This sunrise over the Columbia Hills State Park in the Dalles Mountain Ranch component was quite spectacular.  At this time of the year the sun rises high over one of the taller of the ridges within the Columbia Hills State Park.  This creates a very dramatic and intense first light on the Columbia Gorge Broad-leaf Lupine and the Northwestern Balsamroot flowers.  I was here for the sunrise after spending the previous evening and some of the night photographing the sunset and then trying my hand on capturing star images and also the “supermoon” one night after it first appeared.  Hopefully I’ll get to those images soon.  They demand some new processing techniques so that will come first!

I was set up right next to John, Ben, Steve and Blake of Uncage The Soul Video Production who were set up to capture the sunrise utilizing their talents in video, still and time-lapse photography.  They had introduced themselves to me the previous evening.  They were looking for the perfect location to photograph the next mornings sunrise.  I suggested this site and the rest is history they say!

This gorgeous sunrise was taken a short way up the trail to Tom McCall Point at the Tom McCall Preserve just west of the small town of Rowena Oregon.  I arrived about one hour before sunrise to scout out a location for the image I knew I wanted to create.  As I am still in a recovery mode from many, many months of Chemo I was not able to go very far up the almost two mile trail to the top but was very fortunate to find this large meadow of flowers.  The Columbia Gorge Broad-leaf Lupines and the Northwestern Balsamroot flowers were out in peak bloom.  The challenge was to find a suitable location amongst the mass of blooms.  I choose this spot but probably would have found many other pleasing compositions throughout the meadow.  I do know I will be back next year to discover other interesting viewpoints.  It would also be nice to hike to Tom McCall Point for sunrise or sunset.

This image is my first attempt to blend two or more exposures in Photoshop.  When the dynamic range of the scene exceeds the total range of light to dark image luminance, then you can either bias your exposure toward the highlights and thus loose shadow detail or bias your exposure toward the shadows and risk blocking up your highlights.  By taking a range of 2 to 5 or more exposures from normal to over and under exposure, you can ensure that you have captured the full dynamic range of the scene.  In Photoshop CS5 I blended  two exposures together to produce this image.  I used advanced luminosity masking techniques which facilitates blending portions of two or more images together to produce an expanded dynamic range image.  I gained the knowledge to produce this image through helpful tutorials by Tony Kuyper, and videos by Sean Bagshaw and Zack Schnepf .  And I had fun doing it!

This hang glider struck a perfect pose for me in this sunset image over the rolling hills of the Dalles Mountain State Park.  Part of  the Columbia Hills State Park, this time of the year the hillsides are covered with an broad array of wild flowers.  They are simply beautiful with every shade of the rainbow represented.  The most prominent flowers are the Northwester Balsamroot and the Columbia Gorge Broad-leaf Lupine.  I was blessed with perfect conditions with this sunset image.  No winds and prime time for the flowers and of course the serendipity of the sunset colors of the hang glider.  I was drawn to this composition by the alternating light and dark areas of the hills and gullies.  The pastel colors of the hillsides and trees at the abandoned farm site were also quite pleasing.

This image of Mist Falls waterfall was taken from the small lake at Benson State Park in the Columbia River Gorge in early April 2012.  Mist Falls waterfall  deserves greater attention than it receives since at over 400 feet it is one of the tallest recognized waterfalls in Oregon. However, the waterfall is less than a mile from the waterfall king of Oregon, Multnomah Falls waterfall which likely has led to its relatively unknown status. And with a rather difficult and dangerous climb up an unstable talus slope to even get to the base, that also contributes to its lesser status.  The best time of the year to see Mist Falls waterfall is during the winter months and early spring; especially after heavy rains.  In the drier months of summer and fall Mist Falls waterfall really lives up to its name as it does become just a mist of water spilling down the basalt cliff face.  It is believed that small springs keep supplying a flow of water during those months.

I used my Canon 5D MKII and the very sharp EF70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM lense  at 70mm, with the shutter set for 0.4 sec. and the lens at  f/13, with an ISO of 100.  I expect to try this image again as we progress into spring green on the trees.  Hope the water supply holds up!

Wahkeena Falls is a 210 foot waterfall that is unlike many of the waterfalls in the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area .  The falls does not drop into a plunge pool like nearby Multnomah Falls but instead cascades down a narrow chasm to its base.  It then flows 100 feet down an alluvial fan and thence to the Columbia River.  This image was taken from the approach to the scenic stone bridge crossing Wahkeena Creek at the base of the upper falls.  The trail over the stone bridge climbs in elevation to the area of the springs forming Wakeena Creek.  The trail passes by lovely Fairy Falls which is a favorite of many photographers for its scenic beauty.  I loved the juxtaposition of the rough, weathered structure of the stone bridge with the graceful softness of the flowing falls.

