Nature’s Special Effects by Rob Johnston

Nature’s Special Effects

by Rob A. Johnston

I was out for a bit of drive on SR410 (the road that heads out of the town of Enumclaw towards Mt. Rainier National Park). I decided to head up on a forest Service road just past the small town of Greenwater. There was some fresh snow on the ground, and as I headed deeper into the forest the snow began to pile up. Since this was an unplanned trip, I was alone and I haven’t put the tire chains and other winter gear in the car yet, so I was paying close attention to the road condition as I wasn’t too keen on getting stuck. There was a point where I was about to turn around, but something made me keep going.
Finally I reached a point where the car was sliding around a bit and the snow was getting deeper and deeper. It was also an area where the road was wide enough to turn around. With a bit of back and forth, I managed to get the car turned and pointed down hill. I then decided that I might as well take a bit of a walk since I was there. I turned off the car and got out into the peacefulness of the late autumn/ early winter forest.
At this point, the sun was behind the clouds so I just wandered about for a bit. At one point I had my back to this scene when I heard the confident call of a raven somewhere to my right. I turned slightly to see if I could catch a glimpse of the bird. It was at that moment that the sun emerged from behind the clouds and appeared through the branches. I turned fully to look towards the emerging sun when all of a sudden the mist crept into the scene and all the pieces fell together. I stood awestruck for what seemed like a very long time before remembering the camera in my hand.
I shot in the neighborhood of 30 frames before the mist cleared, shortly followed by the sun slipping back behind the clouds. For me, this was one of those perfect moments. One of those moments that reminds me how great it is to be alive and how amazing this place we call home is. Life is good.

Equipment: Canon 20D

Rob A. Johnston

Photography is about the moment - a single moment captured and taken out of time. A photograph gives a person the chance to examine that moment as though it never ended - to look at details missed and to perhaps look at the subject in a different way. As a photographer, I always feel I have succeeded in my art when I hear a comment such as, “I’ve seen that place or thing a thousand times, but I’ve never looked at it quite like that before.”
I am a native of the Puget Sound area and, other than a brief time in Montana; I have lived here all my life. I grew up in the Kent area and now I now reside in Seattle. I first became interest in photography in high school. My love of the still image grew into a love with the moving image and I soon found myself at Montana State University studying motion picture production. After college I pursued film and video production, but at the same time I found my thoughts wandering back towards the still image. While I still enjoy the moving image, I have been focusing primarily on photography for the past year.
I have a great love for nature and all that stuff that is beyond your front door. I am a hiker, backpacker, traveler and sailor. It is very important to me for those loves to show through in my photography. As an artist, I feel that a connection must be made with the subject matter. That is often what makes the difference between a good image and a great image. If there isn’t a little bit of who I am in there, then the image is missing a critical element.

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