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Greetings,
Well heck, it looks like I forgot to put out an August newsletter. I blame having to get ready to go to Sitka. Yeah, that’s my excuse. It has nothing to do with just turning 61 years old. Nothing at all.
Anyway, missing last month makes this month's newsletter a bit longer than usual. Sorry about that but there are lots of stories to tell!
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Olympic 2021 report
In July I teamed up once again with John Barclay for an Olympic National Park photo tour. John had never been to Olympic so I got to enjoy seeing his reaction to the park and surrounding area. If you follow him on Instagram (you should) you probably got an idea of his enthusiasm!
During the tour we visited Hurricane Ridge, lavender farms, Lake Crescent, Sol Duc Falls, Ruby, Rialto and Second Beaches, the Hoh rain forest and more. While in Port Angeles, we were “blessed” by bald blue skies (those were sarcasm quotes). But bare blue skies can actually be nice when backlighting lavender.
Our last morning in Port Angeles was magical. The night before we went to the top of Hurricane Ridge for the sunset so not everybody chose to join us for the following sunrise, just a scant few hours later.
We didn’t make it to the top of Hurricane Ridge that morning. About half-way up the Hurricane Ridge Road is a set of three tunnels. Just before the first tunnel there’s a small parking lot and a very nice view looking east-northeast. From there, one can see Mount Baker. This particular morning we could see Mt. Baker rising above a sea of clouds below us. The clouds were also slowly moving inland into the trees below us. This scene, even before sunrise, was magical.
But wait, there was more. When the sun came up it bathed the top of these clouds in bright orange light.
Adjacent to the parking lot is a short trail that leads to a viewpoint looking the opposite direction, up a valley into the interior of the park’s wilderness. After the incredible sunrise, the fog below started moving up this valley, prolonging the magic. This turned out to be one of the best mornings I’ve had in the park, and that’s saying a lot.
That’s just a taste of what the tour was like. To read more about it and see a slide show of images, check out my Olympic tour report on my blog.
I’m pretty sure I wrote this blog post in anticipation of linking it from the aforementioned August newsletter that never happened. Again, I blame getting ready for Sitka for my lapse.
And if you're interested in a possible July 2022 Olympic National Park photo tour with me and John, be sure to reply to this email and let me know. I'll put you on the early notify list.
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Sitka report
After several weeks of sunny weather, as soon as we arrived in Sitka, so did the rain. This caused a few things to happen. One, the streams started filling up a little more. Two, dull grey skies meant dull grey water when out trying to photograph whales and otters. And three, the potential for amazing sunsets. We got all three!
For one sunset we drove up Harbor Mountain only to be surrounded by clouds. We headed back down to capture the sunset pictured above, but not before I was able to get one of my all time favorite "tree in the mist" shots. (see blog post)
For our last day on the boat, the weather improved, and we had some nice light to photograph Puffins and Murres and other birds as well as whales. We even got to experience a Humpback whale breaching not 150 feet away. Maybe closer. It was amazing.
Jump on over to my blog to read the full report.
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Sitka 2022
This year’s trip was so much fun, that all three people there want to do it again next year. So I’ve been working on that.
The trip is limited to the number of people that can fit on the small boat. And going out in a small boat means you can get closer to things like little islands, sea caves, and other cool stuff.
That means each boat trip is limited to five people total. I’m trying to set up a trip with two instructors and two boat captains. We’ll see. It may just be the one trip limited to four or I may schedule two trips if there’s enough interest. If you think that this would float your boat (see what I did there?), let me know and I’ll add you to an early notify list.
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2022 auroras
Sadly, John Barclay and I had to cancel both of our aurora tours to Yellowknife. While Canada may have opened its borders to leisure travel, the Government of the Northwest Territories has not.
And so, we’re now scheduling our 2022 aurora tours. The dates are:
Tour 1: Sept. 20 - 27, 2022
Tour 2: Sept. 27 - Oct. 4, 2022
Those who were signed up for this year’s tours have been given the choice of moving to one of next year’s tours. But there should still be spaces available after accounting for those folks. So if you’re tempted to photograph the greatest light show on the planet, be sure to check out our aurora tours page on my Workshops site.
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Other 2022 trips
I've got some other 2022 trips in the planning stage. John and I are talking about another July Olympic National Park tour and I'm also planning a spring Olympic workshop.
My 2022 Palouse workshop is set for June 14-19. All the details are pending but if you want to be on the list, just shoot me an email.
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Topaz Labs
I've been using Topaz Labs product for about three years. I love their DeNoise AI plug-in, it's simply the best utility I've ever used for removing noise while at the same time preserving detail. In my night images it actually makes the stars sharper while at the same time greatly reduces the noise. It's just amazing.
I also use Gigapixel AI to enlarge images. It comes in handy on those occasions when someone wants a large print. Especially from images taken with a 6 megapixel camera...
Their Sharpen AI does a very good job of sharpening images that have a slight bit of camera or subject movement, or are just slightly out of focus, or are perhaps a little soft due to atmospheric haze or lens limitations.
I recently started using Topaz Studio 2 after seeing my friend John Barclay demonstrate some of its capabilities.
The image above has been cropped in quite a bit. It was shot at ISO 1000 on a Nikon D810 with a Nikon 28-300 f/4-5.6 AFS zoom lens. I used f/11, which should be pretty sharp on that lens and the shutter speed was 1/800 sec.
The uncropped image looks sharp enough. But cropping in like I did revealed some softness. (the cropped size is only 2108px wide)
I first used Topaz DeNoise AI to take care of the little bit of high ISO noise. That also recovered some of the detail.
I then use Topaz Sharpen AI to finish it off. I didn't need the water to be sharper so I used Sharpen AI's masking function to affect only the Puffin. It did a remarkable job.
Now if I need to increase the size for larger display, I'll use Gigapixel AI to increase the size. Actually, I'll probably reprocess the image, reducing the noise first, then increasing the size, and finally apply the needed sharpening.
As you may have noticed in the sidebar of this email, I'm also now an affiliate for Topaz Labs. That means if you click on that link and buy something, I get a little taste too. As I like to say, a win-win!
And you can get a 15% discount by using the promo code FRIEND15 on checkout. Just click here or on the Topaz logo image in the sidebar. Don't forget to use the promo code.
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In closing
Ok,this has been long enough. But just one more story, I promise.
Our granddaughter Lydia spent the night a few weeks ago. We took her to the Olympic Game Farm in Sequim. It’s a drive-thru park with all sorts of animals ranging from deer and elk to ox and bison and llamas. It’s been there forever, I’ve just never gone because it really held no interest for me. But to a five-year-old girl?
I have never heard anyone laugh so loud and so hard as Lydia did when animals stuck their heads in the car and ate bread out of her hands.
I think this direct quote from Lydia pretty much wraps it up:
“They actually were really cute because that they were licking my, almost my face, but they licked my hand and it was so gross and I loved it!!”
Take care everyone!
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