Picture of the Month – June 2011

My favorite wild flower patch is on Route 1, which runs across the ridge of the South Fork Mountains, from Titlow Hill on Hwy. 299 to Mad River on Hwy. 36.

I first discovered this patch in 2004, and have made a point of returning each spring to see it in bloom. In 2005 I took one of my favorite models, Maria, to the patch.

Because this patch of wild flowers is at its prime for only a couple of weeks, I usually start heading up there the first weekend in June to check their progress. Usually by this time the road has been cleared of any remaining snow. Depending on the winter we had, the patch is usually at its best the 2nd or 3rd week in June.

This year I went up at the beginning of June on my Triumph Sprint ST. I started from the north side and only got about 10 miles up the road when I started having to pick my way through the tracks in the snow. When I got to this blockage, I decided to turn around, since the Triumph isn’t the kind of bike I wanted to be on at the moment.

I tried again a couple of weeks later, this time taking my KLR650 and tried it from the south side. Same story. Still too much snow. I figured by the time the road would be opened this year the flowers were going to be long gone. I really wasn’t expecting to be featuring snow in June’s Picture of the Month, but that’s what Mother Nature dealt.

Back in February of 2007, Humboldt County experienced a rare snowstorm that in some areas made it down to sea level. That day I had a meeting up in Crescent City and while driving up 101 through Arcata I noticed patches of snow right down to the beach.

I finished up my meeting and made it back to Ferndale around 6, and by then the sky had cleared. I thought it would be a great opportunity to take some shots at night up on Bear River Ridge.

Since at the time only digital camera I had was my Kodak SLR which produces very noisy images from long exposures, I decided to shoot a roll of 120 film I still had. It happened to be 400 asa Portra, a film usually used for portraits as it doesn’t produce the saturated colors that something like Velvia would. Still it’s what I had on hand so I loaded it into the Pentax 645.

Lori and I then began the drive on up to Bear River Ridge. I was planning on taking several pictures in different locations, and so I didn’t immediately head to my favorite spot up there, Kinman Pond. I probably should have.

I calculated (ok, guessed) that I would need a 15 minute exposure. With the clear sky I was hoping to get some star trails in the sky. I set up for the first shot, opened up the shutter, and then climbed back in the truck to get warm. About 8 minutes into the exposure, I was dismayed to see clouds rolling in. Then about 13 minutes into the exposure it started snowing again. Not wanting to be one of these people who get stuck in the snow out in the boonies, we decided it was best to cut it short and head back down.

For four years that roll of 120 has sat in my Pentax 645. Every once in awhile I would think about getting it out to finish the roll of film, only to find the batteries had died. So I would put it on my list to get new batteries and a few weeks later I would actually remember to put them in. Then I would wait for another opportunity, at which point I would pull it out, only to find the batteries had gone dead again.

Finally, last weekend, I got new batteries and immediately took it down to the Avenue of the Giants and finished the roll. Then yesterday, I drove up to Eureka to drop the film off, and today drove back up again to pick up the developed roll. No wonder I switched to digital early on. Who wants to spend 2 hours driving just to see your pictures?

I still need to scan the entire roll of 15 pictures, but here is the first image from the roll, taken on that snowy night on February 27, 2007.

Picture of the Month – February 2011

Ever since I moved to Ferndale, I’ve wanted to have the chance to photograph the Victorian Village covered in snow. This month was the closest I’ve come, for the first time we actually had snow stick at our house, which sits at about 40 ft. above sea level.

I knew there’d be lots of snow up in the hills so Lori, her sister, and myself got up early and drove up the Wildcat and across Bear River Ridge. We watched the sun rise on the drive up and the dawn broke with a clear blue sky. Quite a contrast to the trip up there the day before when it was snowing sideways so hard that I couldn’t even take pictures.

The only other people stirring that early was a few ranchers distributing hay to their cattle who no longer had a plentiful supply of grass to feed on. We came across this group of cattle and I thought it was funny how the cow on the left just didn’t fit in with the rest of the crowd.

Picture of the Month – January 2009

We had so much fun during our Christmas trip to Yosemite that we quickly decided to make a return trip. We were a bit more ambitious this time, planning a 7 mile roundtrip to Dewey Point and back. As it turned out it was too ambitious and we had to turn back before reaching the scenic overlook at Dewey Point.

At the point where Lori gave up, I hiked around in the powder for awhile and took this photo. The trail that we had been on had been well travelled and was thoroughly packed, making the showshoes more of a handicap than a benefit as we found out on the hike back. But trecking off the trail was much easier with the snowshoes.

While we still had fun, I realized that winter hiking is much more beautiful just after a snowstorm clears. I also realized how hard it is to get photos in Yosemite these days without an airplane flying into the sky and leaving a contrail across the photo. It made me grateful that I don’t have to contend with that problem back at home in Humboldt County.

Picture of the Month – December 2008

This year we visited Lori’s sister’s family in Tuolumne for Christmas. With Yosemite an easy drive from there we spent the day after Christmas playing in the snow with my brother and his daughter. We finally got a chance to use our snowshoes and took a short loop through the meadow below Yosemite Falls. The rest of the year this area is closed to hiking, but in the winter when it’s covered by a couple of feet of snow, it’s fair game.

Picture of the Month – February 2007

The night before I took this picture I had traveled up to Kinman Pond in the hills above Ferndale, hoping to take some night photos in the snow. For this I dusted off my Pentax 645 and loaded some film, something I haven’t done in quite awile. I set up the first shot for a 15 minute exposure, hoping to catch some star trails since the clouds had cleared. About halfway through the exposure the clouds started rolling back in and att 13 minutes into the exposure the snow started coming down again. So we packed up and started our drive back down to Ferndale.

I thought a night of fresh snow would only improve the scene so the next morning we made our way back up to catch the sunrise. We were the first ones to drive down the road and it was really beautiful seeing the trees, barns and fences covered with a fresh 6 inches of new snow. It didn’t look like we’d get a sunrise, but when we got to Kinman Pond, the sun broke out between the fog and clouds for seconds at a time. I worked furiously during these lucky breaks and came away with about a dozen shots that I was really happy with. It started snowing again so we once again started back down, and I stopped at a little barn just to grab one throwaway shot of it, not really expecting much because of the snow. But once again my luck held out and within a few minutes the clouds parted and the sun came back out again, just long enough to get the shots I wanted.

Update 2/14/2011 – I still have the film in the camera from the attempt at night. One of these days I’ll finish the roll and see how it turned out.