Ruined Trip?

I headed out to Washington State for the North Cascades and Mount Rainier. People warned me about the weather but I was going in mid July so I'll thought I'll be fine. Turns out living in Georgia has kind of spoiled me.

View from the top of Table Mountain, in the Mount Baker Wilderness. You're looking at Mount Shuksan under cloud cover.

View from the top of Table Mountain, in the Mount Baker Wilderness. You're looking at Mount Shuksan under cloud cover.

The weather hasn't been bad per say, it's just been killing me exactly at sunset, sunrise and in the night.

One minute I have clear skies and then wham, clouds everywhere, and not the good kind of clouds either, where're talking about thick heavy clouds that the sun has no hope of shining through.

First there was my easy trips to Artist Point and Table Mountain on the Mount Baker highway. I knew going in, there was going to be a lot of clouds but who cares, my trip just started and it wasn't like it was a long hike.The clouds mostly covered the peak, which is not what I wanted and I got a pretty lame picture.

 

This is as clear as it got at night on the skyline divide trail. The peak of Mount Baker is completely hidden and the prominent peak to the left is Grant Peak, which is east of the true summit.

Then came the skyline divide trail, which gets nice and close to Mount Baker. I wanted to get sunset, the night and then sunrise all while solo camping up there.

While hiking up there things were what I would call partially cloudy. Once I got camp setup, on I think the fifth knoll of the trail, things got decidedly worse. A huge amount of clouds swept in for sunset. Oh well, I thought it should clear up some at 2 am, like the weather report said, so I went to sleep with the alarm set to 2 am. Nope, it turns out the weather on top of mountains is unpredictable - who would have thought? I did manage a decent picture of the clouds sweeping over Grant Peak, along the east ridge of Baker though.

 

Well that was that, hopefully Rainier would turn out better. I headed out to Sunrise at the north entrance, hoping to get some Milky Way shots overlooking Rainier. The weather forecast was for clear skies and when I got there, clear and blue it sure was.

My view from Burroughs Mountain. I could barely see the camera in front of me.

My view from Burroughs Mountain. I could barely see the camera in front of me.

My plan was to hike to a half mile shy of Burroughs Mountain and take a shot on the trail with the almost sheer cliffs overlooking the volcano. I set up both cameras; one for stills and one for a time-lapse with a good 2 hours before sunset. Then I saw the first clouds about half way up the top of Rainier. No big deal, I thought…...

Looking back towards the Sunrise visitors center, a big wave of misty clouds looked to be rolling in. The weather report was for partial cloudy skies at sunset and clear skies at around 1 am, so I was still holding out hope that they would just pass. You can see what the visibility actually looked like on the right.

The weather report for clear skies at around 1 am held water though and I got some pretty good moonlit, milky way and sunrise shots.

This is the kind of view you can expect once the clouds dissipate, or in my case move lower, leaving an amazing bank of clouds below me.

That seemed like the only good weather I got for the whole week. For the next sunset I planned on going to Mount St Helens. Reports were for a partial cloudy sky which would clear up later in the night.

Driving up there I saw a pretty clear St Helens with some clouds. A big bank of clouds rolled in at what seemed like on cue at sunset. I got some OK shots looking at the other direction from the volcano but at that point I was feeling really frustrated and didn’t stick around for the night.

Fogged out Mt Rainier, at Paradise.

Fogged out Mt Rainier, at Paradise.

The final place I planned on going; Paradise, on the south entrance of Mount Rainier National Park, turned out to be the biggest bust. Driving up there I could again see the peak clearly but as you can guess, once I got there it was completely under cloud cover. I waited one hour after sunset to see if would dissipate but once it didn’t, I hiked back down to the trail head parking lot and thought I would wait it out in the car.

As 1 am rolled around, the visibility was even worse. Then 3 am ticked by and still no luck. I decided to pack it in and just drive back at that point, as I doubted sunrise would be clear (I did double check the visitor center webcam to check I made the correct decision - I did - big whoop).

 

So that was the trip, mostly bad, but that’s looking at it right after the Paradise let down. The skyline divide trail, along the ridge line towards Mount Baker was still very cool, even though there were clouds covering most of the peaks. On top of that, I had a very nice night at Sunrise at Mount Rainier, looking at the stars. I guess that’s the pacific northwest; lots of gloomy clouds but amazing once you get lucky enough to peak past them.

