Roots In The Air.

I have always wanted to photograph the stands of alders along the river valleys in Washington, yet never have. It is always hard to know where to begin when approaching a grove of alders to photograph. I found this grove while driving out... on the Mountain Loop Highway yesterday (Sunday Oct. 17). This was just past the Big Four Ice Caves. What caught my eye about this scene was the cluster of green moss covered rocks by the base of the foreground trees and the receding grove disappearing into the darkness of the evergreen canopy in the background.

Morning was rapidly approaching and the sky was already lit with the rising sun when I took this photo and moved on along the road. I was afraid that I'd lose my chances to shoot on this morning as I had lazily gotten out of bed around 6:30 AM rather than my more typical 3:30 AM for a drive to the Cascades. The weather was quite cool, and as I drove out the Mountain Loop later in the morning and drove up the North Fork of the Sauk River, I encountered several areas along the road still covered in frost.

This image is a high-dynamic range composite of 5 photos taken on a Canon 5D Mark II at ISO200, with a Canon EF24-70 f/2.8L lens at 32mm with exposures ranging from 1 second (to capture details in the white bark of the trees) to 15 seconds (to capture shadow detail).