The snowy Nooksack River

scole

You'd be hard pressed to convince many Washingtonians that this weekend's storm is probably the last "lowland" snow event. I was excited because it was one last opportunity this winter to photograph Nooksack Falls with a fresh coat of snow.

I also wanted to experiment with another piece of equipment- a 6' aluminum ladder. Funny as it may seem, I've thought about possibly getting different angles or compositions with the assistance of the ladder. So- I carried the ladder the half mile or so from the Mt Baker Hwy to the falls.

While the fresh snow seemed promising, the actual amount at the falls wasn't. I had hoped for 2-3" or so to really provide a nice coat for the trees and rocks but the overnight snowfall amount was more like 1". I had been at the falls for about 15 minutes or so when it started snowing. Hard. *VERY* difficult conditions to take photos when the snow is blowing into and on your lenses. I'm very thankful that Pentax includes weather seals with their DSLR cameras (for a fraction of the Canikon prices)!

1. Nooksack Falls before the driving Snow



2.



3. Snow Pillows



4. Solitary Tree



5. Snowfall...



6. Different perspective of the falls



7. Lastly, I checked another part of the river I've been meaning to...



8. River Flow..



Thanks for looking...

Darren Troy C

REALLY like #7!

bryanj87

Tough conditions to shoot in, but you did well. #7 is wonderful.

ChristopherJAshdown

nice shots scole, love the water falls ones. Try boosting the exposure on a couple to bring up the white (e.g. in 3,4,5) - see how they look. Might just be my monitor, but snow can trick the cam's meter and under expose (attempts a 50% grey, thus dulls when there is a lot of highlights/white).

Awais Yaqub

#7 is amazing, hard shooting conditions !

scole

ChristopherJAshdown wrote:

nice shots scole, love the water falls ones. Try boosting the exposure on a couple to bring up the white (e.g. in 3,4,5) - see how they look. Might just be my monitor, but snow can trick the cam's meter and under expose (attempts a 50% grey, thus dulls when there is a lot of highlights/white).

Thanks, Chris. I think your comments are valid. I was really excited about those photos in the field and I am a bit disappointed with the post-processing of them- I was hoping they'd have just a bit more punch to them.

I actually intentionally underexpose when I take photos in the snow because I'm fearful of losing too much detail. I figure I can play with the RAW curves to boost it up once I get home. I primarily use Pentax's RAW software program (a Silky pix product) to do my RAW PP but perhaps I'll try using ACR in Photoshop Elements with these photos for a better result.

scole

Awais Yaqub wrote:

#7 is amazing, hard shooting conditions !

Thanks, Awais. I'm also very excited about finding this location and look forward to taking more photos from here in the future!

schmoo

Beautiful! I love the snow and this is no exception. The WB is a little warm, which is striking since it's snow and winter in your subjects but to each their own, particularly if this was intentional. Thanks for sharing these!

coscorrosa

I like these shots! I think I read somewhere that there have been several deaths at Nooksack Falls when people try and get a little too close (whoops!).

The last time I was there the water volume was a little higher than in your photos, but I didn't have the awesome snow which really adds to it (even if it's not as much as you would hope).

Seems like you're having all sorts of fun in the North Cascades these days

leaforte

The thought of standing on a ladder where you took the pictures...whew! Takes my breath away! Thanks for sharing.

scole

schmoo wrote:

The WB is a little warm, which is striking since it's snow and winter in your subjects but to each their own, particularly if this was intentional.

I find your comment interesting but puzzling. Can you elaborate on how its "warm"? Are you seeing some sort of color cast? Or...?

It's certainly not intentional on my part!

scole

Based on Christopher's comments, I re-worked #3 & 4 which were too "grey." I'm happy with the re-work:

scole

coscorrosa wrote:

I like these shots! I think I read somewhere that there have been several deaths at Nooksack Falls when people try and get a little too close (whoops!).

The last time I was there the water volume was a little higher than in your photos, but I didn't have the awesome snow which really adds to it (even if it's not as much as you would hope).

Seems like you're having all sorts of fun in the North Cascades these days

Yeah, Ron, I've been sidelined for the better part of a month so it's been great to get out again (and yes- it's MY favorite area to shoot!)