Lake Quinault Lodge Shoreline

Author's Comments

The lake is at its most photographable in the hour before the wind arrives. That hour is not negotiable. By nine, sometimes earlier in summer, the surface begins to break up and the reflection that brought you here is gone until tomorrow. So you set the alarm and you walk down to the shore in the half dark, and you wait. What I love about Quinault is how the mist behaves. It does not sit on the water in a flat layer the way it does on some lakes. It rises in slow columns, drifting up against the dark wall of rainforest on the far shore, catching the first light when it comes. The mountains behind are not dramatic peaks. They are soft, rounded, completely covered in old growth, and they reflect into the lake as a continuous green that goes nearly black in the shallows. The lodge itself, with its long sloping roof and the lawn running down to the water, gives you a foreground if you want one. I usually do not. I walk a few minutes east along the shore until the building is out of frame and it is only the lake and the trees and whatever the sky is doing. Late September is my preferred week. The summer haze has lifted, the cottonwoods along the shore are just beginning to turn, and the mornings are cold enough to guarantee mist. Bring a tripod. Reflections at this hour want a slower shutter than you would expect, and the difference between sharp and almost sharp is the whole photograph.

Gallery