Where did the snow go?

I went into the lower levels of the Mount Hood National Forest, south of Estacada, Oregon, last Wednesday, 1-19-2011, to revisit one of my favorite river areas in hopes of getting some river/forest/snow pictures.  The elevation there is roughly 900 feet. 



40,562.02485 forest moss cliff

 Woops!  The first two ideas were fine (river/forest), but the snow was totally gone.  However, I did have a chance to photograph the forest displaying unusually brilliant greens and browns for this time of year.  It was like walking under a rainforest's deep canopy.  Heavy rains (which knocked out the snow) a couple days ago, and fog earlier in the day had made everything brilliant green -- the conifer trees, moss (which was everywhere), and even ferns made it look like late spring. 
The river was running very high, just at the top of its banks.  Had I been there three or four days earlier I would have seen the river about two feet over the banks and looking even more mean than it was.  The cause of all the water and lack of snow was not just local.  The Mount Hood area (4-12,000 foot) about 35 miles away has been getting 9-10 inches of rain for a couple days, which fell on their deep snow and compounded the water runoff.  Naturally, roared downhill it even took out some houses and roads in different areas.  My area wasn't hit as hard, but it definitely flooded. 

 40,562.02583 Storm flood hits Roaring River

On my day out, the sun was spotty and didn't provide all I wanted for pictures, but it all worked out.  You can see a couple of my photos here, and more will soon be on my website. 

Feel free to look at my photos at Bob Paulson's Photography In Natural Settings, as well as those held by my agent -- see Bob Paulson at ALAMY IMAGES.

Thanks for visiting. 

2010 rolls to 2011

After many 2010 travels and hundreds of pictures, 2011 has arrived and more photo trips are in the works.

My most recent exploration put my wife and me in Jasper, Alberta, Canada, for many days of stalking wildlife (elk, bighorn sheep, coyotes, wolves -- with photos of each) and snowy mountain landscapes. Although the fruits of our travels aren't on my website yet, soon some of these photos will be -- http://www.PhotographyInNaturalSettings.com/. I invite you to take a look.

As you'll notice from the this highway photo, not all snow activities are fun. We saw -- but fortunately were not part of -- some very serious accidents while on the road to and from Jasper.

Plans for 2011 include spots close by here in Oregon and Washington, and a few new more distant settings. I'm eager to get back to shooting again, but first I still have many weeks of work to do to finalize my photos from last year.

I look forward to keeping in touch.

May 2011 bring you great joy and success.