My landscapes / nightscapes of the Northwest [c&c welcome]

[RaceJones.503]

I thought it'd be a good idea to just have one collective thread to show some of my work and I'll just add photos to this post as time goes on. These photos are from my adventures / travels around Oregon and some in Montana and California. I would love to hear your feedback!

1) The Ghost Forest

“The stumps of the Ghost Forest have been estimated at approximately 2000 years old, and when they were alive, the trees are thought to have stood 150-200 feet high.”

I shot this photo at around 6:30 am. My main goal was to space apart each stump. I positioned the camera as best as I could to avoid visual mergers between the foreground stumps. I wanted the shape of each stump to stand out clearly since their shapes are the point of the composition: they set up a repeating pattern, and lead your eye from foreground to background.

f/22
ISO 50
2 second exposure


2) Devil's Punch Bowl

Devils Punch Bowl State Natural Area is a state day use park on the central Oregon Coast in the United States. It is centered on a large bowl naturally carved in a rock headland which is partially open to the Pacific Ocean.

I went out to Lincoln City, Oregon on a whim to meet up with some family that I haven't seen in awhile. I knew I wanted to take some photographs, but I didn't really know what was out in the area so I turned to Google and that's how I discovered the Devil's Punch Bowl. After a long night with the family, I set my alarm for 4:30 am to head to the Punch Bowl and catch it at sunrise.

f/11
ISO 100
6 second exposure


3) Jonsrud Viewpoint

I drove out to Sandy, Oregon to this viewpoint and caught the last 15 minutes of sunset. This was my first time out to this location and I'll definitely be coming back. This photo is composed of 3 different exposures.

f/16
ISO 100
1/6 second exposure


4) Beach House

Just an awesome beach house located in Neskowin, Oregon. The rock formation in the background is called 'Proposal Rock'. I shot this during the new-moon phase in June.

f/2.8
ISO 1600
30 second exposure


5) Trillium Lake Reflections

Trillium Lake is always a nice sight. I decided to go here after shooting the sunset at Jonsrud Viewpoint in Sandy a few nights ago. I got to the lake around 10:30pm and took a nap in the back seat of my car until 1am because the moon was still pretty high in the sky and the stars would be too hard to capture. About 10 minutes after I woke up and got setup another photographer from Minneapolis, Minnesota showed up. He was on a camping trip with some buddies and told me that back home you don't get to see anything like this. Made me happy to be from the Northwest!f/2.8ISO 200025 second exposureLightly painted the rocks with a headlamp

f/2.8
ISO 2000
20 second exposure


6) Sunset at Crater Lake National Park

This was taken pretty much on the edge of a rocky cliff located on the Discovery Trail. This was my first time back out to Crater Lake for probably 10 years or so and it was beautiful. The color of the lake is already a deep blue as it is and when the sun dipped below the horizon line it created one of the most vibrant and colorful sunsets I've ever seen. The bad part was I was being swarmed by mosquitos the entire time and I took many bites to get this picture haha.

I used two on-camera filters for this photo: An ND16 filter and a 6x8 Graduated-ND8 filter.

f/22
ISO 50
30 second exposure


7) Nocturnal Subaru

I took this photo a few weeks ago when I was visiting my family down in Scio, Oregon. This didn't really turn out the way I wanted it to, but I thought I'd share it anyway.My subie chillin' under the Aurora Borealis and the Milky Way.

f/2.8
ISO 2000
30 second exposure


8) Startrails Over Neskowin Beach

I love the lighting in this one because it looks almost like a painting. The light in the foreground is coming from a small campfire, the beach is being lit by a spot light from one of the beach houses above, and the bright lights in the background are from other beach houses.

f/8
ISO 200
20 minute exposure


9) Crater Lake Glow

I took this photo around 3:30 am, just before the moon was beginning to rise (orange glow). I blended 2 different exposures to get this image. I shot the stars at f/2.8, ISO 3200, with a 30 second exposure. Then I exposed for the tree and lake for 5 minutes at f/2.8, and ISO 1600. I lightly painted the tree with a small led lantern.



