Confessions of a Happy Photographer

More than anything else, photography needs to make you happy. When photography was my hobby, that wasn’t really a problem—I photographed what I wanted, where I wanted, when I wanted, with no pressure to please anyone else. Pretty nice. But, as I mulled turning photography into my livelihood (nearly 20 years ago!), I couldn’t help thinking about the photographers who had become unhappy after turning their passion into their profession. Suddenly their choices were fueled not by their own creative juices, but rather by their need to pay the bills.

So one of the promises I made to myself when I decided to pursue photography as a career was that I’d only photograph what I want to photograph. Over the years that approach has evolved to cover more than just subject choices—it also applies to my overall approach to photography, from capture through processing, all the way to what I share and how I share it. So I think a more accurate way of expressing my personal key to photography happiness would be that I photograph to please no one but myself.

It’s personal

When you look at one of my images, you’re viewing a subject that resonates with me personally (while I don’t think every photographer can say that, I also don’t think this makes me unique). That personal connection is why most of my images feature some version of the natural processes that have always fascinated me, camera or not: weather and its many manifestations (such as clouds, rainbows, lightning, and snow), geology (like mountains, volcanism, and the other natural processes of landscape building), and of course all things celestial. Communicating that connection is also why I virtually never share an image without writing something about it and/or the natural processes at play.

This need for connection to my subjects also influences my personal photography rules—not the same “rules” that guide and constrain aspiring photographers, but my own rules for what and how I photograph. Rules like natural light only (no light painting, flash, or any other artificial light), and no arranging of subjects in my scene, and so on.

One and done

A big personal rule for me is one-click capture. Though I never really felt much nostalgia for the color transparencies I shot for over 25 years, I’m still driven by a film photographer’s mindset. That doesn’t mean I don’t process my images, or that I don’t appreciate the power of digital processing to convey my subjects at their very best. But I do (among other things) like knowing that each image represents the photons that struck my sensor in the span of a single shutter click. In other words, I am a one-click photographer who gets no pleasure from merging, blending, combining multiple images into a single image.

Preemptive disclaimer

It seems that every time I try to explain these personal motivations and guiding principles, I get a few defensive responses from people who believe I’m saying that everyone should follow my rules, or that I’m somehow superior to photographers who don’t do things the way I do them. Nope. I’m simply saying that my images need to please me and no one else, and hope your own images, however they’re achieved, make you just as happy as mine make me.

Which brings me to…

I’m thinking about all this because today I’m sharing a Milky Way image from my recently concluded Hawaii Big Island photo workshop. And nothing underscores the difference between my own (dinosaur?) approach than today’s computer-enabled (and beautiful) astro images.

For most of my photography life, I was frustrated by the camera’s low light limitations. In my pre-digital days, using my medium of choice (color slides) to photograph the Milky Way above a landscape was just a dream. And my first digital cameras, while perhaps better than slides in darkness, were still not up to the night photography task.

But over the last fifteen or so years, I watched technology improve to the point that one-shot, night-landscape photography became possible—and it keeps getting better. In my first digital attempts, I found that while I could capture the Milky Way, there was not enough light for the camera to pull in discernible landscape detail to go with it. Instead, in those early digital days I settled for moonlight night images—no Milky Way, but plenty of stars above a beautifully moonlit scene.

As I became hooked on moonlight photography, I watched other photographers start having Milky Way success by blending two (and sometimes more) images—one for the Milky Way, and another much longer exposure for the landscape. I actually tried this approach myself, had enough success to appreciate the technique, but soon realized that I derived absolutely no pleasure from these manufactured images and stopped doing it without ever sharing a blended creation with another soul.

My first real Milky Way success came at Kilauea, about ten years ago. Here the orange glow from the churning lava lake provided enough light to illuminate the surrounding caldera, and sometimes even painting the clouds with its volcanic glow. I was hooked.

The next major Milky Way milestone came when I switched to Sony and started using the Sony a7S. Suddenly, not only could I include lots of foreground detail in my one-click Milky Way images, I could see the scene in my viewfinder well enough to compose and focus quickly, without guessing.

And while my night cameras been evolving—from the a7S, then the Sony a7SII, and now the a7SIII—Sony has slipped the final piece of the night photography jigsaw into place with a great selection of fast, wide, and sharp lenses that seem made for the Milky Way.

Waxing nostalgic

For many years I looked forward to my Hawaii workshop more than any other workshop, in no small part because of the opportunity to return to Kilauea, the location of my first Milky Way success and still one of my very favorite Milky Way locations. Then, in August 2018, the Kilauea eruption went out in a blaze of glory—suddenly, I had to scramble for Milky Way locations on the Big Island.

