My Olympic Peninsula trip was a huge success, and I just made my way to my next workshop, also in and around Washington State—the Palouse. I am here with friends and new faces; we are all in for a treat as the Palouse never disappoints.

Before getting here I heard about Canadian wildfire smoke filling the sky in the Palouse region. I also was told by park officials that the DOT was closing Steptoe Butte for repairs during my visit. Another thing I heard was that the temperatures were in the 90’s last week…ugh. I feel sorry for those people. I am so glad I didn’t decide to cancel this workshop. Conditions that we are now experiencing are…

· Steptoe is open with no signs of DOT work.

· There is no sign or smell of smoke anywhere.

· And the temperatures range from 50-70.

I would consider all of these combined as hitting the jackpot! I think it is very similar to going out for a sunrise shoot. You just never know what will happen. But sometimes you may get a spectacular sky or not, but either way the morning I still beautiful to enjoy.

Back to the Olympic Peninsula workshop. We had very nice weather, but no misty morning fog or sunrays through the trees. However, we did not experience any heavy downpours or super-hot days. It was lovely hiking and photographing, forest bathing and beach walking. My two local guides were on point. They started us off with a well thought out Power Point program. They each shared some of their amazing images. During our time in the rainforest Roy shared his knowledge of the flora and fauna. Jim’s endless energy and compositional help was invaluable.

Some of my favorite shots from my Olympic Peninsula trip are below. I still have loads to go through. Some more traditional photos of cascades and beach scenes still to come. I will be conducting a Zoom Photoshop/Lightroom demo along with an image review/sharing for the group after the workshop since we spent most of our time in the field.

What was challenging about the above image was that the water was moving fast in one direction and the leaves were blowing in all different directions. I had to chose a shutter speed that would make the most out of both elements. I settled on a 6 second exposure handheld to give it a bit more movement.