Redwoods National Park

I think that the Redwoods National Park is one of the most under-rated National Parks.  You almost never hear any press about it or see dozens of travel stories about it.  However, it is a true gem in the National Park system and one place that I think everyone should see at least once. I just returned from leading a photo workshop there and the group had a wonderful time, as did I, amidst the giant trees and verdant forests.  The experience is humbling in a way too, being in the presence of trees that are 1500 years old, who started their lives long before the the Knights of the Round Table.  Each day we ventured out, we came away in awe of the locations and full memory cards.  The Redwoods National Park is a place to escape and bask in the wonder of nature.

Nestled in Northern California, the Redwoods is actually a combination of National and State Parks, depending on which area you visit.  To the visitor though, it feels unified and you won’t notice any difference in management or how the locations “feel”. It is a seamless experience for anyone wanting to visit. Located in Del Norte and Humboldt counties, the four parks protect the endangered coast redwood —the tallest, among the oldest, and one of the most massive tree species on Earth—which thrives in the humid temperate rainforest. The park region is highly seismically active and prone to tsunamis. The parks preserve 37 miles (60 km) of pristine coastline, indigenous flora, fauna, grassland prairie, cultural resources, waterways, as well as threatened animal species, such as the Chinook salmon, northern spotted owl, and Steller’s sea lion.

Being relatively close to Portland, about 5 hours drive, the Redwoods National Park workshop is one of my favorites as it provides an amazing experience for attendees with a lot of creative challenge and learning possibilities.  Plus, it doesn’t involve a lot of travel during the workshop, all of the locations are very close together.  We stayed in Crescent City which is in the heart of the Redwoods area.  Crescent City is large enough to provide decent restaurants and nice hotels, yet is not a large town at all.  It has just enough amenities to make the stay enjoyable and not over-bearing.

The first night of the workshop, we had a short Meet and Greet to introduce ourselves, go over the itinerary, talk about goals and locations the decide on carpooling.  Afterwards, we headed out for a quick evening shoot to “knock the rust off” those who hadn’t had their camera in their hands for a while.  We headed less than a mile away to the Battery Point Lighthouse. This picturesque lighthouse was originally built in 1856 and operated until 1965 as an official navigation beam.  Today, it still is lit, though it is listed as a private navigational aid.

We arrived for sunset and had beautiful low-angle side light illuminating the house. A carpet of pink flowers lined the pathway leading to the building, which made for a wonderful foreground element.  As the sunset progressed, we were treated to a sliver of moon in the sky and the silhouette of the massive Cyprus tree to the right of the lighthouse.

Though not a part of the Redwoods National Park, the coastline near Crescent City is a beautiful place for photography and sightseeing in general.  One night later in the workshop after a long day shooting, a small number of us headed out for another sunset shoot at another location on the coast.

I prefer to visit in the Spring when the foliage is fresh and vibrant. To me, the ideal time to visit the Redwoods National Park is when the wild rhododendron flowers are blooming which is typically mid-to-late May. The Redwoods National Park is unique in that this is considered a temperate rain forest.  The area receives a lot of rain during the winter months and during the spring, thick fog is quite common.  For photographers, the idyllic shot is one with fog in the forest and rhododendron flowers blooming in the foreground.  To most photographers who visit, this is the “holy grail” of shots to come away with.   And the best time to have a chance at this is May/June.  During our time in the park, the Rhodies were just starting to bloom.  We found sporadic patches of them in our travels and had a chance to photograph them.  By the time the workshop ended, we had noticed how more and more flowers were blooming so by Sunday of the workshop, the forest was really beginning to flower-up.  The fog also increased in intensity as the week went on, so on that last day, we had almost ideal conditions to come away with the holy-grail types of shots that some folks were after.

I won’t detail the play by play of the workshop in Redwoods National Park.  There was simply too much to see and photograph.  I will mention a few highlights of the trip and show a few more images to you.   One of the best things about staying in Crescent City is that what I think are the absolute best stands of redwoods are less than 5 miles away.  We started our first day at the Stout Grove, which is perhaps the most famous grove and one that receives a lot of visitors.  We arrived early, just after sunrise, and had the area to ourselves for a couple of hours.  As we walked the loop trail, I had gone on ahead of the group to scout some shots to suggest to folks.  The sun had crested the eastern mountains by this time and we were starting to get dappled light in the forest, which is not ideal.  We want soft, diffuse and even lighting when doing forest work.  I knew we were running out of productive time!   I came around a corner in the trail that is near the river and was stopped in my tracks by the sight before me.  There was a slight amount of fog in the air and the sunlight was filtering through the trees, illuminating the fog, creating beautiful sun beams through the trees.  I quickly ran back and hustled folks along to this spot so they could work to capture this beautiful sight.

