Spring in the Columbia Gorge, 2017

Deluge only begins to describe the weather here in the Northwest from October, 2016 to June, 2017. One of the escape areas from the city hum is the Columbia Gorge, and this winter greater escape from rain was often provided by just driving further east to the rain shadow east of Hood River.

 Lovely Oak and pine trees, rolling grasslands and billowing clouds.

Oregon Oak, Columbia Hills State Park, Washington

There was also quite a bit of water there at times as well.

High water through a narrow gorge, Washington

When we had some nice breaks and when it was possible, heading to Hamilton Island for the open and expansive views was a welcome investigation.

Beautiful sun beams on the Oregon side, Columbia Gorge

Checking Photographer's Ephemeris, the moon would be making an appearance over the ridge. Time for the long lens to capture this ridgeline in front of the moon. This is one of those type of images where it is good to go a day or two before the full moon so that there is light on the hills.

 

Moon rising, Columbia Gorge, Oregon

 Images can be seen here>>

Spring in the Eastern Gorge Workshop

After a very wet March, April provided some needed sunshine and great conditions for photography. All the rain and then sun added to a spectacular display of wildflowers in the Columbia Hills and surrounding areas. Of particular beauty was the Arrowleaf Balsamroot and Lupine blooming concurrently.

Suzanne Michalik, ©2016

Under blue skies with some cirrus clouds, we headed directly to Columbia Hills State Park in Washington state, and drove up the lumpy road to the small parking area above the Dalles Mt. Ranch. The oak trees were just starting to leaf out, adding a nice warm color to the opulent flower display.

Setting up along a flower covered hillside

John Camp, ©2016

Carol Enyart, ©2016

We moved to a lower area in late morning, where there were different groupings of flowers and trees. This area also has some nice views of the flower covered Columbia Hills, the Columbia River and Mt. Hood.

Kira Bartlett, 2016

After a very fine lunch at the Baldwin Saloon in The Dalles, we visited the beautiful Horsethief Butte State Park, which adjoins Columbia Hills. There are many subjects to choose from here, with some added clouds and lovely light on the Columbia near sunset. Even the contrails looked pretty good. We also had a nice ring around the sun through the cirrus clouds.

Suzanne Michalik, ©2016

 It was a great day of photography and a full day of capturing some of the beauty found here. If you would like to see more images from this workshop, click here>>

Working to capture the last light on the Butte. Kira Bartlett, ©2016

Eastern Gorge Workshop finds Blooms and Blustery Weather

This time of year is simply great for photography.  On this Saturday, it was a downpour most of the day in Portland, but we escaped to the drier side of the Cascades for a real mix of warm sun, clouds and showers.

First stop was a beautiful field of Camas along the Columbia River. Clouds and filtered sunlight were fine for bring out the beautiful blue flowers, with green grass and moss surrounded with an oak and fir forest.

Katrina moving in for a portrait.

Discussing settings. Thanks John

We arrived at our main destination for the day, Columbia Hills State Park, with a crowd of climbers at Horsethief Butte, above the Columbia River. The sun was blazing as we explored various options to shoot the Balsamroot and basalt cliffs. Didn't think we would need sunscreen! Although there was a lot of activity, there was still plenty of room for making photographs of the flowers and surrounding area.

Randy making it up the trail adorned with Balsamroot

As the weather changed from sun to shower, we headed to The Dalles and lunch at Petite Provence. There is nothing Petite about their entrees. After lunch we reviewed some of the photographs of the morning shoot.

The weather was looking more unsettled as we drove back to Washington and the lovely hills of the Dalles Mountain Ranch. The lupine were just getting started, but the Balsamroot was covering the hills in every direction. We hiked to some vistas, making it back to the van before another shower arrived.

We explored the eastern section of this area, then headed back for some very fine vistas, beautiful, fast changing light.

Fast changing conditions for us along the Dalles Mt. Road

What to shoot next? Thanks, Randy.

Last stop was back to Horsethief Butte with hopes of some sun on the Butte before it went behind the ridge. We did have some interesting clouds and a nice rainbow. A very pleasant day of beauty and changing conditions.

Added surprise at the end of the day