Colleen Easley lives in Olympia, WA with her husband Dale and 2 cats. Photography has been her hobby for 40 years. Currently she is working on a 365 project which requires that she take at least one photo every day and publish it to her blog. You may follow her on Twitter and/or Facebook by clicking the links below. To see all the photos of her 2010 project, click the link below under LINKS.
This afternoon we had to get a new battery put in our car. Once that was done we took a short drive down to Mud Bay to take one of our favorite short walks along the William Cannon Trail. Born in 1755, William Cannon fought in the Revolutionary War and worked for the Hudson’s Bay Company at Fort Vancouver as a blacksmith and millwright. Cannon was a member of Wilson Price Hunt’s overland expedition for John Jacob Astor in 1811-1812 to establish Fort Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia River.
The trail is short and flat, but it affords some great views of Mud Bay and the possibility of spotting various kinds of waterfowl. Across the bay is McLean Point and Triple Creek Farm, two large expanses of bay front property that have been preserved in their natural state through conservation easements acquired by the Capitol Land Trust. Today I was looking for a great blue heron to photograph, but none were to found. Instead I’ve chosen this photograph taken along the wooded part of the trail of what appear to be daffodils pushing up through the dead winter debris of the forest floor. It was another sure sign that Spring has sprung here in the Pacific Northwest!
It seems we’re on a roll with some decent weather this week. Today was another partly sunny day. I spent the morning working on scheduling volunteers for the Iditarod Sled Dog Race which is coming up in March. I wasn’t quite done when Dale came in and asked if I’d like to take a drive up to Capitol Peak to check out the views. We’d talked about the peak as being a good place to catch a nice sunset, so without hesitation I closed up my project, grabbed my jacket and camera and off we went.
Capitol Forest is just minutes from our home. It’s a state forest with miles and miles of logging roads zig-zagging through what are known as the Black Hills. Most of the roads are unpaved and there are dozens of ATV trails in the area as well. On the way up to the peak we stopped along a trail head and I hiked maybe 1/4 mile up to get this nice view of a small creek. There was a bridge over the creek that I was able to use to steady the camera so I could take a slow shutter speed shot to blur the rushing water. Unfortunately the creek is filled with the debris of wind felled trees and limbs. It was especially bad in this area due to a horrific wind storm last week. I wished the big log hadn’t been across the stream, but this is nature – just as I found it.
We never made it to the peak because of logging operations that were blocking the road, but on the way home we stopped to look at a 5 acre parcel of land for sale and found that it has a great view of Mt Rainer to the east. The next time it looks like there’s potential for a nice sunset, we’ll probably head up to that property. In the mean time we’re thinking we need to investigate that land even more – it’d be the perfect location to build our dream house.
Today I’m doing something a little different. Instead of posting one photo for the day, I’m posting a collection of 30 images I took while Dale and I enjoyed a beautiful afternoon in Thurston County Washington. If you read yesterday’s post you saw the photo of the old Delphi School House. I plugged the addresses of a couple more of these old school houses into our GPS unit and when we saw the clouds breaking off about noon, we jumped in the car and headed out to the one that appeared to be the closest. When we got there, we found that it had been converted to a residence and we didn’t feel comfortable taking a photo, so we moved on to the next one, which was the Nisqually school house, near the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge and Nisqually River. I got that photo alright, but what a disappointment. This poor old school house is really in need of rescue. It’s obvious no one has worked on restoring it like the one yesterday.
After getting the school house photo, we drove across the highway to the National Wildlife Refuge and hiked the trail. I took my Nikon D90 with my 80-400mm lens and Dale had his D40 with his 55-200mm lens. I’m kicking myself for not loaning him the 18-200mm zoom. It would have been more versatile.
As we finished up our hike we could tell the sky was going to produce some nice colors as the sun was setting, so we decided to head into town to Capitol Lake. We waited for the sinking sun to paint the clouds with gold and maybe the pink of alpenglow. We got the gold, but it didn’t look like we’d be seeing any pink. As we left I could see Mt Rainier off to the east and it was getting bathed in that beautiful aplenglow, so we headed out West Bay Drive and caught a few shots looking over Budd Inlet to the marina, town and Mt Rainier in the background. It was a beautiful ending to a fabulous day. I hope you’ll enjoy the photos. We’ll definitely be heading back to the wildlife refuge again and again looking for more birds and wildlife.
BTW, picture number 20 ended up being the photo of the day. It’s the one with the sun reflecting off an office building on the lake. To see all of my 365 project, click here.
All photos taken with Nikon D90
The shots at the wildlife refuge are with the Nikon 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6D ED Autofocus VR Zoom handheld on a monopod.
