Northwest USA
Northwest USA, or the Pacific Northwest, is completely different from the southwest. Unlike the dry and sunny southwest, the northwest has a wetter climate, making the landscape much greener. The major attraction of this area for a photographer is the incredible variety of landscapes. Here you can capture misty rain forests, dramatic waterfalls, snow-covered mountains, and colorful sunsets over the Pacific Ocean. National parks such as Olympic National Park and Mount Rainier National Park provide stunning scenery that changes with every season. Autumn in particular is a great season for photography. It brings golden leaves and soft light. A special case is Yellowstone National Park with its extraordinary volcanic activity.
Wildlife
The National Parks in the Northwest USA are often praised for the opportunities they supposedly offer for wildlife photography. There is indeed plenty of wildlife, but the opportunities for good photography are somewhat limited. The National Parks are often crowded with tourists, and park rangers primarily try to keep the animals away from people, which is not conducive to serious photography. For instance, the presence of a bear quickly leads to a traffic jam, with park rangers promptly sending everyone away. If, as a nature photographer, you do not want to rely on a few accidental lucky shots, there are definitely better options than the National Parks in the Northwest USA. So enjoy the magnificent landscapes and the encounters with wild animals, but don’t expect too much in terms of wildlife photography.
In the photo gallery below, you will find a selection of images I took in northwest USA. A photo gallery with some 40 images obviously does not do justice to the enormous diversity of this large and unique region. In fact its size is larger than France, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg together! Therefore, on the blog pages, I will focus a bit more on a number of different areas in this region.
