My July Olympic National Park photo tour, co-led with John Barclay, was the longest Olympic workshops I’ve ever done. I thought we might run out of locations, but as we ended, I realized we probably could have spent at least another day or two in the area.

The first half, based out of Port Angeles, was plagued by bald blue skies, which didn’t matter all that much when we visited the lavender farms in Sequim as backlit lavender simply glows. Plus, we usually had a marine layer of clouds in the mornings that lasted until about 10 a.m. or so. But the blank blue skies wreaked havoc with mountain landscape photography soon after sunrise.

While in Port Angeles we visited Hurricane Ridge a couple of times, lavender farms, Salt Creek, Sol Duc Falls and Lake Crescent.

By the time we got to the west side of the peninsula, clouds and some rain started moving in.

In the Forks area we were able to photograph Rialto, Second, and Ruby Beaches and made a couple of visits to the Hoh rainforest.

One of our favorite stops in the Hoh area was just outside the park at a Nature Conservancy site named “The Black Forest.” It’s an amazing grove of second growth Sitka Spruce full of moss, vertical lines, leading diagonals and more.

The Hall of Mosses trail in the Hoh is always a great place, once you get past the overwhelm. Photographing in a rain forest is not easy and it takes some time to make compositional sense out of what you’re seeing. And by the time you start getting the hang of it, the place usually starts filling with tourists or sunlight.

The beaches seemed to attract the most clouds, blocking the sun and making epic sunsets impossible.

On Rialto Beach we concentrated on colorful rocks, drift logs, and the shoreline forest trees. The sea stacks at the north end of the beach would drift in and out of visibility as the clouds and fog wound in and out.

The beach rocks were a big hit. What’s interesting is that the rocks on Rialto are more colorful and smoother that the rocks on Ruby Beach. The trick with photographing colorful rocks is to bring plenty of water with you. Not to drink (but that too), but to pour on the rocks. Water on the rocks brings out and saturates the colors. Anyway, just about everybody got into creating rock art and I saw many clever creations.

Our sunset shoot on Ruby Beach was a study in long exposures and moody compositions. John found a great spot where the group could practice using neutral density filters to capture the patterns of receding surf using long exposures.

Others concentrated on using long exposures to simplify a scene while at the same time adding the interest of water flowing.

The access to Second Beach is on tribal land and until just recently, was inaccessible due to Covid-19 restrictions. But we were able to make the hike and we finally managed to get an interesting sunset. As sunset neared, the colors on the horizon intensified. By the end of the shoot we were using exposures as long as 30 seconds to capture that color and to create smoother water and interesting curves.

We finished up our last morning once again playing with the rocks and trees on Rialto Beach. John's wife Cathy, with the help of a 13-year old participant, created one of the most amazing rock mosaics I've ever seen.

All in all, a great tour with a great group and a great co-leader in John Barclay