Every once in a while I just have to get out of the city, get out in nature and just chill for a few days, take a few pictures, see some beautiful scenery and get close to Mother Nature.
I did just that these past few days. I booked a cabin at the Kalalock Resort on the Washington State Coast line on Highway 101. Strategically located for easy access to the Hoh National Rainforest, numbers of rivers, many different beaches,
such as Rialto and Ruby Beach, both beautiful and strewn with tree trunks from the up river forests that have fallen and been washed to the coast. Small towns for a bite to eat and a little local history are available too.
It’s an area that even in the dead of winter is lush with green growth from 200+ year old cedars to moss dripping from tree branches. Some of these places are so thick with vegetation that trying to take a picture and capture the essence is difficult at best and I have yet to get a photo from the Hoh Rainforest that I like. But I’ll keep trying.
For this trip I took my newly acquired Nikon 20mm f2.8 lens to shoot on the Sony A7II. It’s the widest angled lens I’ve ever shot with and it had it’s challenges.
I did my best to work through them a get a few shots I liked and more importantly got some of the learning curve of shooting with something that wide out of the way. One thing that became very apparent was my tinted glasses just wont do. The bright sun darkens my glasses and then trying to see anything, let alone a focus point, on the LCD and even in the EVF became very difficult. I ditched the glasses right away and went to a pair of reading glasses that don’t tint in the sunlight.
After looking back through the images I choose to show these images in black and white. This time of year on the Washington coast the weather is what many might like to call foul. It’s wet, gray, windy and a bit chilly.
All the deciduous trees are dormant so except for the evergreens there’s just not a lot of color. Life looks mostly gray. Of course the Hoh Rainforest and the Hall Of Mossess are green all the time. The next image is the same as the one above but in color.
To sum it up; I love walking in the woods, seeing the ocean and having quiet time. One of the truly wonderful advantages of living in the Pacific Northwest is being able to go to the beach, then to a Rainforest, then to the top of a mountain and do it all in the same day.
Tom's Photo Journal 