Middle Fork - Snoqualmie

For my photo session this week, I traveled to the middle fork of the Snoqualmie River wilderness area. Despite having lived in the area for nearly a year now, I had not yet explored this area. To my delight and suprise the area was teeming with photographic opportunities. I will definitely be making return trips as the weather improves and the days get longer and warmer.

One of my biggest pet peeves when working on my photographing in nature is the presence of too many people. They often gety in the way and encroach on my set up as I’m snapping away. Last weekend, I attempted to photograph the Twin Falls area. However, it was a free weekend and not raining. Which means in the Pacific Northwest perfect hiking weather. I gave up about 45 minutes into the whole adventure. Hopefully, I'll find some gems that I managed to capture and will post them along with this week’s photos.

This week’s adventure did not have that problem. After a beautiful drive, I stopped where the paved road ends. Which is the Garfield ledges parking lot. Having not been to the area previously, I wasn’t sure if it continued as a dirt road or just a trail. Turns out it’s an unpaved un maintained road. So next time I go I can drive a bit further and get some use of out of the four wheel drive on my new truck. After I parked, I scouted the area and decided to shoot some of the river. The river is lined with fir and alder trees. The firs added a nice green hue to the scene, but the leafless alders proved to be distracting in images. The greens and the snow made for some nice contrasts.

As I walked along the river, I came across several rapids and cascades that made for nice long exposure shots. I spent some time shooting these, trying varying compositions and focal lengths. This was met with some success and some rather busy shots. Regardless, I had fun.

I then moved locations to the Middle Fork Trailhead. This was my original intended destination. I had done some scouting online and saw that there was a cool bridge and a nice view of Garfield mountain. I spent about an hour or so in the area photographing the bridge and mountain. Unfortunately lighting was begining to become a problem as the sun sets around 4:15 this time of year. I got a nice shot of the bridge; featured here in the blog. And a shot of the mountain with a nice sky. Unfortunately the mountain part of the image is grainy and difficult to process. I’m going to work on it, but I don’t know if it will make the cut.

Anyway, thanks for reading this and supporting me on my 2023 photo journey. Take a look at the 2023 photo journey for shots from this week and stay tuned on Instagram and Facebook for more as the year goes on.