Jekyll Island, GA & The Milky Way

I took the plunge and drove 4-5 hours to Jekyll Island, just north of Jacksonville.

I wanted to go and catch sunset and then get some Milky Way action after astronomical twilight. Storms during the past couple of weekends have put a stopper on going though. I took a risk this weekend even though there was expected heavy clouds until the middle of the night. With the moon also rising at 11:45pm, I was cutting it really close with a sky that would stay clear and be moon free. I got a lucky last time I went to Blood Mountain, so I thought what the heck.

The main reason why I wanted to go was because of Driftwood Beach, which has bare trees and washed up logs all along the beach. It’s also pretty dark down there, well compared to other parts of the East Coast. Looking south down Jekyll Island, would be the darker Cumberland Island (which is completely undeveloped, being under National Park management), so looking south, towards the Milky Way should show little light pollution.

Well that was the plan…...The one thing I forgot to take into account was how close Driftwood Beach was to Saint Simons Island, which is anything but dark. On top of the light pollution there was also the lighthouse on St Simons, that intermittently lit up the beach. I’m kind of getting ahead of myself though.

For sunset, I did plan to go to the north part of the island, which has some driftwood on the beach but more importantly would allow me to get the setting sun back-lighting the driftwood, as it was setting towards the north-west. While I was walking up there though I came across this open field with an amazingly green marsh and I thought I’ll pass up the driftwood shot (I was going to to shot it with the Milky Way anyway).

Don’t know if I was too happy with those big, stormy looking clouds being there. Don’t get me wrong, it made the sunset picture look great but I came for the Milky Way, and those clouds did look pretty ominous.

Once blue hour rolled around, I got my camera set up next to a cool piece of driftwood overlooking the rising Milky Way. With high tide coming in at around the time of the moon rise, I did have to move the camera but I got a nice blue hour shot, with some nice saturated colors and a just visible galactic core.

That stretch of yellow light on the water is from the lighthouse at St Simons and the red glow on the water is me light painting with my headlamp.

I did have to move the camera pretty soon after - tides move quick! Once astronomical twilight hit I got some decent shots with the Milky Way and it’s galactic core very much visible and on full display. All the light pollution from Saint Simons, did give them a nasty white-orange glow. I got rid of most of it with some light painting, using a flashlight with a blue gel. I even made use of the lighthouse; I waited for it flash towards the water so that it lit up the waves perpendicular to my flashlight.

You can see the Milky Way here in it's full glory.

Overall pretty happy, well I was till I had to drive another 5 hours back, soaked from the knee down.

Photographing Sand Dunes

I thought I might bring up some of my experiences shooting the sand dunes in Death Valley National Park. I am by no means an expert (I have only shot two dunes) but I have a couple of tips that I haven’t seen mentioned elsewhere.

You can make out the Panamint Dunes in the middle of the frame, left of the butte.

There are five main sand dunes in Death Valley; Eureka Dunes, Mesquite Dunes, Ibex Dunes, Panamint Dunes and Hidden Dunes. Eureka is the highest, Mesquite the busiest and the others rarely visited. I don’t really think Panamint or Ibex are all that difficult to get to but they don't get a lot of foot traffic, so if you want to go to a pristine dune field those are you're best bets.

For better or worse, I think Mesquite is the most photogenic, due to the more golden color and the longer length they cover, giving the impression they go on forever. Mesquite has one big drawback and that’s the footprints. The tallest parts will always have footprints, as everyone wants to get to the top. The areas that require at least a 1-2 mile hike from the parking lot though should have few to no footprints.

As with all landscape photography, but especially dune photography, you’re going to have to get to the dunes at the very least one hour before sunrise/sunset. I think there are three distinctive periods during sunset/sunrise to shot. I’ll use sunrise as an example; pre-sunrise glow (civil twilight), sun at the horizon (dawn) and finally golden hour.

Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes - You can see the amount of footprints on the highest dune and of course there will probably be photographers there at nearly all hours. I wanted the two you see above in the frame and had to race to get to the back of them and high enough to get them and the pre-sunrise glow all in one shot.

In the pre-sunrise glow period you generally either want to be high up so you can get the most of the glow, which emanates from the horizon line, or far back from the dunes taking a wider shot.

