Eloquent Images by Gary Hart
Insight, information, and inspiration for the inquisitive nature photographer
(Mostly) Unrelated Ramblings on Editing and Color in Nature
Brilliant, Little Colorado River, Grand Canyon
Sony α1
Sony 12-24 GM
1/800 second
F/18
ISO 100
Lately I’ve been on a bit of a crusade against manufactured images in general, and AI use in particular. But, lest you perceive me as a luddite and old-school photography codger (“In my day, every shoot was a 5-mile uphill walk through snow in both directions, and sunrise always came at 1:00 a.m.”), let me just say that I am all-in on digital capture and all most of its benefits, from instant image review, to the histogram, to the ability to dodge and burn my color captures. It’s been more than 20 years since my digital conversion, and I can’t think of a single thing I miss about shooting film. (Okay, maybe my Olympus OM-2, and being able to use the same camera for more than 25 years.)
Most of my digital editing is stuff like setting the color temperature, simple dodging and burning, and an occasional crop. But one capability that I’ve grown especially fond of is the ability to remove things that don’t belong. But before I talk about that, let me set the scene for this image.
I’ll never forget the first time I laid eyes on the Little Colorado River where it intersects with the Colorado River. Prior to my Grand Canyon raft trip, my only exposure to the Little Colorado came far up stream, where I’d get a quick view of its muddy brown puddles or (in wet years) thin brown stripe, briefly visible from the bridge as I zipped through Cameron, Arizona, on my way to and from the North Rim or Page.
By the second day of my first Grand Canyon raft trip, I was already completely blown away by the unique and completely unexpected features at the bottom of the canyon. That day had been a mix of clouds and sun—ideal for photography, but since I still wasn’t completely sure that the guides knew what was important to us photographers, I stayed vigilant for worthy subjects as we floated beneath the towering walls. After spending most of the trip to this point in relatively narrow Marble Canyon, just upstream from (what I now know to be) the confluence with the Little Colorado River, the canyon walls separated a bit and I could tell the geology was changing. When we tied up at a nondescript sandy beach, I remember looking around and thinking, Really? Surely we can find a better spot to take advantage of this great light.
When Wiley, my lead guide, suggested that we grab our cameras and go explore for 45 minutes or so, at first I wasn’t even sure whether I wanted to lug my camera bag, but since this was my group, I decided needed to set a good example. Camera bag in tow but still skeptical (me, not the camera bag), I followed a short trail through the shrubs with the rest of the group on my heals like a string of ducklings. Rounding a corner, I emerged from the brush and stopped like I’d slammed into a brick wall. Unable at first to process what I was seeing, I finally turned and managed to call back to Wiley, “Uh, we’re going to need more time here.”
Defying expectations
This might be a good time to mention that there is nothing subtle about color in nature. Perhaps you’ve noticed? In fact, the vivid natural hues that surround us may just be my favorite thing to photograph. I’m afraid most of us live our lives taking for granted a certain range of natural color constants: that the sky will feature a familiar blue throughout the day, bracketed by certain shades of red or orange at sunrise and sunset, before darkening to something close to black at night. Our daytime clouds are white or gray, and water is some predictable shade of green or blue, depending on light and clarity. Even when nature’s color intensifies to a hue and brilliance that moves us to pause and take note (or photograph), it’s reliably within our range of expectations—a crimson sunset, spring wildflowers, or the extra rich blues of a mountain lake.
But sometimes nature throws us a curve. It’s impossible not to be gobsmacked the greens and reds of an aurora; Death Valley’s aptly named Artist’s Palette features a bizarre array of purple, green, and pink rocks; smoke from wildfires can turn the midday sky an otherworldly orange, sometimes thousands of miles distant. And I’ll never forget the first time I laid eyes on the green and blue glacial lakes of the Canadian Rockies and New Zealand. But for me, none of these sights were as disorienting as my first view of the Little Colorado River’s azure hues.
So what’s going on?
What happened to the familiar brown puddles I remember upstream? Clearly, somewhere in the 55 or so river miles between Cameron and Grand Canyon, the Little Colorado had gotten an upgrade. Not only was there a lot more water, its shade of blue was not a color I’d ever seen in water.
As it turns out, after leaving Cameron, the Little Colorado twists along a scenic canyon of its own creation, carving deep enough to puncture a travertine-laced aquifer that recharges, and colors, its meager flow. The travertine (limestone formed by mineral springs) is infused with magnesium and calcium that adds the blue hue to the water, and deposits other minerals that paint the rocks and riverbed a reflective white, creating a complementary contrast to the azure hue. Adding to all this magnificence is the rich red of the surrounding Grand Canyon walls.
