Visualize the Future

Gary Hart Photography: Yosemite, Ribbon Fall, Bridalveil Fall, El Capitan, Valley View

Twin Falls, Ribbon Fall and Bridalveil Fall, Yosemite
Sony α1
Sony 16-35 f/2.8 GM
ISO 50
f/16
2.5 seconds

Virtually every scene I approach with a camera is beautiful, but a beautiful scene isn’t enough if all the parts don’t work together. Human experience of the world differs greatly from what the camera captures—the photographer’s job is to understand and use those differences.

Ansel Adams and visualization

Most photographers know that Ansel Adams visualized his final print, and the darkroom work necessary to create it, before clicking the shutter. This ability to look into the future of each capture is part of what set Ansel Adams apart from his peers.

But Adams’ extensive darkroom work is often cited by digital photographers defending their over-processesed images. We’ve all heard (and perhaps even uttered ourselves) statements like, “Ansel Adams spent more time in the darkroom than he did in the field,” or “Ansel Adams would love Photoshop.” Perhaps true, but using Ansel Adams’ darkroom mastery to justify extreme Photoshop processing misses a significant point: Adams’ mental picture of the ultimate print was founded upon a synergistic relationship between his own vision and his camera’s vision, coupled with a master’s control of capture variables like composition, light, motion, and depth. In other words, Adams’ gift wasn’t merely his darkroom skills, it was an overarching vision that enabled him to make decisions now based on invisible realities he knew he’d encounter later.

I bring this up because I’m concerned about many photographers’ Photoshop-centric “fix it later” approach that seriously undervalues capture technique. This mindset ranges from simple over-reliance on the LCD for exposure with no real understanding of the histogram or how metering works (shoot-review-adjust, shoot-review-adjust, shoot-review-adjust, until the picture looks okay; or shoot so it looks good, not realizing the exposure is wrong until they get it on their computer), to photographers who channel their disappointment with an image into an overzealous Photoshop transformation, pumping color, adding “effects,” or inserting/removing objects until they achieve the ooooh-factor the image lacks.

The better approach is to understand the potential in a scene while actually viewing it in Nature, camera in hand, then to anticipate the processing the image will require and shoot accordingly. In other words, Photoshop should inform capture decisions, not fix them.

Putting Photoshop in its place

Every image ever captured, film or digital, was processed. Just as the processing piece was easy to ignore when the exposed film you sent to a lab magically returned as prints or slides, many digital shooters, forgetting that a jpeg capture is processed by their camera, brag that their jpeg images are “Exactly the way I shot them.” Trust me, they’re not.

Whether you shoot monochrome film, Fuji Velvia slides, low-compression jpegs, or (especially) the latest smartphone there’s nothing inherently pure about your “unprocessed” image. On the other hand, digital landscape photographers who understand that processing is unavoidable, rather than relinquish control of their finished product to black-box processing algorithms built into the camera, usually opt for the control provided by raw capture and hands-on processing.

Unfortunately, Photoshop’s power makes it difficult for many (myself included) to know where to draw the processing line. And every photographer draws that line in a different place—one photographer’s “manipulation” is another’s “masterpiece.” The reality is, Photoshop isn’t a panacea—its main function should be to complement the creativity already achieved in the camera, and not to fix problems created (or missed) at capture.

While I’m not a heavy Lightroom/Photoshop user, I readily acknowledge that they’re amazing tools that are an essential part of my photography workflow. I particularly appreciate that LR/PS give the me ability to achieve things possible with black and white film and a decent darkroom, but difficult-to-impossible with the color transparencies I shot for over 25 years. Of course processing is an ever-evolving art itself, one I’m still learning. I’m afraid to this day I find myself mortified by some of my earlier processing choices—as I no doubt will be at some later date by processing choices I make today.

Creating an image, from start to finish

Normally when I find myself at a popular Yosemite location like Valley View, I won’t get my camera out unless I can find something that feels truly unique. Last month, not wanting to stray from my workshop group, I was content to observe and assist. But when the clouds draping El Capitan and Cathedral Rocks started turning pink in the evening’s last light, I couldn’t resist.

I raced to my car and grabbed my tripod and Sony a1, already loaded with my 16-35 GM lens, and headed down to the large log embedded along the riverbank, just downstream from the parking lot. This log has been a Valley View fixture for years, but each year it gets nudged a little by spring runoff—some years more than others. I’m sure it will eventually be swept away entirely.

A trio of photographers was already in place on and around the log, but spying a spot I could squeeze into, I scaled the log and tightroped my way toward the small opening. Despite an extreme language mismatch, we were able to pantomime our way into a friendly equilibrium—lots of smiles and pointing, with a mutual thumbs-up for punctuation—that enabled me to set up in a spot that worked for me without disturbing them.

With the light changing quickly, I went right to work, framing up a wide draft version that included the entire Valley View scene: clouds, Ribbon Fall (on the left), El Capitan, Cathedral Rocks, Bridalveil Fall, and the Merced River. I was especially excited to be able to frame the scene with the two prominent waterfalls: well known and year-round Bridalveil on the right, and somewhat anonymous, seasonal Ribbon Fall (Yosemite’s highest vertical drop).

I wasn’t super crazy about the log in the middle of the river, but since it was right in the middle of the scene I wanted to photograph, I decided to lean into it and just make it part of my composition. And while I liked the whitewater, I was less than thrilled by its position in the lower right corner of my frame. Again, just something I’d need to accept and deal with.

Balanced atop my log, I raised my tripod as high it would go to prevent the foreground log’s protruding vertical branch from intersecting the far riverbank. To remove distracting texture from the whitewater, I decided to smooth the water with a long shutter speed, dialing to ISO 50 and stopping down to f/16. Exposure was tricky because the sky still held onto a fair amount of light, while the foreground was darkening fast, so I took care to monitor my histogram until I found a shutter speed that didn’t wash out the color, while still creating a pleasing (to my eyes) motion blur.

The preview image on my LCD looked mostly too dark, with the sky too bright, but I know my camera well enough to know that all the beautiful detail in the shadows and highlights would return like magic in Lightroom. Besides pulling down my highlights and dragging up my shadows, a small color temperature tweak, and some selective dodging/burning, this turned out to be a relatively simple image to process and get to come out exactly as I’d visualized it that evening.

One more thing

Check out the gallery below. All of these images were captured at Valley View. Rather than base my composition on the “standard” shot here, I crafted each to take advantage of whatever conditions were before me at the time. And while a few images do indeed settle for the more conventional composition, my decision to photograph that way was justified (in my mind) by the exceptional conditions that told me I should just get out of the way and let the scene speak for itself. So I guess the moral is, trust your instincts and don’t settle for the obvious—unless the obvious just hits you right over the head and you just can’t ignore it.