You’ll generally be looking at strong silhouettes being cast due to the large dynamitic range, so make sure you bracket, even if you have a D810/A7R. It is worth mentioning that if you do climb up high on the dunes at this time, you’ll leave footprints for any pictures after sunrise (this doesn't have to be a bad thing as you can use them to create leading lines).

 

 

 

 

Eureka Dunes, about twenty minutes after sunrise.

Next, you have the sunrise, with the sun actually at the horizon and visible. Rather than looking for side-lighting shadows here I would recommend using the sun in the composition. Sun-stars are the obvious choice but there’s also using the dunes to create leading lines towards the sun. Again, the dynamic range here is going to be a lot (even more than civil twilight).

If you haven’t started climbing the sand dunes yet, you’re in luck as the path leading up to the peaks of the sand dunes are perfect spots for sun stars. Make sure you get low if you’re close to the peak and be ready to focus stack if you get really low.

 

Finally, there’s golden hour. Really you have more like an hour and half after sunrise to look for shadow interplay in the dunes. The sun should be low, so you should be able to find areas that have both strong shadows and fully illuminated parts.

Mesquite Dunes, with some shadow inter-play and some nice, light cloud cover giving a softly lit sun.

Eureka Dunes, well after sunrise. Standing about half way up the highest ridge, looking down on some of the smaller dunes further to the south.

While a lot of people will tell you that photographing sand dunes is difficult, I would disagree. You have to move around a lot and think about your next shot while say you’re camera is firing off bracketed shots, but you’re come away with a lot of good pictures, rather than just the usual one or two. Make sure you plan ahead; check for cloud cover, how high the clouds are likely to be, the wind speed and of course the direction the sun will set or rise. Oh yeah, one more thing, make sure have some fun, if photographing this way isn’t you’re idea of fun do whatever gives you a blast!

 

The Milky Way At Blood Mountain, GA

Recently I headed off to Blood Mountain, up in the Georgia Mountains. I wanted to get my second dip in the water with astrophotography and in particular photographing the Milky Way (my first attempt, at possibly the best place to take it in the northern hemisphere).

First, I'll walk you through the research before I headed out. As anyone with any experience with astrophotography will tell you; you need dark skies. I headed over to lightpollutionmap.info to check how much light pollution there is in the Chattahoochee National Forest. Turns out there's still a couple of good dark locations in Georgia! The thing to look for in this map is not only the light pollution in the area you are thinking of going to but also the light pollution in the direction you're camera's going to be pointing, unless of course you're going to point it straight up.

Light pollution map showing Blood Mountain and the light polluted towns of Dahlonega and Cleveland towards the south.

Light pollution map showing Blood Mountain and the light polluted towns of Dahlonega and Cleveland towards the south.

To get the galactic core of the Milky Way in the frame you're more than likely going to be pointing the lens towards the south. As you can see, Blood Mountain has the heavily light polluted towns of Dahlonega and Cleveland towards the south. They seemed reasonably far away from Blood Mountain though so I thought it was still worth the trip.

Next, I checked for clear skies - don't want those pesky clouds blocking the stars. I used the Climendo app/website (pro version has hourly reports) as it aggregates several weather forecasts. I kind of risked it as clear skies weren't certain.

There are couple of other things you may want to do, like checking for the composition of the Milky Way with the surrounding landscape using PhotoPills or Stellarium, and of course make sure it's between April and October so the galactic core of the Milky Way would be visible after astronomical twilight.

 

And now for the results:

In the first shot (the one to the left), you can see the town of Cleveland (might be Dahlonega) giving off a lot of light pollution. There's also plenty of cloud cover covering it up, which is softening up the light glow pretty nicely.

I waited a bit and moved to the left and got a straight up and down shot of the galactic core. The cloud cover by then had passed and revealed the light pollution glow in it's full glory.

Panorama of three fisheye shots, from a rock sledge on top of Blood Mountain.

Single shot using the Sigma 15mm f/2.8 ex dg.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with the visibility of the Milky Way in the photographs but I think I spent too much time focusing on the stars rather than on the foreground and I've ended up with some noisy, dark foreground subjects. Third time should be the charm and next on the list is going to be Brasstown Bald, a little further north from Blood Mountain.

Check out my blog post about the Milky Way over Jekyll Island, GA.