Fairhaven Environmental Photography

       In these photos, water represents aquatic life and is the home for many living creatures. We all need water to survive because it is a natural source of energy, and roughly 70 percent of our bodies make up water. However, ocean water contains salt and is unsafe for human consumption because of the high salinity. Ocean creatures can survive in high salt water because they have been physically adapted to do so. The reason I took waterfall and ocean pictures of water movement is because in Colorado we do not have vast waterfalls or oceans. I found it to be enticing watching the water travel downstream and to the sandy beaches. I could watch the waves for hours. Since I didn't grow up around the oceans, I feel as if something is pulling me towards the sea because I want to see it every chance I get. 

  Water is essential to all life forms on earth- without it none of this would be here. Just as water is the liquid that gives life to our bodies; the rivers, lakes, and oceans are the veins that run life through the earth. When this water of the earth becomes diverted, blocked, wasted/misused, or polluted, it causes harm to a founding principle of life, causing negative ripple effects to all life forms. In the Pacific Northwest where water runs so plentifully, it can be easy to forget the indispensable nature of this resource, and that it is not so plentiful in many regions of the world. 

  Water to me is a vital part of all forms of life, and it is powerful in its own way. Access to it is a human right on its own, and that fact says enough about its importance to us as humans. I think it is often taken for granted by some groups, and too often in my opinion is it not thought of enough. 

   Time: 8:15 AM Settings:  1/125, f/5.6, ISO 100    Time: 11:07 AM Settings:  1/125, f/5.6, ISO 100       Time: 2:57 PM Settings:  1/125, f/5.6, ISO 100       Time: 5:50 PM Settings:  1/60, f/5, ISO 6400   

 These photos were taken from the balcony of my apartment, which looks right at the corner of an older apartment building on the corner of our street. I took these photos relatively 2-3 hours apart, starting at sunrise (7:45 AM), and ending around 3 pm. I had to increase my f-stop by a lot from the first to fourth photo (around f2.0 in the first one, up to f11.5 in the fourth.) In late January, there is a noticeable increase in sunlight during the day, which is also something I have to deal with while taking photos outside.    In a few of these photos you can kind of see the remains of some ivy that has crawled up the building. Though it seems like throughout the years maintenance has come through to take the ivy down, it keeps crawling up the sides of the complex. In warmer months, the remains are green and might even have small leaves attempting to regrow from being torn down, but in the winter (though slowly growing), it turns a brownish color, which after researching ...

Unfortunately, my photos don’t display the movement of the sun throughout the day in an ideal way because they were taken throughout a cloudy day. It does realistically display the looks of an average winter day, however it isn’t the most visually appealing 1st photo - 11:09 am, shutter speed 1/60, ISO 100, f/11 2nd photo - 1:12 pm, shutter speed 1/60, ISO 100, f/11 The first two photos display what daylight appears as on cloudy winter days in Washington, with a gray hue overcasting the images. There is very little lighting difference between 11am and 1pm, however 11 am gives a slightly lighter gray appearance and 1pm shows the beginning of a blue hue over the horizon. You can also see various types of trees in the images. The first tree is the douglas fir, the largest tree on the right of the image. Douglas firs are native to Washington and Western North America, and do shed needles throughout fall and winter but not entirely unlike the trees next to it in the image. The other trees i...

 I was not in one place over the weekend long enough to shoot four frames throughout the day, so after class on Monday, I shot two plants 2 hours apart over 6 hours. I chose to capture a tree that hangs over my house, and a bouquet on my porch. It was difficult to shoot the tree once it became dark, and it was hard to capture this shaded, dried plant when it wasn't dark enough for flash or for enough natural light. I tried to change my aperture and shutter speed, as well as the warmth/color balance. I am not sure what type of tree this is, but I'm assuming that it is native and deciduous. These flowers were leftovers from a bouquet I got a couple of months ago, and I dried them and then placed them in an abandoned pot on my porch. I think that drying flowers can be a great alternative to buying imported flowers during the winter, still providing some natural colors when many of our plants and trees have been left barren. The main thing that I noticed was the vibrance and contra...

