Scenery at Ridgefield

Fog

Fog shrouds trees at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge

Morning

I walked alone
I stood alone
ghosts of trees
memories
within my grasp but fading

Trees in fog at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge

Trees Standing at the Edge of Memory

How's that for a pretentious title?

Just because you arrive at Ridgefield with the dawn, doesn't mean the sun arrives with you. It can get pretty foggy there in the sloughs and fields next to the Columbia River. This can really limit your options as a photographer, but creates some new opportunities as well.

I liked the way these trees appeared to be floating on an island of clouds, and all pretentiousness aside, it did remind me more of the memory of trees than of the trees themselves. I should take a picture of these trees sometime in the daylight, it's a remarkably uninteresting scene without the mystery of the fog.

A red-tailed hawk sits in a clump of trees on a foggy morning at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge

Seven Brides

I've nicknamed some of the trees I've named at Ridgefield. There was the Cactus Tree, an old stump that has since fallen over into the marsh. There are the Twin Brothers pictured above and, as seen here, the Seven Brides. And just like with the Twins, it doesn't matter if the actual number of trees matches the nickname, it's more about the impression I get when I see them. These trees aren't actually grouped together, it only seems like it when you reach this part of the auto tour.

I can't resist including a little bit of wildlife in my scenic pictures whenever I get the chance, this time the honors belongs to a red-tailed hawk perched on a foggy winter morning.

I love color in my pictures, including pictures of fog, but this one even I prefer in black and white.

Shrouded

Believe it or not, I don't have a nickname for these trees beside Sora Marsh. I rarely photograph anything in this pond even though something is usually swimming in it. The road along the pond is too narrow to have a good spot to pull off and wait, and while there is a roomier spot where I took this picture, it's usually not a great place for pictures. You do get lucky sometimes, I photographed a mink swimming across the pond once.

As with the previous picture, there is a bit of wildlife in this shot, a northern shoveler swimming alone in the distance.

Fog & Sunrise

Rising sun obscured by fog at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge

A Turn Towards Darkness

One foggy winter morning on the auto tour, I stopped the car suddenly when I saw the trees on the hill silhouetted against the sun, otherwise completely obscured in the fog. However, when editing the picture, I couldn't get the fog to look right. I came back to this image over the next year but still couldn't edit it to my satisfaction.

Eventually I got the message — if I couldn't get the picture to look the way it did to me that morning, why not turn around and go completely in the other direction? In my raw converter, I shifted the levels down towards black, turning a foggy morning into night and the rising sun into an orange moon. Thanks to the surrounding fog, nothing is visible except for the trees against the sun.

It took me a year to get the message, but it's turned into one of my favorite pictures from 2007.

Sunrise framed by fog at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge

Breakout

Another foggy morning at the refuge, a gap in the fog momentarily opened where the sun was about to rise, so the orange colors of the sunrise were surrounded by the gray fog. As in the previous picture, I pulled the levels down towards black instead of gray. It didn't look like this in person, but it emphasizes what made me take the picture: the sunrise struggling to escape from the prison of the fog.

The rising sun starts to break through a heavy fog at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge

Fingers of the Rising Sun

After driving through the auto tour early one winter morning, the refuge shrouded in heavy fog, I stopped at the start to use the restroom. When I returned to the car, the fingers of the rising sun started punching through the fog. I scrambled to change lenses and take a quick handheld picture as within seconds the effect was gone. I darkened it when processing, I liked how it looked more like the aurora borealis than a sunrise.

Ice & Sunrise

Rarities at Horse Lake

I spent most of my time at Horse Lake this winter watching wigeon, pintails, ring-necks, and a juvenile heron that often worked the water's edge. But I couldn't resist a scenic picture when I saw the shallow lake had frozen and was reflecting the colors of the sunrise. It wasn't until a long while later while playing around with the image on my iPhone that I wished I had also switched to my telephoto lens to isolate the distant shore. It's so easy and fun to play around with composition on the iPhone and iPad, I wish I had them when I was first getting started in photography many years ago, but better late than never. The second picture is just a crop of the first that shows the picture I wish I had also taken.

A frozen Horse Lake reflects the pink light near sunrise at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge

Sunrise at a frozen Long Lake at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge

Long Gone

The sun is about to rise over a frozen Long Lake. The many dead snags near the road are a favorite of mine to photograph but many of them have been falling over with time.

Water

Ripples at Rest

The end of one year and the start of the next offered a dazzling display of wildlife subjects, but the third day of the new year was quiet and the animals distant. At first disappointed, I soon matched my mood to the day and enjoyed the subtle moments. As I watched coots diving under Rest Lake to feed below, I was struck by the pattern of light dancing across the ripples and turned my lens from birds to water.

I certainly didn't have pictures like this in mind when I bought the big lens, but it was the right tool to capture this unexpected beauty.

Mount St. Helens

Gone

I took this picture of a snowy Mt. St. Helens during the winter near the road that leads to the entrance of the refuge. You can't see this view anymore as there is a subdivision of homes there now. I took this picture when they were digging the foundation of the first home, as I knew it was my last chance.

Winter

Ice-covered pond at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge

Crowded Channel

The refuge starts to thaw after a nasty ice storm hits the Portland area. Only a narrow channel in the water had opened up in the lake, forcing the wildlife to congregrate into a small space. In this picture, there's a family of river otters, a great egret, a great blue heron, and a pied-billed grebe. A few minutes earlier a bald eagle was circling overhead, and a little while later some gadwall and mallards flew in.