Threading the needle
Of course like most things in nature, the Little Colorado’s color is not guaranteed. When the source of its flow is runoffs, either from snowmelt or the summer monsoon, the Little Colorado’s natural blue is overpowered by reddish brown sediment washed downstream. So each year I try to thread the needle between the end of the snow runoff and start of the monsoon runoff, scheduling my raft trips for May. Not only does May usually ensure a blue LCR, we also get to enjoy the Colorado River at its translucent green best by avoiding the Colorado River’s monsoon sediment that’s not unlike chocolate pudding.
Since I have to schedule this trip more than a year in advance, there’s no way of knowing whether the LCR will be blue until we arrive at it. Even the guides can do no more than guess at its current status because there’s no webcam or other direct monitoring at the confluence, and reports from prior trips need to wait until they’ve navigated the final 200 miles downstream.
The other tricky thing is the sky—without clouds, midday visits aren’t great for photography, so in recent years we try to time our LCR arrival for late afternoon. This puts large segments in deep shadow, even on sunny days, and also pretty much guarantees that we’ll be the only ones there.
I’ve only found the LCR brown once—that year we could tell as we approached the LCR confluence and saw the brown mixing with the Colorado’s deep green. We just aborted our landing and continued on downstream.
This year’s visit
This year’s trip enjoyed a really nice mix of clouds and blue sky throughout. Most of the clouds were of the puffy, photogenic variety, but we did have a few that looked pretty threatening. And aside from a handful of raindrops one night (not enough that anyone who wasn’t already awake would have even noticed), we stayed completely dry—while we were on solid ground.
There was a small disagreement among the guides about our chances for a blue LCR—Lindsay was skeptical because of brown water a couple of weeks prior; Wiley said there had been enough time for the brown runoff to abate. I couldn’t tell if Wiley’s take was just whistling in the dark optimism, or if he really believed it, so I held my breath as we approached the LCR confluence. When I heard his reaction at the first sight of distinctive blue (“Gary, you’re the luckiest guy I know!”), I could tell he hadn’t been quite as confident as he’d sounded.
This year’s LCR visit was a preview of the mix of sky and clouds we’d enjoy all week, and we took full advantage. For most of the group, the reaction to their first view of the otherworldly blue was similar to my reaction the first time I saw it. But the scene here is about far more than striking blue water—towering buttes, jutting red boulders, polished sandstone shelves, and green-gold reeds create an abundance of compositional variety. But with an open campsite directly across the river, we had the schedule flexibility to enjoy plenty of quality time there before setting up camp.
As soon as we were off the boat people scattered. With so much going on visually, scenes like this can be a little overwhelming to first time visitors, so I took my time wandering upstream, answering questions and making suggestions on the way. It was really cool to see people using everything from ultra-wide to telephoto—all valid approaches.
At first the clouds dominated the sky, but I couldn’t really take advantage and only managed a handful of shots, none of which especially thrilled me. But when the clouds started to break up, I saw an approaching opportunity to create a sunstar and looked around for a composition to go with it. With little time to spare before the sun emerged, I found something nearby that would work—the only problem was, one of the people in my group was set up and firing away at his own scene no more than 10 feet in front of me.
Since my personal rule when I’m with a group is that my images always take backseat to my groups’, I never ask anyone to move when they’re actively working on something. So I just framed up my shot anyway, and waited for the sun. It popped out about 30 seconds later, long enough for me to get a half-dozen or so frames with a beautiful sunstar, as well a not so beautiful photographer, before the clouds swallowed the sun and I moved on to other opportunities.
The sun came and went several times that afternoon, and I got a few more sunstar images that didn’t include another photographer, but when I got home and loaded my images, that first one was my favorite. Enter Content-Aware Fill.
In a matter of seconds—just the time it took to circle the offending subject in Photoshop and hit my Delete key—I ended up with the scene you see here. The resulting replacement was amazingly close to what it would have been had he not been there, and I defy anyone to tell me exactly where the replacement happened.
Of course this opens another can of worms that I don’t want to get into today: what’s an “appropriate” edit? All I’ll say is that each photographer draws his or her own line, and there are no absolute rules besides honesty. Where’s my line? I will remove things that (in my opinion) don’t belong—e.g., contrails, other people, car lights—as long as I can do it in a way that doesn’t noticeably alter the scene from what it would have been had those unnatural elements not been there. I absolutely don’t add or move things.
As someone who tries to photograph the natural world as it would be without human interference, Lightroom/Photoshop remove tools are a godsend. Just don’t get me started AI fabrication…
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Eloquent Images by Gary Hart 