Showing posts with label Squaxin Park. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Squaxin Park. Show all posts

Friday, April 12, 2024

Into the Woods Again: Squaxin Park in Monochrome (Oly 06)

Squaxin Park (formerly Priest Point Park) is a botanical wonder just north of downtown Olympia off East Bay Drive NE. I have photographed here in color with my little digital Fuji X-E1 camera. How about monochrome? (Warning, "pretty" pictures below; no urban decay.)


Ellis Cove and view west to East Bay (Fuji Acros film, Pentax Spotmatic F camera, 28mm ƒ/3.5 SMC Takumar lens)
Ellis Cove (Fuji Acros film, 28mm SMC Takumar lens)

The temperature plummeted on January 11 (2024) and some snow fell. That was too good to resist. I walked to Squaxin Park but was surprised that not much snow had made it through the dense canopy down to the ground.


Samarkand Rose Garden (Kodak Panatomic-X film, Hasselblad 501CM camera, 80mm ƒ/2.8 Planar lens, yellow-green filter)
Near Ellis Cove (Panatomic-X film, 100mm ƒ3.5 Planar lens)
Near Ellis Cove (Panatomic-X film, 100mm ƒ/3.5 Planar lens, yellow-green filter)

On East Bay Drive, a dense multi-trunk tree often catches my eye.


East Bay Drive NE (Kodak Tri-X 400 film, Hasselblad 501CM, 100 mm ƒ/3.5 Planar lens, 1/125 ƒ/4)

Another snow fell on February 14, and I returned to Squaxin Park with the Hasselblad. Maybe I will show those frames in mid-summer..... 

Thank you all for exploring Squaxin Park with me.


Monday, January 15, 2024

Into the Woods: Squaxin Park, Olympia, Washington (Oly 02)

Squaxin Park, formerly known as Priest Point Park, is a 314 acre oasis of big trees, mosses, and ferns just north of downtown Olympia on the east shore of Budd Inlet. The Steh-Chass (People of the Water)  settled this land for centuries, living in villages along the shores of Budd Inlet. In 1848, Catholic missionaries, the Oblate Fathers, came to the area with sponsorship or funding by the Hudson’s Bay Company. The Oblate Fathers displaced the Steh-Chass, cleared the land, and established the St. Joseph d’Olympia Mission and school. The Mission only lasted until 1860, after which the land lay idle for 45 years. In 1905, a group of land investors deeded some of the land to the City of Olympia to form a park. 

Priest Point Park, early 1910s (from City of Olympia)

The original park name was Priest Point, but the priests were only there for 12 years. Converting heathens must have proven a bit too difficult or not sufficiently lucrative.

The importance of this timeline is that the forest in the park has been largely undisturbed for about 150 years. This is not old growth forest but is as close as you will encounter near an urban area. The dense mosses, ferns, and towering tree trunks hint at what old growth forest must have looked like. Pockets of old growth or at least very old trees exist in the Olympic Peninsula, but Squaxin Park is closer and easier to reach (and it is only a 10 minute walk north of where I now live). 

Ellis Cove at low tide
Woods above Mission Creek
Dusk in Squaxin (1+ sec. exposure)
Trail to Ellis Cove
Rest area at Ellis Cove

I took these pictures with my little Fuji X-E1 digital camera and the compact 27mm ƒ/2.8 Fuji lens. I have not exercised this kit much in the last few years but need to refamiliarize myself with its functions. It is convenient and easy to use. For most of the pictures above, I used the Astia simulation and set the frame to 1:1 to resemble the square frame of a Rolleiflex. This crops off the edges, so you end up with fewer pixels in your files. One of the µ4/3 Panasonic cameras, the GH2, had a multi-aspect ratio sensor, so setting various frame sizes used different parts of the oversized sensor. But I think all current digital cameras simply chop off part of the frame. 

Digital is certainly convenient. The pictures are usually "sharp" (whatever that means), the exposure is usually decent, and the camera adjusts the white balance for many light conditions. You take pictures, go home, download the files, and you are ready to use them. I formerly would open the raw files and adjust them with software, but honestly, the jpeg files that the camera computes look fine for 8-bit web display. I never got into the use of Lightroom or developing a secret formula to manipulate the raw files.

Despite having used 4/3, µ4/3, APS, and compact digital cameras, I think the best digital files in my archives are from a 2005-vintage 10 mpixel Sony DSC R1 camera. Despite being "early" technology, the output was superb.