The Indian Plum is often the first deciduous native shrub to flower in late winter in the Pacific Northwest.  The Indian Plum is an important early season nectar source for hummingbirds, moths and butterflies, native bees and other pollinator species.  Fragrant 1/2 inch greenish white flowers usually appear by late winter in loose hanging clusters of 10 to 20 flowers each.  The fruit is edible for humans but is often bitter, even when fully ripe. Native Americans ate the fruit fresh, dried, or cooked. The bark was used as a tuberculosis remedy and a mild laxative. Strips of bark were used to bind harpoon tips.

This image was found in the Carter Bridge Campground along the Wild and Scenic Clackamas River.  I isolated this single branch to more effectively illustrate the beauty of these early spring blooms.  I used my EF10omm f/2.8 Macro IS USM lense at 1/50 sec and f/4.0 with an ISO of 100 to separate the flowers from the busy background.

The light for ‘Enchanted Forest’ didn’t last for more than one or two minutes.  I was already set up to photograph with my Canon 5D MKII and my 24mm TS lens.  I was waiting for this beautiful fog light to reappear that I had seen a couple of minutes earlier.  This type of light provides a soft glow to an image as there are no harsh shadows.  Suddenly the clouds opened up at the same time that the fog moved up the hill.  The forest scene before me was filled with this beautiful, vibrant glowing light.  I was only able to get off a couple of exposures before the light and fog left.  I processed this image in Lightroom 4 and then finished it in Photoshop CS5.  Much of the magic of the final result I attribute to the Photoshop actions developed by Tony Kuyper.  He has taken the concept of channel masks, or better called luminosity masks, to the nth degree.  The actions he has developed allow for a degree of control that I could not even dream of back in the days of the optical darkroom.  The results have to be seen to be believed.  You can learn more about Tony Kuyper and his luminosity mask actions at his website,  http://www.goodlight.us/index.html .

The Big Lava Flow is in the Giford Pinchot National Forest in Washington state.  In the fall of 2011 I was fortunate to have ideal cloudy and misty conditions for photographing this fiery red Vine Maple bush growing out of the lava.  The fall color of Vine Maple tends to be quite reddish and almost scarlet in drier and sunny locations vs. shady areas where the colors tend to be mostly yellow and gold.  The lava flow pictured in this image is called ʻaʻā type which tends to be very sharp and crumbly.  From Wikipedia:  ʻAʻā (also spelled aa, aʻa, ʻaʻa, and a-aa;  /ˈɑː.ɑː/ or /ˈɑːʔɑː/, from Hawaiian [ʔəˈʔaː]^[6] meaning “stony rough lava”, but also to “burn” or “blaze”) is one of three basic types of flow lava. ʻAʻā is basaltic lava characterized by a rough or rubbly surface composed of broken lava blocks called clinker.  There are numerous collapsed lava tubes nearby to this location.

The location for this image is midway along Forest Route 66 which skirts the eastern edge of the Big Lava Flow.  This route provides ample opportunities to capture similar scenes including the lighter color of vine maples on the eastern edge of the road in the forest understory.

In late March of 2012, I traveled from my home in the metro Portland area to the eastern end of the Columbia River Gorge to photograph the Grasswidow flower.  One of my favorite locations for wildflowers is the Nature Conservancy’s Tom McCall Preserve at Rowena .  This 271 acre preserve has a diverse offering of wildflowers from February into the early summer months.  The location is in the transition zone from the moist rainforest climate of the western slopes and crest of the Cascade mountains and the rain shadow influenced arid central Oregon region.  The Douglas’ Grasswidow pictured here are on a rock ledge of Columbia River Flood Basalt.  These basalt rocks date to between 17 and 6 million years ago during late Miocene and early Pliocene times.  These basaltic lava flows are among the largest lava floods to appear on the earths surface.  It has been estimated that about 63,000 square miles of the Pacific Northwest were engulfed by these flows.

The Douglas Grasswidow is a quite small and delicate flower that blooms early in isolated clusters and also in large groups of thousands.  High on the plateau of Rowena are a few of the larger clusters.  The mass of purple Grasswidows is quite spectacular.