Raspberry Fields Forever

I'd heard a report that there were coho salmon in Haynie Creek on Monday, so I drove out there today, hoping to get a blip. There were no salmon to be seen when I got there, although I did see a heron. I hope it didn't get any of the salmon.

I decided to take some raspberry farm photos instead. C and I always enjoy seeing the plants when they've been pruned and tied up neatly for the winter, looking like thousands of arbors or giant croquet hoops in rows. Raspberries are big business in Whatcom County -- 65% of the US crop is grown here, and 6,000 seasonal jobs are created during the six-week harvest.

There were two problems in taking the photos:

1. It was a brilliantly sunny day and I was shooting at noon. The light was horrible, but to paraphrase the infamous saying of Donald Rumsfeld in responding to complaints that US troops weren't properly equipped for fighting in Iraq, you take photos with the light you have, not with the light you wish you had.

2. The plants were taller than me, and I couldn't find a high viewpoint to shoot from -- not until I saw the pickup truck belonging to one of the migrant workers in the field. I was allowed to stand on top of the large toolbox in the bed of the truck, and I gained additional altitude for my camera by mounting it on my monopod. Using a 10 second delay on the shutter, I held the camera high over my head after pressing the button. I wish I'd thought of that before.

You can see the workers' rain gear hanging on the ends of the rows, and Mount Baker (10,778 feet/3,285 m) is playing peek-a-boo behind the clouds.

Here's a close-up view of one of the rows.