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Tips for shooting in Olympic National Park?


Christal1664882414

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<p>Hi Christal, the Western Peninsula is perhaps optimal in October or late April. Winter is very wet and Summer is not terribly dynamic. October is wet, rather wet, but not outrageously wet quite yet, and the fall color with the bigleaf Maples and vine maples is spectacular, and there are tons of mushrooms. December is the wettest month of the year. April and May are glorious throughout the Northwest, flowers and beautiful weather, still fairly wet in the westside valleys in the Olympics. Lots of trillium, etc. in the forest.</p>

<p>Best time of the day for the Hoh would probably be to start early, not long after sunrise. That way if it's clear you will at least get a little soft light early. If it's foggy and going to burn off you'll get the early fog. Hope for an overcast or partly cloudy day in general. Plenty of light gets through along the trail, which is pretty open. The forest is general is very late successional forest, and as such is quite open in much of the understory and midstory.</p>

<p>If you don't mind roads with precipitous dropoffs you can also drive a couple miles from Hurricane Ridge down to Klahhane Ridge (there are signs), which has awesome views of a couple nearby alpine lakes. I hate scary roads, last time I went I had a friend of mine who grew up in the Austrian Alps do the drive.</p><div>00X3Jn-268191584.jpg.66b1ecbf02e25e84292cbace6ea290b4.jpg</div>

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<p><em>"...If you don't mind roads with precipitous dropoffs you can also drive a couple miles from Hurricane Ridge down to Klahhane Ridge..."</em></p>

<p>The road up to Deer Park is also nice. It has similar, steep drop-offs. It has vistas similar to Hurricane Ridge but is vastly less popular and one can camp at the top.</p>

<p>Tom</p>

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<p>Brett.....it seems that spring and fall are the best times to visit most places. :-) Oh well! We'll still love ONP, I'm sure. The suggestions for the Hoh are great....thanks! And yes, I'm TERRIFIED of precipitous drop-offs......a later-in-life fear that I've developed.....don't know why exactly......never used to bother me. I don't know how my husband puts up with me. I freaked out in Glacier National Park a couple of years ago. So Klahhane Ridge will probably not be on my Top 10 list. :-) Thanks!</p>
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<p>Does anyone know the best time of day to photograph Hurricane Ridge? Or the beaches.....2nd beach and Ruby Beach? Now that I have the logistical part of my trip planned, I can actually start thinking about the photography stuff. :-) I'm going to search on Amazon.com to see if there is a recommended book on the subject of photography in ONP. If anyone knows of a good one, I'm all ears. Thanks!</p>
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<p>I don't know about books with photo tips, but this is a wonderful book about the Peninsula ecology by Ruth Kirk and Jerry Franklin, who are esteemed Northwest ecologists, and it has lots of color photos. Looks like it's as low as $4 used on Amazon</p>

<p>http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0295971878/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&qid=1281616795&sr=8-21&condition=used</p>

<p> </p>

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<p>If I were to order it from Amazon, it probably wouldn't arrive before we leave. What we usually do is get to an area and look for books in local book stores or Park Information centers. But actually, I'm getting enough info from you all (and Trip Advisor), so we're going pretty well armed with information, I'd say. We'll pick up more when we get out there. I always look for a really great park ranger.....some of them are amazingly informative.</p>
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<p> Hurricane Ridge is good at first light and lastlight you are on the ridge so it is lit from the east or west. If the clouds do roll in during the night you will have nice light before the clouds burn off. When shooting the wildflowers overcast skies will make the colors pop. I like to be setup before the skies lighten up to get shots like this one<br>

<img src="http://riwong.smugmug.com/Blog/China-2010/DSC4675/943446768_PgXyc-M.jpg" alt="" /><br>

As for the Ocean beaches sunset is when you get color in the skies but mornings are also nice when the fog is in and you get the nice soft colors. Like I said before shoot in the mornings and late afternoon and sleep midday when the light gets bad.</p>

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<p>Christal, I'll weigh in on this nice stream re" the Olympics and say that a great time to Photograph at Hurricane Ridge is right at sunrise as the rays of sun come in angled from the left (as you view the peaks looking south near the entrance of the parking lot). The angles of the trees and their shadow, the slopes and the rays of light truly paint a geometric picture of contrasts. My pics are still on slides but sometime I'll convert them to digital and show them to illustrate the point. Allow about 40 minutes drive from Port Angeles to get set up by dawn and the first rays of light lifting in from the left. I took my photos in early November, the absolutely last day before the clouds moved in for the season but was rewarded with golden brown foothills and dark green evergreens against the pink peaks in the background. Skip Wilson</p>
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<p>Crystal,<br>

Here is some information for you.<br>

From <strong>Rod Barbee</strong>: http://www.barbeephoto.com/articles/ONP/olympic_guide.htm<br>

http://www.barbeephoto.com/<br>

The Photographer's Guide to Puget Sound & Northwest Washington<br /> by Rod Barbee<br>

From <strong>Daniel Ewert</strong><br>

http://www.ewertnaturephotography.com/National-Park-Photography/Olympic-National-Park/5325954_U6hdK#325366610_9Z8sL</p>

<p>Chris<br>

<br /></p>

 

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  • 3 months later...

<p>Rick, Skip and Christopher,<br>

I guess I didn't see your posts because I quit checking as we were preparing to leave on our trip. Believe it or not, I'm already planning our next trip to this area, so I got back on here to review. And I was also curious to see how many of the suggestions we were able to realize......quite a few. All of your posts are extremely helpful. Thanks so much! This is an area we'll no doubt return to quite often because we have family out there, so I can't get enough of this great advice! </p>

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