Feeding My Muse

Spring Cascade, Tamarack Creek, Yosemite
Sony α1
Sony 16-35 f/2.8 GM
ISO 800
f/11
1/4 second

Ode to the Coffee Table Book

I grew up in an era when coffee table books were a thing. For decades, these dense rectangular blocks, packed with thick, glossy pages containing far more picture than text, dominated living rooms across America. Whether acquired by purchase or gift, once installed on a coffee table, most coffee table books would rest unopened for years, virtually untouched except by an occasional dust cloth, and maybe a micro-adjustment on the way to answer the door for company. It seems the CTB’s prime function was to generate the illusion of sophistication by enabling its owner to feign interest in a variety of esoteric subjects: the churches Europe, windmills, Iceland’s waterfalls, and so on.

But here’s a little secret. Turns out, many of these books were actually quite enjoyable. Who knew? As a child naive to the hands-off rules, to occupy myself while the adults were busy chatting about boring stuff, I’d sometime heft one of these beefy tomes onto my lap and page through it.

I found myself most drawn to books dedicated to nature and landscapes—pretty much anything with pictures of mountains, forest, desert, or coastline. For many years my attention was solely on the pictures and I paid no attention to the photographer responsible for them. But eventually I became aware that the images I lingered on longest came courtesy of David Muench. While some were in theme-based CTB photo anthologies filled with images from many photographers, I got to where I could instantly identify Muench’s beautiful captures before checking the photo credit. And I was especially excited whenever I found a book filled exclusively with Muench’s beautiful images of the American outdoors: the Southwest, National Parks, the Rockies—it didn’t really matter.

As a child, my analytical skills and photography aspirations were still many years in the future—I just knew I could spend several minutes on each page, visually caressing each mountain, lake, rock, tree, leaf, and flower. In hindsight, I know that my own photography today, both the scenes I’m drawn to as well as the way I approach them, were organically and profoundly influenced by this exposure to David Muench’s images.

Revelation

I’m writing about this because last month I had the good fortune to get my hands (and eyes) on William Neill’s latest book, “Yosemite: Sanctuary in Stone.” The instant I cracked it open, those childhood feelings of profound awe came flooding back, and instantly I was reminded how much, in this age of ubiquitous screens, I miss the tactile relationship with beautiful photography that can only be provided by a large, well-printed book.

Though it would be undeniably true, labeling “Yosemite: Sanctuary in Stone” a book full of pretty pictures would be a gross understatement. The opposite of derivative, Neill’s images are revelatory in their vision, a reminder that, in any scene, there’s so much more to photograph than we see at first glance.

Most of the images Neill shares in this book are intimate portraits featuring interactions of Earth’s more permanent features with its ephemeral elements, such as light, shadow, water, clouds, rain, fog, and snow. Though few depict the recognizable icons we associate with Yosemite (monoliths and waterfalls), each reveals the natural patterns, color, and contrast that makes Yosemite unique, somehow blending all this into coherent scenes that are so simple, it’s hard to believe no one saw them sooner. The product is a celebration of Nature’s most subtle beauty, rendered all the more beautiful because it’s been pulled from obscurity by a photography master. These images inspire me to continue cultivating my own personal vision, and to bolster my creative foundation by spending more time with profound photography like this.

Feeding My Muse

When I set out to write this, my intent was a straightforward piece honoring William Neill’s beautiful book, and acknowledging the role of the muse in its more conventional sense: an external influence that stimulates an artist’s creative instincts. But the more I wrote, the more I found myself leaning toward my own muse as an internal collaboration between a lifetime of external inputs.

Huh? What I mean is, we’re all influenced by the creations of others, and by our general interactions with the world. That influence can be conscious, like my experience paging through “Yosemite: Sanctuary in Stone,” or unconscious, like my childhood exposure to David Muench’s photography, or simply by spending a night on my back beneath a dark sky generously sprinkled with stars. Regardless, all that input is processed by my internal muse and organically output as inspiration: my internal muse.

A successful image happens at the intersection of vision and craft. Craft taps the analytical part of the brain, enabling us to master a scene’s motion, light, and depth through the control of the camera’s exposure variables, as well as command of hyperfocal technique for managing focus. Vision, more than the mere “eye for composition” many photographers talk about, is the ability to conjure unseen possibilities, and to channel the camera’s unique vision to uncover hidden patterns and relationships. Craft can be refined and honed by study and repetition, while vision is more elusive.

This is where I call on my internal muse to blend vision and craft to create (I hope) photographic synergy. But like any creative instinct, the internal muse must be nurtured and fed. I fear that the decline of big photography books like Neill’s has robbed many photographers’ internal muse of a prime source of sustenance. For proof, look no further than the proliferation of derivative photography online, a feedback loop of sameness where Photoshop amplification and AI manufacturing substitutes for inspiration and vision.

Of course taking my muse out into the field is easier said than done. I love sharing beautiful locations with my workshop students, but when I’m leading a photo workshop, my own priorities take backseat to theirs. I can’t explore and experiment the way I do when I’m on my own. But that doesn’t keep me from trying.

Putting My Muse to Work

In April I did two Yosemite workshops that focused on Yosemite at its saturated spring best. Both groups chased rainbows in Yosemite’s booming waterfalls, mirror reflections in the valley’s many ephemeral pools, and pristine dogwood blooms decorating the swollen Merced River. A particular highlight this year was the opportunity to share the Upper Cascades in full flow.

