Barnes Creek Alders, Olympic National Park, WA © Jay Goodrich

Last week I captured a ton of photos because Heather took the kids to Colorado to visit the grandparents. Having this new found “freedom”, I took the opportunity to spend one of the days exploring Olympic National Park. As I was driving out to the beach for the anticipated sunset, this scene along Barnes Creek caught my eye on the drive-by. I quickly turned around and started to work some compositions for an hour or so.

It’s amazing how your eye can catch a glimpse of something at 50mph. What I saw, which became the subject of all of the images, were these long and lacy branches of alder that were extending over the the creek from both sides. The alder bark is light enough that the trees really stand out over their green forest counterparts. I used a Singh-Ray LB Warming Polarizer to cut the reflections on the water and the leaves. This composition is one of my favorites for its ability to highlight my subject and give the viewer and idea of the setting which was before me. Taken with a Canon 1D Mark III, 16-35mm f2.8 II lens, Gitzo tripod, Kirk BH-1 ballhead.

This month also marks the beginning of us offering the prints for sale directly from our licensing site. Now we have a Photo of the Month gallery where this and all future images featured here on the blog can be purchased at a discounted rate. Eventually, we will add all of the previous photos of the month here too.