Into the Woods

Muir Woods National Monument, CA
Canon EOS Rebel T5i, EF 17-40mm f/4L USM, f/5.6, 3s, ISO: 100

Muir Woods is one of those places where everyone seems to be taking photos.  I've found that it's a tough to get satisfactory photos there.  That's one of the reasons I only go when it's raining.  Besides thinning out the crowds a little, cloudy skies (or in Sunday's case a thick fog layer over the park) evens out the light.  Basically the entire place is dark rather than having some spots being dark with spots of bright light mixed in.  I was able to use a three second exposure here.  On a sunny day, the creek and path would have been lit up but the trees would have quickly disappeared into black.  Well, unless I overexposed the creek and path, that is.  Point being, this would have been a very difficult shot to pull off on a sunny day.  With the thick fog layer overhead, though, it was fairly simple.  This was the brightest spot and shortest exposure I used all day on Sunday.

The other thing rain does to Muir Woods is a bit more obvious.  It makes everything wet.  The place looks like a rain forest when it has been soaked by a good rain.  This might just be the Oregon native in me, but this is what I think a forest should look like.  Green.  Wet.  Big trees.  Water.  Salmon even spawn in that creek in winter.  So I've read, anyway, I've never witnessed any fish in the creek.  It's muddy because it's running high from the rain.  The water is often much clearer.