The weather in Western Washington is notoriously cloudy and damp. Some people struggle with the lack of sun. But I am okay with that … I see the trade offs, including mountain ridges with clouds and/or mist. These were taken looking west from Hurricane RIdge in Olympic National Park across the Elwha Valley.
This was taken from the top of Blue Mountain in north central Olympic National Park. You can drive most of the way to the top … it’s just above Deer Park Campground where I was staying … and it’s a short walk up from the end of the road. A popular spot to watch the sunset.
We were flying kites in an open field on Marrowstone Island, southeast of Port Townsend, WA. The water is Puget Sound, looking across to Whidbey Island. It started to sprinkle and the rainbow showed up. I grabbed my camera and moved around until I got the end of the rainbow on my friend, Gary. I would have liked to have had the tug boat to be a little further into the image, but the rainbow didn’t last long enough.
This is the ridge that is just west of the North Fork Skokomish just north of the Staircase Ranger Station in the Olympic National Park. There’s something about misty ridges that attract and hold my attention. I’m not sure why that is … mystery? memories of when those clouds started raining on me?
It is something that comes with the coastal areas in the Pacific Northwest, though.
Clouds are a common visitor to the skies of Washington State. Often the sky is just one continuous cloud. I haven’t found that to be very photogenic. (Well, once in a while you get lucky) More often, it is the partial cloudy conditions that create interesting photos. I thought the layers of clouds in the image above to be quite interesting. The one below has very fine gradations in tones … It was taken with Tri-X, and shows film grain when you enlarge it. But the tonal gradations are wonderful (especially in a print).