The Upper Cascades vantage point I like is the Cascade Creek Bridge on Big Oak Flat Road, just upstream from the Cascade Creek and Tamarack Creek confluence (which is visible from the bridge). Like most waterfalls, Upper Cascades is best in overcast or full shade. So the open southern exposure, and the fact that overcast is relatively rare in California, makes it difficult to find Upper Cascades in ideal light. And since Upper Cascades is fed entirely by snowmelt, its window of opportunity is very small. So I’m thrilled any time I can make it here when the water’s flowing and the light is soft.

On the visit with my first group, after a brief orientation and getting everyone set up, almost as an afterthought I pointed to the bridge over Tamarack Creek just 50 yards or so up the road, telling them it’s a beautiful little creek, but so overgrown that it’s pretty difficult to photograph. But when I noticed a couple heading that way a little later, I couldn’t help wander up there myself to see what they’d found.

This might be a good time to mention that one exercise I use to stimulate my muse when I’m in the field is to think of specific favorite images that were almost certainly not the obvious shot, then challenge myself to find my own less obvious shot. One of those favorite images is William Neill’s Dawn, Lake Louise, Banff National Park, Canada; another is Charles Cramer’s (wait for it…) Cascade Creek, Spring, Yosemite, captured just yards from where I stood that morning. (William Neill also has his own version of the Cascade Creek tree—not a duplicate and equally beautiful—and I honestly don’t know which came first. I default to Charles Cramer’s because it’s the first one I saw, but I love them both.)

So anyway, scanning my the scene, I was first bothered by a single alder tree, just starting to sport its spring green, right smack in the middle of the scene. Then it occurred to me that I could actually use that tree to anchor my scene. My idea was a wide, vertical composition that placed the tree front and center, with the creek racing down the steep slope directly behind it. After working with it for a while, I decided that, while I really liked the composition, the tree needed more leaves. So I made a mental note to try again in a week, on my second group’s Upper Cascades visit, when the leaves might have filled in more.

And that’s exactly what I did. While not as full as I’d hoped, on that second visit the leaves were definitely more visible than the first time and I went straight to work. Though it’s difficult to tell in a two-dimensional image, Tamarack Creek approaches waterfall steep right here. Since there wasn’t enough light to freeze the water at any reasonable ISO, so I just went all-in on motion blur.

Having already worked out the composition on my first visit, I just ran a range of shutter speeds from 1/10 to 5 seconds. Examining my results as I worked, it quickly became clear that the speeds from 1/5 to 1/2 would be best: faster than 1/5 looked scratchy (still blurred, but not smooth); longer than 1/2, the water started to lose definition. This image used 1/4 second—I chose it because it smoothed the water nicely, while still retaining all the definition that conveys its extreme speed.

Opportunities like this during a workshop are fairly rare because I usually need to put my muse on hiatus to focus on my group. When that happens, my best images are usually the more obvious beauty, such a vivid sunrise/sunset, arcing rainbow, rising/setting moon, or any of the many other natural phenomena nature photographers covet and chase relentlessly. But as beautiful as those special moments are, my muse and I are never happier than the quiet times I get to spend working in subtle light, using my creative instincts to extract a scene’s essence.

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My Muse and I

Click any image to scroll through the gallery LARGE

Peaceful Reflection, Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden, Hawaii

Spring Cascade, Tamarack Creek, Yosemite

Redbud, Merced River Canyon

Dogwood and Bubbles, Merced River, Yosemite

Frosted, Cathedral Rocks from El Capitan Bridge, Yosemite

Winter Twilight, Vestrahorn, Iceland

Autumn Cascade, Bridalveil Creek, Yosemite

Secret Bloom, Rhododendron in Lava Tree State Park, Hawaii

Last Light, Cape Royal, Grand Canyon

Before the Sun, South Tufa, Mono Lake

Dogwood Blooms, Yosemite

Meadow Dewdrop, Yosemite Valley

Leaf, Bridalveil Creek, Yosemite

Morning Light, Wildflowers and Upper Yosemite Fall from Sentinel Dome, Yosemite

Churn, Little Colorado River, Grand Canyon

Nature’s Garden, Deer Creek Fall, Grand Canyon

Solitary Leaf, Bridalveil Creek, Yosemite

Aspen Carpet, Lundy Canyon, Eastern Sierra

Brilliant Poppy, American River Parkway, Sacramento

Intimate Poppy, Point Reyes National Seashore

Incoming Storm, Mesquite Flat Dunes, Death Valley

Redwood in Autumn, Tuolumne Grove, Yosemite

Yin and Yang, Autumn Leaf at Bridalveil Creek, Yosemite

Intimate Dogwood, Yosemite Valley

Simple Elegance, California Poppy, Sierra Foothills

Trees and Reflection, Wairepo Arm, New Zealand

Moongazing, Face Rock, Bandon, Oregon

Spring in the Foothills, Sierra Foothills, California

Champagne Glass Poppies, Merced River Canyon, California

Autumn Drift, Bridalveil Creek, Yosemite

Moonlight on the Water, Garrapata Beach, Big Sur

Winter Reflection, El Capitan, Yosemite

Fallen Color, Fern Spring, Yosemite

Dancing Poppy, Sierra Foothills, California

Fern Cascade, Russian Gulch Fall, Russian Gulch State Park (Mendocino), California

Bridalveil Dogwood, Yosemite