Foggy Day in Paradise

coscorrosa · August 16, 2009

Danny Seidman (dseidman) and I headed up to Paradise in Mt. Rainier National Park this morning to catch the sunrise and wildflowers. The forecast called for 39% cloud cover, so we figured we had a small chance of seeing the mountain but decided to go anyway. Rainier was mostly covered in cloud, but eventually revealed itself (often when we were too far away to get a good composition). The conditions didn't lend themselves to good photos of the mountain, but there were plenty of things to photograph.

Here are some of my favorite shots, again, like normal, I blistered through the processing and probably screwed up a few along the way.

#1:

#2:

#3:

#4:

#5:

#6:

#7: That's Mt. Adams behind the Tatoosh Range. This shot was taken at around 7100 feet, a few hundred feet above the clouds (those same clouds made Mt. Rainier invisible from the Paradise visitor center).

#8: And now, for comic relief. I'll let Danny tell the story when he posts his images, afterall, he was the one that ran away after these fighting marmots chased him...

koush · August 16, 2009

really stunning as usual Ron...I really miss the Northwest
( lived on Vancouver Island for years)
tim

annnna8888 · August 16, 2009

Fantastic, Ron! The whole series is beautiful. Fog helped me produce some of my best photos and can be a worthy substitute for glorious sunny weather. The atmosphere it creates is mystic, subtle, serene. Please go and take some more photos in foggy weather!

Oh, and the marmots are priceless. I can't wait for the story.

Ana

Awais Yaqub · August 16, 2009

Very peaceful like a Paradise !

boblu262 · August 16, 2009

Really great work, as always from you and Danny.
Keep it coming.

bendruckerphoto · August 16, 2009

Love all the shots with the flowers. The color pops nicely against the diffused background.

dlplumer · August 16, 2009

Another fabulous series Ron.

The first is my favorite, but they are all incredible. I'd hate to see what you'd come up with if you didn't rush through PP

anwmn1 · August 16, 2009

Looks like another great day of shooting for you.

Really like the first one and the b&w for the mystery and drama. Have you tried #1 as a b&w?

Dee · August 16, 2009

I live in fog, but I rarely get "pretty fog" as I call it like you did and were able to photograph so well. I love the flowers against the foggy backgrounds, and the peek-a-boo mountain, great. Glad you didn't let the forecast scare you off. It was well worth it.

schmoo · August 16, 2009

Rodents of Unusual Size! That's a fantastic shot. Lowlander I am, I'm only familiar with "marmot" being a brand of jacket that you can buy at REI

Just stunning, really. So how long is the hike up there? You guys make this stuff look so easy

ridgemac · August 16, 2009

Really Great Shots!
I really like the composition and saturation of #5!

bryanj87 · August 16, 2009

Nice series. I really like 5, 6 and 7. You managed to get some great shots despite the fog.

thapamd · August 16, 2009

Awesome! The kissing Marmot shot is classic. The fog really added alot to some already fantastic images! I spent this weekend doing a strenuous hike to Tuck and Robin Lakes. Images to follow soon!

coscorrosa · August 17, 2009

dlplumer wrote:

Another fabulous series Ron. The first is my favorite, but they are all incredible. I'd hate to see what you'd come up with if you didn't rush through PP

That's just my excuse in case they suck!

It does happen to be true though, I didn't spend more than a few minutes on these, and most of that was eliminating all the dust spots (need to clean my sensor again).

coscorrosa · August 17, 2009

anwmn1 wrote:

Looks like another great day of shooting for you.

Really like the first one and the b&w for the mystery and drama. Have you tried #1 as a b&w?

Thanks - I'll give that a shot when I get home. I usually don't have success with low contrast B&W conversions so we'll see what happens.

coscorrosa · August 17, 2009

schmoo wrote:

Rodents of Unusual Size! That's a fantastic shot. Lowlander I am, I'm only familiar with "marmot" being a brand of jacket that you can buy at REI

Just stunning, really. So how long is the hike up there? You guys make this stuff look so easy

That's like someone going into the Harry Potter movie and asking someone "They made a book out of that?"

Marmots are basically giant squirrels, on this trail specifically they're pretty used to people and you can get fairly close to them.

Paradise is about 2.5 hours or so from Seattle, the hike was 5.5 miles round trip with 1,700 ft. elevation gain (peak elevation on the hike was at 7,100 ft. I believe). Remarkably accessible given how close you are to the mountain (one of the spur trails leads up to Camp Muir which is used as a base camp for a lot of summits). The whole area is under snow for the majority of the year.

coscorrosa · August 17, 2009

thapamd wrote:

Awesome! The kissing Marmot shot is classic. The fog really added alot to some already fantastic images! I spent this weekend doing a strenuous hike to Tuck and Robin Lakes. Images to follow soon!

I have a few more of those marmots that I haven't processed yet, they're definitely fun to watch. Danny and I headed up to Rainier again yesterday, but I think it'll be a few days before I can process the photos unless I blister through them again.

coscorrosa · August 17, 2009

Thanks to everyone for the comments and feedback!

dseidman · August 17, 2009

These turned out great! I think #4 is my favorite but it's hard to choose.
I finally started looking through my shots from Paradise earlier today and we really did get a nice sunrise.
I'm looking forward to seeing your shots from Sunday.

rwells · August 17, 2009

Beautiful series Ron.

#3 reminds me of the "Wizard of Ozz"

Marc Muench · August 17, 2009

The light and mood of 4 is superb

thumb

coscorrosa · August 18, 2009

Marc Muench wrote:

The light and mood of 4 is superb thumb

Thanks Marc! That was taken about 3 hours after sunrise, the fog meant that there was no nice alpenglow at sunrise, but it did prolong the "good light" period for several hours, and we were lucky that Rainier wasn't completely obscured the entire time (just most of the time).

shniks · August 18, 2009

#7 is spectacular Ron. Excellent work.

Cheers,

coscorrosa · August 18, 2009

shniks wrote:

#7 is spectacular Ron. Excellent work.

Cheers,

Thanks! I almost didn't bring my 100-400 but then I thought that it was very likely that it would be completely cloudy and foggy, so it would come in handy for wildlife. This shot was really a throwaway shot I tried as we were taking a break at the high point on the hike, sometimes the throwaway shots end up looking the best

Here's a wide angle view of it for perspective (it's not in this photo, but Mt. St. Helens is just a little bit off to the right):

schmoo · August 20, 2009

coscorrosa wrote:

WOW! You can almost dive into that ocean of clouds.

What a great view from up there.

Foggy Day in Paradise

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