I live on the Olympic Peninsula. I love it here. Some of my best memories come from backpacking, exploring and photographing in Olympic National Park. This May I am leading a workshop in one of the areas I know best. I have actually lost track of the number of times I have led trips to the Olympic Peninsula.

Mid-May is traditionally the best time of the year for greens in the rainforest as well as good sunsets on the coast. For this reason, we will spend our time based out of Forks and visiting the rainforests, coastal beaches, Lake Crescent and the Sol Duc area. It can also be a time of rain, so be prepared!

The forests in May exhibit new growth on the trees and lush ferns. Forest photography is challenging but also rewarding. I will take you to places where we can practice and hone forest photography skills. It always takes a little bit of time to ‘feel it’ in the forest; there is a lot going on and it can be chaotic, and often overwhelming. We will take the necessary time so that you can start ‘seeing’ in the forest.

May is also prime time for waterfalls and streams. Sol Duc Falls is the gem and we will definitely go there at least once, but there are several others to visit too.

We will visit places like Rialto, Ruby and Second Beach, the Hoh rain forest, Sol Duc Falls and the surrounding forest, Quinault and Lake Crescent. Our itinerary will be somewhat weather dependent. With any luck, we will get a bit of rain and the rainforest will look like, well… a rainforest. Sunsets on the coast can be enhanced by clouds and unsettled weather, so we will be hoping for a bit of both.

In the field, I will place the emphasis on using proper technique and craftsmanship behind the camera. We will work on getting better close-ups and spending time improving your landscape photography, including choosing foregrounds, using hyperfocal focusing and digital focus stacking, and knowing when to use graduated neutral density filters or digital techniques to capture the entire range of light in a scene.

Part of this workshop will be time devoted to critiques as well as photographic and digital technique discussions in the classroom.

Rod Barbee Photography is an Authorized Permittee of the National Park Service.