When I was a teenager, we took a big road trip down the West Coast of the US with my family. I remember being impressed with the Redwoods then, and when photography came into my life years later, the idea of a West Coast trip featuring the Redwoods came back to mind. In particular, the Avenue of the Giants.
In 2026, my wife and I planned a West Coast trip with our kids. The goal was to get to California to visit family, but I made sure we planned a couple of days of camping at Humboldt Redwoods State Park. As we drove into that area of the world, the forest was more impressive than I had remembered. The road was lined with trees that took your breath away. I couldn’t wait to get into some of the hiking trails to find the larger trees to photograph. The next morning, I woke up early, expecting a little bit of fog based on my beginner reading of the marine layer forecast. Upon waking, I ventured out towards Founders Grove but found the marine layer hadn’t moved far enough inland to develop fog in our area overnight. I still wandered around this impressive grove but wasn’t able to grab any memorable photographs. One thing I had neglected to consider in my plans was just how dark it is in the Redwoods early in the morning. The heavy canopy in these forests block a lot of light, so even the slightest breeze caused blurry images with foliage moving around. I would have to really crank the ISO to get everything sharp. After an equally frustrating photography visit to the even more impressive Rockefeller Grove, I decided it was time to head back to camp and wait for the light to begin to invade the forest canopy.
That happened an hour or two later, and we went on a quick family hike across the road to take advantage of our proximity to these giant trees. I was shocked again at how the light worked in the forest – it was the complete opposite of my experience at home. At home, you’ve got maybe 30 minutes of photography-friendly light after sunrise before it gets really harsh. Because of the heavy canopy, the light that filtered through was really high quality even hours after sunrise; even when that light was supposed to be too harsh for photography. This encouraged me. Until then, I thought I had already wasted my limited time in the Redwoods earlier that morning, but now I looked forward to slowing down and finding compositions throughout the day.
This was one I found in Rockefeller Grove, and one I came back to a few times to try and photograph in different light. I ultimately settled on this afternoon exposure with a little light hitting the massive redwood tree in the center of the frame. There’s no good way to indicate the scale of these trees in a photograph. This image is shot at 15mm and, as an idea of the scale, there’s no way you could fit all 5 of our family members across the base of this enormous tree.
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