On Film: Wedding Rocks Trail, Olympic Peninsula

CAMERA: FUJICA GS645W (WIDE 45mm LENS)
FILM: KODAK EKTACHROME 120
SEPTEMBER, 2020

The Ozette Triangle Loop is a 9.2 mile hike through wetland forests and a rocky coastline, almost at the northernmost point of the Olympic Peninsula. It’s truly one of the most picturesque hikes in all of Washington state, particularly on the Wedding Rock Trail leg of the triangle that runs along the coast - which has to be timed to be sure you hike on that portion during low tide! We hiked this loop on a foggy, grey day in September last year, and I took a series of photos along the way with my Fujica GS645W. The 645 is a great “little” medium format camera not only because of it’s relatively compact size, but the 6x4.5 frame size gives 15 exposures on a roll of 120 film, compared to 8 on the 6x9, or 10 on the 6x7. The GS645W has added feature of a fast 45mm wide angle lens, which makes it even easier to use as a snapshot camera.

Thick verdant forests line the first leg of the Ozette loop in Callum Bay, Washington, which includes the Wedding Rock trail along the coastline. Film: Ektachrome 100, Camera: Fujica GS645

Much of the first leg is a plank walkway elevated about 2 feet from the dense, spongy undergrowth.

A view of the coastline from the start of the Wedding Rock trail. This day had a low level fog and perfectly white cloudy skies.

Starting the hike at low tide, around 11am. Piles upon piles of washed-up seaweed lined most of the Wedding Rock trail, and produced a constant swarm of flies to walk through.

The fog and low tide make for an atmosperic, alien landscape. Ektachrome film is really excellent for landscape photography, more than Fuji I think, because it has a good depth of color, particularly green.

This newly fallen tree right at the shoreline had seaweed, ropes and cables wrapped around most of its limbs. As you can tell in this photo, the tree was massive, the trunk was probably 4’ in diameter and was 30 or 40’ long.

I took a few photos of these beautiful rock patterns on the ground. They look almost like topographic maps. The lack of direct yellow sunlight allows the blue-green color to define the subject here, which I love.

Giant rocks like this dot the shore along the Wedding Rock Trail.

Back in the forest for the last leg of the loop.

A clearing shows a blue sky starting to evolve on the last leg of the Ozette triangle loop. The Ektachrome film picks up subtle orange variations in the field and light cyan in the sky, where Provia or Velvia would probably give a heavier magenta hue to the entire scene.