SoFoBoMo: DONE!

I finished my book!

True, the layout is very simple, and there aren't any nifty interactive features, video, music, or that sort of thing, but since it's my first book, I don't mind that.

I may go back and create another version that includes actual photo essays, but for a first book, I'm pretty happy with this effort, because I succeeded, a day early.

For those of you who take the time to check my book out, I hope you enjoy it!

SoFoBoMo: Loowit

This was my first sight of the mountain, from the Silver Lake visitors' center. It was also the first time I had a chance to see it with that much snow.

This is the view from the Hofstadt Bluffs visitors' center. I wish there had been some clouds in the sky, but with nature photography you have to work with what nature gives you.

I find the new spring leaves on the stands of forest growing atop the landslide debris in the Toutle River Valley makes for a striking contrast amidst the devastation. The evening light gave their foliage a soft glow, and the snow covering the shattered stratovolcano gave it an air of peace and tranquility.

I also highly recommend the Fire Mountain Grill, at the Hofstadt Bluffs visitors' center. I ate a delicious dinner on their porch while watching this view.

No matter how many times I get a view of this, I suspect that I will never tire of it. I am also planning a Mount Margaret backcountry trip, intent on finding a campsite with a crater view so that I can get some more views of it.

This was my third SoFoBoMo photo safari. I'm now up to 22 images for the book, so I think that I'm making excellent progress, and I have a few slides to get processed as well. Now I just have to start working on the book layout. I'll most likely keep the layout fairly simple for my first crack at making a book. Maybe my second effort will be more ambitious, but that's for another time, after I'm done with this one.

Mount Saint Helens

We left Seattle at midnight, at the very end of Triskadekaphobia Day, also known as Friday the 13th. When we arrived at around 3am, the sky was very dark, and we marvelled at the intensity of the stars, the fact that we could clearly see the Milky Way while we put on our hiking boots and all that. The sky lightened quickly though, so we didn't get very many star shots.

The sky was very clear, as we were above the thick clouds in the valleys. By the pre-dawn light, we could see the dense layer of clouds that filled the north fork of the Toutle River Valley; normally an expanse of desolation five miles wide, this time it looked like a sea of clouds.

Mount Saint Helens

A view of Mount Saint Helens, showing the crater and the lava dome. The large hunks of rock in the foreground are the hummocks, parts of the summit deposited along the Toutle River Valley during the landslide that occurred during the eruption in 1980. This was from my second trip to Mt. Saint Helens; on my first trip, the cloud cover obscured the crater the entire time I was there.