Here’s my view from Edens Hall, featuring the Old Main Lawn, the Viking Union, and our Giant Sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum). A plaque below the tree claims the sequoia was gifted as a seedling in 1941 by Irving Miller (of Miller Hall), although that origin story is debated, as a tree of that age would only be around 80 feet tall, and this one is estimated to be over 100 feet tall. WWU has been lighting the tree for the holidays since 1967, and my fellow residents of Edens have grievances with the lighting. While the lighting technique isn’t the most attractive, the process of lighting this 100+ foot tree took multiple days, several people, and a giant cherry picker. WWU lights this tree every other year, so I cried wolf last December waiting for the school to finally light the tree like they did in the free calendar I got from admissions.  I realized as I imported the photos that the time of my camera is completely wrong, but according to my memory, the first photo is in the mo...

  Taken around 11am taken around 1pm taken around 4 pm taken around 5:30-6 pm        I was sick this weekend, so I decided to take photos of the tip of Mount Baker as seen from my apartment for accessibility purposes. This proved challenging as I was navigating an unfamiliar camera that does not preview the photos, so it took a lot of changing settings to try to get photos that even captured the mountain at all. I found that earlier in the day when the snow was reflecting a lot of bright light, it was hard to get any definition in the mountain without having the entire background blend into brightness. To get a view of the mountain I changed the exposure, aperture, white balance, and shutter speed every time, but I do not remember the exact settings I used.       Throughout the fall and winter, I have watched Baker become more covered with snow. In early January before the dry spell and relatively warmer temperatures, the snow encroached down...

  1/24/2026, 1:45 PM    1/24/2026, 3:58 PM     1/24/2026, 6:07 PM   1/24/2026, 8:20 PM (Flash)    I spent my day yesterday hanging out at my friend's house and decided to take my 4 photos at a park near their house. We turned it into a small ritual, hauling our mildly inebriated selves out into the cold every couple hours to revisit the photoshoot. In this experience, I tried to look for a location that looked and felt like what I have always associated Washington's winters. Looking up photos of Washington in winter, you come across photos of snow covered conifers in pristine mountainous landscapes, but this has never exactly been my experience. For me, I have always lived in the highly populated portions of the pacific northwest in a weather cycle highly affected by low elevation and the proximity to the ocean. When it's cold enough to freeze, it's never wet enough to snow. When it's wet enough to rain, it's never cold enough snow. Much of t...

1pm, 1/320, F5.6, ISO 200     3pm, 1/500, F4.0, ISO 320                                                    5pm, 1/500, F4.0, ISO 1600                                                                                                                  9pm, 1/4, F2.2, ISO 6400      For this photoshoot, I decided to capture a group of trees growing directly outside my apartment so it was easy to shoot throughout the day. I started taking the photos quite late, around 1 pm, so I was anticipating having to shoot in darker conditions considering how fast the light ...

  12:00 PM -- Railroad Ave.  1/60; f32; ISO 200 2:00 PM -- Apartments of Railroad Ave.  1/8; f32; ISO 100 4:00 PM -- Apartments of Railroad Ave.  1/8; f29; ISO 100 8:00 PM -- Apartments of Railroad Ave.  1/13; f16; ISO 6400 The colors of the sky and the lighting against the buildings of my apartment complex constantly change throughout the day. I normally only take pictures of this path when the light is exceptionally warm or the sky is bursting with surreal color. This assignment was challenging for me. I wanted to capture the changes of the light throughout the day in relation to the tall buildings which sometimes block the sun's rays. I also have minimal experience with capturing scenes in broad daylight as my preference is to avoid such harsh light in photos. The sunset was not as painted tonight just before sunset, but the difficulty of taking a picture that gave enough light exposure to the buildings without washing out the sky was, well, difficult. Some o...

       For my pictures I chose to photograph a trail near my apartment because of the easy access and interesting subject matter. I took four photos of the same section of a trail, starting at 1:30 pm, and taking my last photo at 7:30pm. I decided to take my photos from a few different angles and places at first, but later decided I liked the ones showing the fallen tree the most. At 1:30pm, you could see the fallen tree leaning on the larger tree. You can see the sun overhead and the light is shining on the blackberries below. Nearly all of the plants in the photo have lost most of their leaves, a sign of winter in deciduous vegetation. By 3:30pm the sun was no longer in the picture while still having a visible sunset in the background. You can see a little more clearly the plants in the foreground now due to the lack of sunlight reflection. The photo taken at 5:30 captures the last of the sunset, with a much darker foreground. At this point it was so dark that you ...