Here is an image fom Rialto Beach in Washington. The beach is covered with small pebbles which create a great foreground. There is also a small picnic area nearby, and the beach is easy to access.

To capture this shot, I used a simple 2-stop GND filter to reduce the brightness of the sky so that the camera could handle the dynamic range. With this filter, the pastels in the sky were well balanced against the dark foreground pebbles. To get the foreground textures, I waited until the wave had retreated and then setup my shot to fill the frame with as much foreground as possible.

Here is a simple composition from Ruby Beach that I created by placing the camera very close to the sand. Part of Ruby Beach is very shallow, and at low tide this allows you to experiment with some creative compositions.

Click on the image above to view it at a larger size. You will be able to see sharp rocks and bubbles in the foreground. They seem to be superimposed on the shifting water. This was accomplished in camera. I opened the shutter release just before the wave passed under the camera – capturing the impression of the rocks and bubbles. As the wave passed by, it created a secondary impression on the sensor, which remained open for a few moments longer.

Here is a photograph of a fresh, young fern trying to make its way in the world. We found lots of these just beginning to open on our last trip to Olympic National Park.

Outdoor plant photography is best when there is no wind…and we got lucky on this day. I used a giant skunk cabbage leaf to create a soft, non-distracting background. A wide aperture meant I could make the most of the low light in the rain forest – and also blur out the background. Notice that I used a green background to highlight the feeling of “freshness” in the image. I also made sure that the plane of the fern was parallel to the camera in order to make the most of the narrow depth of field.

Our visit to Second Beach in Olympic National Park started out with cloudless skies – but within an hour, clouds had moved in, filling the sky will beautiful patterns. I captured this shot during the transition phase from clear to overcast skies.

I wanted to capture the reflection in the wet sand on the shallow beach. I chose to include only wet sand in the frame because I wanted to fill the foreground with reflected colors. I choose not to use a GND filter because of the details in the large sea stack. Instead, I relied on bracketed images and manual blending to control the broad dynamic range between the sky and wet sand.

In the Hoh Rain Forest in Olympic National park, more than 100 inches of rain fall every year. Every natural surface is covered with vegetation. There are plants growing on top of other plants, and more plants growing on top of those. Tree branches often get so heavy with moss and leaves and form that they bend under the weight and form arches like these.

I find it very difficult to compose in a forest because things are so close together. They are often too cluttered. In this photograph, I attempted to isolate the arching branches by using an uniform but contrasting background of similarly sized vertical trees. I had to wander around in the forest to find this composition. I took this shot in between rain showers, when the soft, overcast light made the spring leaves glow.