Sea stacks loom out of the fog on Ruby Beach in Olympic National Park near Forks, Washington on Monday, August 20, 2018. NIkon D750/16-35VR, 1/125s, f/16, ISO 280, EV 0, 35mm Focal Length.

Olympic National Park in the State of Washington is one of the most unique U.S. National Parks with its mountains, rain forests and sea coast ecosystems all found inside its borders. Last week, I showed you the Olympic Mountains. This week I will share the coast.

My base of operations for the coastal part of the trip was Kalaloch Lodge located right on the coast with easy access to a beach full of bleached driftwood and lush vegetation.

Kalaloch Lodge as viewed from the Kalaloch Creek in Olympic National Park near Lake Crescent, Washington on Sunday, August 19, 2018. Nikon D750/24-120VR, 1/125s, f/16, ISO 2800, EV 0, 44mm Focal Length. Processed in Skylum Intensify CK.

Between forest fire smoke and coastal fog, I faced the challenge of photographing a rather flat looking seascape on each of the beaches I visited. Ruby Beach is famous for its awesome sea stack rock structures. You can see some of those sea stacks in the first photo at the start of the article.

The photo was a good exposure and I did my best processing it in Lightroom Classic. I liked the result but I could see more details and color in person. Because of the weather conditions, I took a series of photos from -2EV to +2EV in 1 stop intervals. I imported those photos into Skylum’s Aurora HDR 2018. I found a good preset and finished off the image in Lightroom.

Sea stacks in the fog on Ruby Beach in Olympic National Park near Forks, Washington on Monday, August 20, 2018. NIkon D750/16-35VR, f/16, ISO 400, EV 0, 35mm Focal Length. Processed in Skylum Aurora HDR 2018.

I like how the high dynamic range (HDR) processing brought out more details, color and drama to the scene.