With many locations lost to the recent eruption, in September 2018 I took my group to the Mauna Kea summit, nearly 14,000 above the Pacific. We had a great shoot among the array of telescopes at the summit, but the only thing more brutal than the wind and cold at the top was drive up there. My rental car started losing power and flashing an engine warning light, and a couple of other drivers were (understandably) less than thrilled about violating their rental car agreements. We also had to send a couple of people back down the mountain when they started feeling altitude sickness. (I’d still recommend the experience to anyone—it’s just not something I’m comfortable doing with a group.)

In 2019 scouted the Puna Coast for a good spot, but found much of the access still limited by the 2018 lava flow. I finally settled for section of brand new lava above the ocean, but clouds and moisture-thickened air hindered visibility, and the moonless darkness made it very difficult to safely get close enough to include much crashing surf. The Milky Way made enough of an appearance that were were able to photograph it, but the overall experience was less than ideal.

Given all the obstacles Mother Nature had thrown at me—not just locations and access lost to lava flows, but recent hurricane and flood damage to other locations too—I decided to take 2020 off from Hawaii. (Turns out I’d have had to cancel anyway.) But I missed Hawaii and realized, eruption and Milky Way or not, it’s a pretty great place to photograph. So the Big Island went back on my schedule in 2021.

Despite the aborted eruption and the prior night location difficulties, I was determined to give the Milky Way another shot in 2021. Thinking it might be easier to photograph away from the coast, I found a nice elevated view on Chain of Craters Road in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. It was about three miles from the coast, but had a great view of the ocean and recent lava flows, and a few striking trees for the foreground.

I gave the group some Milky Way training on our second afternoon, then drove out to the chosen spot after that evening’s sunset shoot. While the view was indeed magnificent, the wind was so strong that we couldn’t even consider setting up tripods. But since we were there anyway, I kept everyone out long enough for everyone to see the Milky Way emerge from the darkness. While that was more of a consolation prize for people with their hearts set on Milky Way images, it was pretty cool, especially for the folks who have never really seen the Milky Way’s core in a truly dark sky.

Some groups are more excited than others about the chance to photograph the Milky Way, and I could tell that this group was pretty disappointed that our shoot didn’t work out. So I decided to give it one more shot, on the workshop’s final night—no guarantees, but we’d at least go down trying.

Since our final sunset would be on the Puna Coast, I decided that we’d just find a spot out there for the Milky Way. A check of the map confirmed that the galactic core would align nicely with the rocky coast from MacKenzie Point, my planned sunset spot, we just stayed put there and waited for the Milky Way to come to us.

The downside of this location is that it’s rather precariously perched above quite violent surf. But since we were already out there for sunset, I knew everyone would be able to get situated and set up for the Milky Way early enough to avoid moving around much (or at all) in the dark.

The biggest unknown in this plan was the clouds that always seem to lurk along the Puna Coast. But after a day of sky mostly obscured by clouds, a little opening appeared in the south around sunset, and I crossed my fingers. We ended enjoying the most colorful sunset/sunrise of the workshop, then crossed our fingers that the sky would remain open until darkness was complete.

For this shoot I used my Sony a7SIII and Sony 14 f/1.8 GM exclusively. Usually my Milky Way compositions favor the sky over the foreground. But here, long exposures of the waves exploding against jagged volcanic rock created ethereal motion blur that nicely complimented the Milky Way, so I wanted to include as much surf as sky. Not only did I want more foreground than usual, the lower the latitude, the higher in the sky the Milky Way’s core is—having such a wide lens allowed me to include lots of surf and sky.

I only managed to capture seven frames while I “bounced” (tiptoed gingerly) in near total darkness, hyper-conscious of the consequences of a misstep, between people to provide assistance. The southern sky was virtually clear in my first two captures, but each subsequent click revealed an ominous cloud bank encroaching on our sky. Knowing how quickly the rain can strike in Hawaii, and wanting to avoid anything that might cause people to move suddenly in the dark, I called the shoot after about 30 minutes. This is my final image of the night.

Since this was the workshop’s last night and there were no more image reviews, I can’t say that everyone finished that shoot with a great Milky Way image. But I do know that everyone did at least capture the Milky Way, and gained enough insight to do it better the next time. I also know that everyone was happy with the entire experience—which is really what it’s all about.

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Milky Way One Click Wonders

Click an image for a closer look, and to view a slide show.