Being in the mood to hang out with the trees and see some beautiful things, Willie, Alan, Sammi and I woke up early one Saturday morning and drove up to Muir Woods. The intent was to shoot the Redwood trees shrouded in fog and then stop in at the Muir Woods Trading Co Cafe for one of their famous Grilled Cheese sandwiches. Everything started off great and then fell completely apart.
As we drove to Muir Woods the fog level looked perfect. There was a ton of fog on the coast and it looked low enough to seep into Muir Woods. After navigating the windy roads and making sure Willies breakfast stayed in his stomach we arrived at Muir Woods early enough to have no problem finding parking. In fact, it was still so early that the rangers hadnt arrived to change the Entrance Fee: FREE sign to Entrance Fee: 7 Lucky us.
We decided to hike up so we could get back to the higher elevation fog. We hiked up. No fog. We kept hiking. Still no fog. On we went. FOG Oh wait, no Redwood trees. Walk some more. Hey look, Redwood grove Oh right, no fog. We took some photos of trees and moved on. Sammis not a photographer and she brought a book with her and read while we shot. At one point as we started to leave a patch of trees she said did you guys look behind you Of course we hadnt. Thats when we saw all the trees had lined up beautifully.
With no fog we decided to go a bit abstract and try some camera painting. Using a long shutter and keeping our tripod bullheads loose, we panned the camera up as the shutter stayed open for 1-2 seconds. Thus the effect you see here
Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8 AF-D:
185mm, f/10, 1.6 seconds, ISO 400
