, such as this one I posted on instagram. I found myself following several techniques to minimize the effects of the smoke.
1. Limiting distance in my compositions – instead of including distant hills and vistas in my compositions, I selected relatively close subjects, or chose compositions where the distant background was less important. For example, on my August visit to the Palouse, I did shoot one evening from Steptoe Butte. However, with the smokey haze, I chose one of the lower viewpoint instead of going to the top, and I mostly shot compositions with subjects relatively close to the butte rather than subjects thousands of meters away.
Instead of photographing distant hills from Steptoe Butte, most my images were of nearby hills such as these. This image also has the sky eliminated and uses the Dehaze correction described below.
In this example, I chose to photograph this barn near to the road (and also eliminate any sky).
2. Eliminating or limiting the amount of sky in my compositions – with the sky not the blue color one expects, in many cases, I tried to either totally eliminate the sky from my composition or at least limit the amount of sky in the shot.
In this scene from Latah County in Idaho, I purposely minimized the amount of sky in the composition. It also uses the Dehaze and selective color corrections described below.
Here, concentrated on details of these old trucks in Sprague, Washington, eliminating any sky from the composition.
3. Processing using the Dehaze slider in Lightroom – I often use the dehaze slider in lightroom, and not just to remove haze; I like the microconstrast it adds to images. However, smokey conditions are what the dehaze slider was made for. While processing images from the August Palouse trip in Lightroom, I found myself adding more dehaze than I normally would.
Another sample of an image where I used the dehaze slider more than normal. This image also uses the sky color correction described below.
4. Adding blue back into the sky in Lightroom – I typically do not do selective color corrections in Lightroom. Typically I’ll set the color balance for the entire photo and let well enough alone (saving selective color adjustments for Photoshop if I want to do them at all). But with new masking tools for the gradient and brush tools, I found it relatively easy to add some blue back into the sky in Lightroom. Typically, I’d make a fairly tight gradient (or perhaps the brush too) and apply it to the area of the photo containing the sky. Then, using the range mask tool in color mode, I select a wide portion of the sky. This usually masks most of the non-sky areas, but to be sure, I’ll check the Show Selected Mask Overlay checkbox (which uses a red tone to indicate where the gradient is effective). Depending on the image, I may or may not need to do some cleanup of the mask with the eraser brush). To correct the sky, I’ll move the temperature slider toward blue, typically move the exposure slider down about 1/2 to 1/2 a stop, and move the clarity slider down as well. Depending on the image, I may also increase the dehaze slightly. Sounds complicated, but it is fairly easy with a bit of practice. This technique does a nice job on restoring sky color (see the examples below).
This is the Genesee Valley Lutheran Church in Idaho. Here I’ve used the technique described to reduce the smokey haze from the sky. The same image without the correction is shown below
Without the selective sky color correction.
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