Summer storms and wheat fields

I wanted to photograph the uncut wheat fields of Washington but it was already a bit late in the year. While most of the fields were already harvested a few remained untouched although they were far in between. It was that time of the year when the storm clouds make their way over the Cascades into the high plateau of Eastern Washington. I did not plan for being out there while it was stormy but it turned out to be a memorable day trip.

Pike Place in Ektar 100

A tale of two photographs

Photograph 1: Mount St. Helens

Moonset was around 9:30 pm and it was conveniently dark by that time in the evening, but the cauldron did not cast long and dramatic shadows in the moonlight. Therefore, I used one of the shots I took at sunset when the play of shadows and a beautiful dull orange light spotlighted the mountain, in the final minutes of the sun above the horizon. After the sunset, it was a test of patience - the wait for over two hours for the moon to set and the sky to get dark when it became possible to find the Northstar. Polar alignment of the star tracker took no more than a few minutes when the sky wasn’t completely dark and then another round of waiting game till it was dark enough for the Milky Way shot. Tracked for approximately 1000 seconds.

We listened to a bull elk occasionally but in regular intervals announced its presence in the valley below us and besides a few occasional park visitors the night was fairly quiet.

Photograph 2: The Feathers

One could only hear the bass and occasionally the drums from the Amphitheater where Dave Matthews Band was playing that night. It was the long weekend therefore, the Coulee was filled with cars, campers and visitors but it could not bother me as I was shooting in a direction the car headlights did not touch the basalt columns nor the foreground.

We got there an hour after sunset therefore I did not get a chance to photograph the foreground in daylight. Tracking was not as accurate as during the previous photo, so took shorter exposures. The foreground also shot around the same time (while the camera mounted on the inactive tracker) was a 4 minutes exposure at 1600 ISO, and a passing car (and I am thankful) painted the sagebrushes accidentally, glad I did not discard the shot.

Dust in the wind

Wind gusts were not as dry as I thought it could have been, for they were carrying both water (from Columbia below) droplets and dust particles several dozen feet above the ground. I wouldn’t have had luck using a tripod, the roof of my car provided adequate support for steadiness required for telephoto shots like these.