352 - Mt. Storm King
*Note: This adventure also features an in-field vlog.
Wow. Felt really fucking good to shoot this place. And I’m not 100% sure why.
Maybe it’s because it’s the first “proper” adventure I’ve had in a long time- meaning 5+ mile hike, 2000 feet of vertical gain, and a sketchy rope system with exposure.
Let’s start from the beginning. Well, kind of. We started off the day at Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park, just to check it out. Everyone raves about it so I knew I HAD to see it, but I didn’t care to do a full adventure there. Being from Colorado, I was sick of shooting mountains and anxious to shoot some waterfalls and beaches in Washington.
But... we had nothing to do all day until sunset, so we made the drive up. It was mid-day lighting obviously, so I wasn’t even expecting to get any shots. But I ended up with this banger:
I’m a sucker for those layered mountain shots. Fuck I have so many of them.
We roll out of there, and start making our way to the main event of the day- Mt. Storm King. Haley picked this place out, and I honestly wasn’t psyched about it because of the mountain vibe. But I looked at a few pics of it online, and got semi-excited.
Turns out this was a BRUTAL fucking hike, and I was all about it. It’s a constant uphill battle, and I worked up a proper sweat. We had about 2.5 hours to get to the top until sunrise, so I was able to get a couple fun shots on the way up. You’ll recognize this composition from Diablo Lake. Except this shot’s way better because the tree’s red instead of dead. Hey, that rhymed.
One more fun shot on the way up, I found this intricate root system that almost looked like bones. I cropped a solid composition out of it, pumped up those highlights and greens with luminosity masks, and came out with this abstract hunk of cheese:
ALRIGHT! So we get to the rope section I was talking about earlier, and it’s a helluva lot of fun. You basically put on these gloves laying around and go up about 8 different ropes, all along extremely slippery dirt with cliffs. It’s a solid adrenaline rush, and makes the top so rewarding. Check out the vlog if you wanna see that footage in detail.
OK now we’re at the top. I got one Instagram shot on the jutting rock (AKA “the shot” of the place), and one landscape shot.
Now, I had to silhouette mainly because the light was ridiculously blown out. Shooting straight into the sun with the smoke in the air does that. Here’s the Instagram shot first:
I decided to crop it so that the sky was fairly tall in the shot because I wanted to exaggerate the fact that there was no sky from all the smoke. In addition, I cropped RIGHT in the middle to make it a bit different from the “typical” Rule of Thirds shot. Some douche commented to stop doing Rule of Thirds shots and now I’m in my head about it. I’m trying to actively avoid them. Not because some stranger told me to, but because I want to challenge myself. Kind of. I like validation. Fuck me.
NEXT UP… I get my favorite shot of the day. A silhoutted landscape shot of the lake in combination with the trees and moody smoky sky. Notice how I cropped RIGHT on the edge of the horizon for added effect. God I love those colors. Check this baby out:
BOOM. Fucking love it. I had a great time on this shoot, and it really put me in the mood to do more BIG hikes. I honestly haven’t done a solid one in awhile, and I’m not sure why.
UNTIL NEXT TIME...
I’m on a mission to explore as much as humanely possible.
Want to see my progress? Check out the Adventure Map.
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