One of the drawbacks to living where I do is that it’s a long way from major shopping areas with a bridge to cross. When the bridge opens for boat traffic, it can create a huge traffic backup… especially on holiday weekends. But when the weather is nice and you have nothing else to do, it can be an interesting photo op.
Port Townsend has an excellent walking/biking trail: The Larry Scott Trail. It runs from the marina downtown for 7.3 miles … they hope to connect it to the Olympic Discovery Trail, but are missing several miles of property rights. This section is near the marina and at low tide there are frequently herons that come to try and find a snack or two.
Disclaimer: we are in the middle of wonderful spring weather here in Western Washington this week.
I took this self-portrait years ago… we were hiking up the Sol Duc valley and coming back through the camping area we saw this picnic table surrounded by a icy puddle. I thought it looked sad … and decided to accentuate that mood with a gloomy look. I walked into the puddle from the back to avoid disturbing the surface of the puddle in the foreground … placed my sitting pad (I’m not crazy enough to sit in wet snow when I don’t have to) and got the photo.
I like the panoramic format even if the subject isn’t a scenic panorama. Of course, it depends on the subject. In the top image here there are a lot of horizontally running lines … something that a panoramic crop can emphasize. In the lower image, the crop turned into a panorama when I cut away the pieces that were distracting. In this image, I liked the wet rocks just above the surf line … and the rocks in the distance become increasingly out of focus.
The top image is the Point Wilson Lighthouse at Fort Worden State Park in Port Townsend, WA. The angle makes it look less like a point. The main body of Puget Sound (Admiralty Inlet) is just on the other side of the lighthouse. The hillside in the distance is on Whidbey Island.
Point Hudson is at the NE corner of Port Townsend, right at the end of Water Street. This was taken from up on the hill at Fort Worden just prior to the image above. You can walk the beach from one point to the other … just make sure to check the tide charts before you start!