Olympic NP Vacation Day 3: To the Bridge and a Rusty Truck

Today we got up around 6:00AM and had breakfast at the lodge. We split the logger breakfast which includes three eggs, two strips of bacon, potato cubes, and a biscuit with jelly. It is a good size for us to split and not be hungry afterwards. After we finished breakfast, we got in the car to drive up South Shore Road to the Pony Bridge and Enchanted Valley trail head. On the way out we stopped to see the Big Sitka Tree, which is large in diameter while also very tall. After viewing the Sitka Tree, we continued along South Shore Road stopping at Merriman Falls and then at Bunch Falls. It should be noted that 10 miles of the drive was on a very curvy single lane gravel road, which the Chrysler 300 handled reasonably well.

The hike to Pony Bridge is considered a moderate 2.5-mile hike (one-way) with an elevation change of about 700ft. We decided we were not going to do the full 13-miles (one-way) out to Enchanted Valley. I will categorize the hike out to Pony Bridge uphill both ways. The first part of the hike is a moderate uphill climb till you reach the plateau point and involves crossing a log bridge. Then you start the steeper downhill portion, which is partially walking in a dry rocky streambed, that eventually turned into a wet rocky streambed for portion of the trail. That section is not good for people with poor balance. We started the hike at 10AM and arrived at the bridge at about noon, with stops for pictures. The bridge is nothing exciting, it crosses a glacial river and has a small little water fall along the side of the river. Since we reached the bridge about noon, we had lunch at the bridge. Lunch was a beef ravioli MRE which also included apple sauce and instant chocolate pudding. Jim and I split the MRE because it really is more calories than either one of us needs in a single sitting. After lunch we started the trek back to the car. Once we got back to the car, we headed back along South Shore Road to the bridge that would take us over to North Shore Road.

North Shore Road is also very curvy single lane gravel road, which resulted in us having to back up at

one point to get to a pull out so we could let another car pass. We took this road down to the Quinault River Ranger Station where we walked the Kestner Homestead Trail which is an easy flat 1.3-mile loop. The trail takes you past a small homestead the park is restoring to turn into a living history section. We saw a rusty tractor and rusty old Chevrolet delivery truck. After the hike we head back to the lodge, with a quick stop at Dino’s Restaurant to pick up dinner to go.

So today we hiked a total of 6.3 miles today and had a full day outside. Tomorrow I think we will head up to Hurricane Ridge which is 3 hours away so there will be some long-distance driving involved.

The Pumpkin Barron

On October 12th, I had the pleasure of working with the marvelous SunnyRae . The general theme for the shoot was pumpkins but with coordination on outfits with SunnyRae theme evolved into official portraits of an 18 th century Pumpkin Baron. For this session, I used: Photography Equipment Props/Miscellaneous Cannon R6 24-105 mm Lens Transmitter/Trigger 2 Phottix Strobe 1 Westcott Strobe 1 rectangular soft box 1 strip box 1 6x6 silver reflector 2 C-stands 1 light stand Boom arm Color checker clamps Sandbags Backdrop stand Rough canvas backdrop Pumpkins Rough canvas drop cloth Flowers Old trunk Books Letters Wooden crate Fake leaves Chair Tri-level plant stand The set up I wanted to keep this set up a bit rustic yet give the feel of staged aristocratic painting of the time. I started with a plain rough canvas backdrop then placed an ol...

Night Queen

On September 28th, I did a session with May. This session’s theme was designed around a Halloween headpiece I made a couple of years ago but never got to shoot. The vibe of the overall shoot was dark queen. For this session, I used: Photography Equipment Props/Miscellaneous Cannon R6 24-105 mm Lens Transmitter/Trigger 2 Phottix Strobe 2 rectangular soft boxes grids 2 C-stands Sandbags Backdrop stand Fuzzy grey backdrop Spyder Color Checker Card A-clamps 2 trilevel plant stands Fake candles Goblets Fake flowers Black fabric Silver fabric Large Styrofoam block Dowel Rods Skulls Fake moss Dry ice The set up I tried to keep this setup simple in nature. I started with the base of a fuzzy grey backdrop to which I added a “throne” made from a large Styrofoam block, some dowel rods, and a piece of black fabric. To that I added two flower pot hol...

Belle Island with Central VA Cosplayers

On October 19 th I drove down to Richmond, VA to attend a Central VA Cosplay Photoshoot meetup on October 20 th at Belle Island. I wanted to go to this event because it was in an interesting location, and I wanted to meet some new cosplayers. For this session I used: Canon R6 2 Speed light Trigger 1 Light stands 24 - 105mm lens Gels Camera Settings: For this shoot, I was transitioning back and forth between being inside an old, dark, abandoned building to bright, sunny woods. Due to the transitions, my settings varied greatly. I mostly shot at ISO 100 except for when I accidently bumped the nob to “Auto” and didn’t notice, so I also took shots at ISO 2500, 3200, 4000, and 6400. The shots at the high ISO actually look fairly decent, and not as grainy as one would expect. My shutter varied between 1/100s to 1/250s with the most common shutter speed being 1/250s. My aperture varied between F5 to F11 with the most common ap...

The Munchkin's Notebook

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