Most of the groves in Redwoods National park have well maintained walking trails.  Many of the trails are level with minimal elevation gain, though you can take more vigorous hikes up the coastal mountains if your energy can do it.   Walking amongst the giants, one is humbled by the size and magnitude of these trees.  I’ve photographed a lot of forests and trust me, nothing compares to this experience.

Also near the town are several other noteworthy groves, trails and trees.  Along Howland drive, which you can access from downtown Crescent City, is the Trail of the Titans and the Boy Scout tree. The drive along this narrow road is an amazing sight, with a wooded canyon off to one side and the towering forest on the other.  Often, the road has to twist and turn around redwood trees and you pass within a hands width of the trees. It is such a wonderful experience.  We happened to be traveling down this road one evening and stopped at the numerous pullouts to photograph across the canyon.  The cool thing about shooting the trees across the canyon is that we are relatively level with the trees, meaning we don’t have to point our cameras up, and introduce distortion of angles.

After working the areas near Crescent City, one morning we headed south to the Nathan Drury Scenic Parkway.  All along this 8 mile stretch of road that parallels Hwy 101, there are pull-outs and trails.  I had scouted the area a few days prior and know which trails would produce some of the best opportunities for folks.

On this day, we didn’t have any fog, instead having clear skies overhead.  When the sun was low on the eastern horizon, we had nice light in the forest.  Eventually though the sun rose up enough to clear the mountains and create highlights in the trees.  For general photography this wasn’t good. However, it did give a chance for us to make sunstars amidst the mighty redwoods.

We ventured further south to another of the famous Redwood groves, the Ladybird Johnson Grove.  It’s less than 10 miles from the Drury parkway, but as we drove, I noticed fog starting to appear in the hills.  Ever hopeful that we’d have fog in the grove, we pushed on.  Being a popular site means that parking can be difficult.  We were lucky to find enough parking for all of our cars and quickly hopped out and crossed the bridge over the road to enter the grove.  Towering trees shrouded in fog greeted us!

One of the questions I received several times during the workshop and one that we debated quite a bit was how do you capture the size, scale, magnitude and presence of these trees in a photograph?  My answer then and still now is, you don’t.  The trees are so massive that there is no way to capture the entire tree in one shot unless you are using a fisheye lens.  And at that, you wouldn’t have any type of artistic shot, maybe a usable documentary style photo that wouldn’t impart the feeling of being there.  The advice I gave everyone is that we need to capture snippets of the trees and the forest and viewed collectively, could you then get a sense of the experience in Redwoods National Park.  You just simply can’t do it in one shot.

Sometimes working to photograph these giants, we became overwhelmed with the magnitude of it all, so we focused our eyes and our cameras on smaller subjects that were a bit easier to manage in a composition.  There is an abundance of ferns and other plans on the forest floor and many are right alongside the path, making some close-up photography easy and enjoyable.

Along Hwy 101, south of Crescent City, there are several wonderful beaches.  One afternoon we took a drive looking for foggy conditions.  We didn’t find any fog, but we ended up at one beach that had some fantastic plants growing right out of the sand. The juxtaposition of flowers and plants on the sand was too much to resist! We spent a couple of very productive hours photographing these plants as well as the ocean and sea stacks.

There is so much more that we saw and did on this fantastic workshop.  More than I can include in this post. After photographing very foggy trees at a park south of town, we visited a small shipyard in Crescent City and worked on colorful abstracts using an old boat that was on blocks away from the water.  We could have spent hours here working with the colors, patterns and textures of this old boat!

There is so much for photographers to do in this area, that’s why I think Redwoods National Park is one of the most under-rated parks.  Easy access, good local amenities, and stunning forests!  One note that someone shared, which I agree with, is that the Redwoods are “easier” to shoot than another west coast forest, the Hoh Rainforest in Olympic National Park.  The Hoh is tight and congested, making it difficult to find separation between trees to create a nice comp.  In the Redwoods though, there is room and space and it is a bit easier to simplify and isolate your subjects.

One location I didn’t bring the workshop to, but did visit while I was out scouting was a place called Fern Canyon.  It is a deep cut in the landscape with a stream running through it and the walls of the canyon are covered in ferns.  It is an 8 mile drive on a gravel road and you do need to sign up a day ahead to reserve parking, but once there, it is an easy walk to, and through, the canyon.  If you are in this area, I would highly recommend visiting this location!

At the end of the workshop, we were all tired and very happy with the experience.  We made new friends and rekindled old friendships, all while making some spectacular images in Redwoods National Park.  I will be offering this workshop in May of 2027 so keep watching my website for details.  If you would like to see the full gallery of images from this workshop, please click HERE.

Thank you reading this far and for coming on this journey with me.  Redwoods National Park is amazing and one that I highly recommend to any photographer, no matter your skill level or physical ability.