The school house and the in-town pictures are with the 18-200 VR II Zoom.
We’re definitely into winter here in the Pacific Northwest. Over the past week we’ve set some records for low temperatures. In Olympia, where I’m located, we have had 6 and 7 degree mornings several times this week. But although it’s cold, there’s been no moisture; which thankfully means no shoveling of snow! The skies have been a beautiful blue, yet it’s hard to make myself get outside in these temperature to take photographs. But today I saw the weather forecast was calling for a change; with warmer temps and rain due back by the weekend, so I decided I better take advantage of one of the last days of full sunshine for awhile.
Yesterday I froze while taking a few photos down at Capitol Lake. Today I learned some tips on staying while photographing. I put on my silk long underwear under my regular clothes. I layered jeans over the bottoms, and on top I added a thin sweater top, along with a down vest, a muffler, and a lined fleece jacket over that. I used ear muffs and a musher style hat for my head and I put some foot warmers in my shoes and hand warmers in my pockets. I also wore a very thin pair of gloves that allowed me to work the controls on the camera without having to take them off. Keeping the hand warmers in my pockets gave me a chance to warm up my fingers between shots. They worked great and I’ll certainly be buying more soon.
The McLean Nature Trail is just a couple miles from home. I go there a lot in the spring and fall for photo shoots, but I’ve been thinking that at this time of year I’m really going to have to look extra hard to find beauty in the woods. I decided to challenge myself to go out and not only find it, but to use just one lens to capture it. I choose my Tamron 90mm Macro. Next time I think I’ll take the 18-200mm to give myself more flexibility, but today was a good day to get some practice with the macro and to see just what it could do. I love taking macro shots, but I’m usually shooting flowers and insects. There were none of those today at McLean, but the frigid temperatures of the past week left some very interesting ice and frost patterns. One particular frost picture came out very blue and I adjusted it a little to give it a purple cast. It’s not vert natural looking, but it’s still one of my favorites because of the interesting frost crystals! As you look through the gallery, I hope you’ll find the beauty in the winter woods that I’ve tried to capture.
The weather today was a huge improvement over yesterday. The sunshine made me get out and explore and take some pictures. I had to go to the Cabela’s store in Lacey so it gave me the idea to check out Tolmie State Park which is not far from there. We’ve lived in Olympia for almost 20 years and had never been there before.
This is a day use park only and is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. It features an underwater park for scuba divers, a saltwater marsh, a beach, a forest and abundant wildlife. At least that’s what the park web site says. Unfortunately, I didn’t see much wildlife at Tolmie today. I did spot a bald eagle in the top of a fir tree, but too far away for a photo. The only other thing was a little red squirrel, but he disappeared before I could get a shot off. I walked some of the trails, watched a guy trying out his newly home built wooden kayak and enjoyed watching kids playing on the beaches. The park is named for Dr. William Frazer Tolmie (1812-1866) who spent 16 years with the Hudson Bay Company at Fort Nisqually as a physician, surgeon, botanist and fur trader.
Exploring the woods gave me a chance to try out the Nikon D90 in low light conditions. I brought the tripod along and took quite a few shots in the forest. Keep in mind, I’m using an 18-200mm lens that isn’t very fast. F3.5 – 5.6 depending on the focal length. So many of my shots were at very slow shutter speeds and the tripod was definitely required. I’m pretty happy with the results even though the tripod can be a nuisance to carry around.
I also had a chance to try out my new Op/Tech Bino/Cam Harness. It’s a simple over the shoulder, cross in back design that allows my camera to be held snug against my body while still allowing it to be brought up to my eyes for use. I’d say this was money well spent. The D90 with the 18-200mm lens is not a lightweight camera. The harness distributes the weight evenly on my shoulders so it will save a lot of neck pain when we go hiking. Some people think they look dorky, but hey, comfort is more important to me than how it looks.
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Colleen Easley lives in Olympia, WA with her husband Dale and 2 cats. Photography has been her hobby for 40 years. Currently she is working on a 365 project which requires that she take at least one photo every day and publish it to her blog. You may follow her on Twitter and/or Facebook by clicking the links below. To see all the photos of her 2010 project, click the link below under LINKS.
02.09.10
It’s a simple over the shoulder, cross in back design that allows my camera to be held snug against my body while still allowing it to be brought up to my eyes for use. I’d say this was money well spent. The D90 with the 18-200mm lens is not a lightweight camera. The harness distributes the weight evenly on my shoulders so it will save a lot of neck pain when we go hiking. Some people think they look dorky, but hey, comfort is more important to me than how it looks.
