Eloquent Images by Gary Hart
Insight, information, and inspiration for the inquisitive nature photographer
The Show Must Go On
Ablaze, Desert View Sunset, Grand Canyon
Sony a7R V
Sony 100-400 GM
Sony 1.4x Teleconverter
ISO 100
f/9
1/1600 second
Greetings from Grand Canyon.
A big part of nature photography is anticipation and planning. And with planning comes expectations. Sadly, expectations often don’t live up to reality, so another big part of nature photography is how you handle the situations when expectations aren’t met.
To those people who preempt disappointment by simply avoiding expectations (after all, if you don’t have expectations, you can’t be disappointed) I say, what fun is that? Despite the risk of disappointment, I truly enjoy getting excited about upcoming trips—then just do my best to make the most of whatever situation has dashed my expectations.
When planning my workshops, I try to remember that it’s not just my own expectations on the line—big promises also means the potential for big disappointment. And few things ramp up expectations, both my own and my workshop students’, more than the possibility of photographing lightning at the Grand Canyon. Of course with or without lightning, Grand Canyon is special. But let’s be honest—the only reason I schedule this workshop in Grand Canyon’s most crowded month is because that’s the best time for lightning. And despite all the inherent beauty here, lightning is the prime reason most of my workshop students sign up. The number two reason? Probably the opportunity to visit the North Rim.
This year, the first threat to everyone’s expectations came in July, when Grand Canyon Lodge on the North Rim burned, forcing the closure of that side of the park. Though the North Rim doesn’t have the views to match the South Rim, I’ve always believed the rest of the North Rim experience exceeds the South Rim: fewer people, evergreen forest setting, and rustic Grand Canyon Lodge. Additionally, the North Rim has been the site of some of my groups’ most spectacular lightning successes. But rather than cancel the workshop because we lost our two North Rim nights, I just switched those lost nights to the South Rim, where I believed (crossed my fingers) that the overall experience could be just as good, only different: expectations reset.
Smoke can create havoc at Grand Canyon, but at the time the fire changed my plans, I fully expected that it would be extinguished when my workshop came around (a month later). I also consoled myself with the belief that the chances for lightning this year would be no different than any other year (extremely good). In other words, expectations were back on the rise.
But, as the workshop drew near, the fire actually exploded from fewer than 10,000 acres to its current 145,000 acres (and climbing), with the containment percentages barely budging each day (it’s currently only 44% contained). Worse still, as August approached, it started to become clear that this was not a good monsoon year in Northern Arizona. Expectations cratered.
The workshop’s first day dawned with no hope for lightning, and a canyon filled with smoke—not a great combo. But by this time, we were in “the show must go on” mode, and I was grateful to have a group that was happy to stay as positive as I was. At the orientation I laid out the scenario, and gave them a rundown of all the ways we could make the best of it. I reminded them that some of my favorite Grand Canyon images were only possible because the smoke subdued a brilliant sun, and I’ve seen the forecast turn from clear to thunderstorms with very little warning.
Making it out to the east-side views on our first shoot, we found the skies cloudless, and a fair amount of smoke. But the smoke could have been much worse, and was thin enough to permit at least a decent view into the nearby portions of the canyon, with outlines of the canyon’s internal ridges receding down the canyon to the west. Not the iconic red rock grandeur people expect at Grand Canyon, but quite photogenic for anyone with a telephoto lens and reasonable understanding of exposure.
The view that evening enabled me to reemphasize the point I’d made in the orientation: this would likely be a sunset where the sun, receding ridges, and a telephoto lens would take the day. Even with the smoke, careful exposure would be required to capture (in a single frame) enough canyon detail for silhouettes, without blowing out the sun.
That’s exactly the approach I took for this Desert View sunset image from that first evening. I started by setting up my 100-400 with a 1.4 teleconverter for the biggest sun possible, then composed a few sample frames while the sun was about 15 minutes from the horizon. This gave me enough time to anticipate the spot on the distant canyon rim where the sun would disappear, and to play with the possible compositions, finally arriving at this one at a little less than 500mm. Then I waited.
I held my breath a few minutes later when the sun disappeared into a layer of clouds, exhaling only when it reappeared shortly thereafter. As it dropped to within a sun’s-diameter of the horizon, I started clicking, keeping a close eye on my camera’s histogram and highlight alerts (“zebras”), while pushing the exposure to as bright as I could make it without losing color in the sun. To hedge my bets, I varied my exposure up and down by a couple of stops, my standard practice any time the sun is in my frame. (This allows me to use my large monitor at home to select the image with the best highlights/shadows balance.)
Honestly, the resulting images looked like crap on my LCD: the sun appeared too bright, while the canyon was virtually black. But I know my camera well enough to know that both highlights and shadows were within the recoverable range. Not only that, underexposing everything but the sun turned the clouds a fiery orange-red.
Processing this image was actually a piece of cake: I just pulled Lightroom’s Highlights slider all the way to the left, the Shadows slider all the way to the right, then adjusted the Exposure slider upward until everything felt right. Believe it or not, as soon as I finished those three moves, the sun and clouds looked pretty much like this (no special masking, blending, or color adjustment required)—I actually chose to desaturate the color a bit in Photoshop to make everything look more credible. Besides some moderate noise reduction in the darkest areas of the frame, this image required very little more than that. (Amazing how much simpler processing is when you nail the exposure.)
We’re now on workshop Day 3, and it turns out that initial shoot was our smokiest. Though we haven’t seen many clouds (yet), and have had lots of smoke in the distance, the canyon itself, as well as the sky above, has been sufficiently smoke-free to permit very clear views all the way down to the river, and brilliant sunstars (which require the brightest possible sun) at each sunrise/sunset shoot after that first one.
I’ve also found myself even more thrilled than I expected to be to have much more time on the South Rim—not only do we have two more days here, we also didn’t lose most of one day to the drive to the North Rim. That’s allowed me to take group to a few favorite locations that I’ve never had time to share with groups before. And I’ve been doing this so long, I’ve found very effective workarounds to the daunting South Rim crowds.
And as if to reward everyone’s positive spirit, now the National Weather Service has dangled hints of thunderstorms for tomorrow, and completely dropped the hints in favor of downright promises for the day following (fingers crossed). So things are definitely looking up.
Having lost the North Rim for the foreseeable future, I wasn’t sure I was going to continue this workshop. But after this week’s experience, even without the normal amount of lightning, all systems are go for next year.
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Eloquent Images by Gary Hart 
Another gorgeous collection of images.
Wow!!! Great shot!!! I have been there!