10) Wheat Field Planetarium

I just think of aliens when I look at this. I took this in my home town of Scio, Oregon.

f/2.8
ISO 2000
30 second exposure

 

[RaceJones.503]

11) Wheat Field Milky Way

This is basically in my backyard back at my folks place in Scio, Oregon.

f/2.8
ISO 2000
30 second exposure



12) Trillium Lake Twilight

New-moon weekends for me are spent out in the woods with no sleep and most of the time by myself, which can be creepy. On this particular night I got to Trillium Lake at midnight only to discover about 15 other photographers there trying to capture the night sky. Turns out there was a workshop going on, but it was definitely cool being around a bunch of like-minded people out there taking photos. I painted the rocks with my headlamp, and the lights you see on the mountain are snow groomers working late into the night.

f/2.8
ISO 3200
40 second exposure


13) Plaikni Falls

A nice hidden gem in the park that not a whole lot of people go to. The falls are definitely worth the short and easy hike.

f/22
ISO 100
2 second exposure


14) Neskowin Twilight

I shot this about 2 hours after sunset during the new moon weekend. It's rad to see that bit of light still shining up over the horizon!

f/2.8
ISO 800
30 second exposure


15) The Startucky Trail

I spent Memorial Day weekend at a buddies cabin over in Montana (or Montucky as they call it) and spent a lot of time shooting stuff in the outdoors... with guns, and with cameras of course. I shot this photo during the full moon and it consists of about 350 30 second exposures, I call it 'The Startucky Trail'

f/2.8
ISO 1600
30 second exposure


16) Milky Way Over Bruno

Here's a photo I took up at Timberline Lodge during the last new-moon phase. I think this is the brightest I've ever seen the Milky Way, but I have some plans on where I think I want to go for the next new-moon to hopefully capture it even better.

f/2.8
ISO 3200
39 second exposure


17) Half Dome

My 1x1 crop of the Infamous Half Dome from Glacier Point.

f/22
ISO 125
1/125 second exposure


18) Peek-a-boo

Full moon creeping over Mt. Hood. It was crazy to watch it rise from behind the mountain because of how fast it appeared to be moving. My original plan was to be in a position to get the moon rising more towards the top of the mountain, but I was way off haha.

I use a handful of different apps to determine where I want to be when I take photos. One of them is called TPE (The Photographer's Ephemeris) and it allows you to drop a pin on a map and it will show you where the sun or moon will be positioned in relation to your location at any given time. Pretty crazy, and very helpful when trying to line things up!

f/16
ISO 50
1/3 second exposure


19) Supermoon Rising Over Mt. Hood

Mt. Hood sunset/moonrise from the north side of the Columbia River.

f/16
ISO 320
1/13 second exposure


20) Crater Lake Galaxy

The skies at Crater Lake are so dark. This was just a day or two before the new-moon phase so I had until about 4am of dark skies to take photos before the moon was going to rise. Shooting during these conditions is hard since there is nothing lighting your scene, but there's a few tricks that I'm still learning about to deal with that.

This photo is composed of two different exposures. I shot the sky at f/2.8, ISO 3200, and exposed for 30 seconds. For the bottom half I shot it at f/2.8, ISO 3200, and exposed it for 4 minutes. I lit the little piece of foreground with a flashlight.

 

[Bo4key]

Some really nice shots here, hard to offer any critique since there are so many though.

 

[ndancona]

love them all. well done.

 

[waiting]

Can't fault any of the. Love your sky shots!

 

[RaceJones.503]

Thanks guys!

 

[GaryT]

Really love your work sir! What camera are you using, your star shots are a class act

 

[RaceJones.503]

Thanks Gary,

I use a 5d Mark II

 

[batmura]

Great shots! #1 is my favourite. I wonder what a long exposure would do to it. May I ask why you opted for f-22?

 

[tookrzy4u192]

Love all the shots! Great work

 

[Shipman]

Just wow...these are some beautiful shots

 

[cgipson1]

If you want C&C, post two or three at the most. Most of the more experienced people here won't even try to comment on this many photos...

 

[Derrel]

19) Supermoon Rising Over Mt. Hood

Mt. Hood sunset/moonrise from the north side of the Columbia River.

f/16
ISO 320
1/13 second exposure
View attachment 51081

This is just a few miles from my place! Nice shot of the moonrise at sunset and the river!

 

[RaceJones.503]

Great shots! #1 is my favourite. I wonder what a long exposure would do to it. May I ask why you opted for f-22?

I wanted to achieve the longest exposure I could with the nd filter setup that I had so I closed it down all the way.

If you want C&C, post two or three at the most. Most of the more experienced people here won't even try to comment on this many photos...

True. I'll remove the c&c part.

This is just a few miles from my place! Nice shot of the moonrise at sunset and the river!

Nice!

 

[Scatterbrained]

Some great shots there. I quite like the first one.