In the Pink

Gary Hart Photography: Earth-Shadow and Setting Moon, Mt. Whitney and the Alabama Hills, Eastern Sierra

Earth-Shadow and Setting Moon, Mt. Whitney and the Alabama Hills, Eastern Sierra
Sony a7R V
Sony 24-105 G
1/5 second
F/16
ISO 100

Photographing natural beauty starts with identifying relationships, then framing those relationships into something coherent and compelling. Usually we do that by finding a vantage point that aligns two or more fixed landscape features—for example, a distant peak reflected in a mountain lake, or a waterfall plummeting into crashing surf.

Of course, the more striking these relationships are, the more visitors they draw, the more images they inspire, and the more difficult it becomes to capture images that stand out. So, to distinguish our efforts, we photographers go to great lengths to augment inherently beautiful relationships with less permanent natural features—good (however it’s “good” defined) light, colorful sunrises and sunsets, dramatic clouds, celestial features like the moon or the Milky Way, and so on.

The Alabama Hills, in the shadow of the Sierra’s highest peaks, are thousands of large rounded boulders that make ideal foregrounds for the assortment of serrated mountains above. A more perfect arrangement for nature photographers couldn’t be assembled. But of course, this is no secret, and the Alabama Hills are among the most popular photography spots in California.

The first thing we do to distinguish our images is photograph this scene in the best light, which is almost always sunrise and just a little before, when the peaks glow with the warm rays of the rising sun. But alas, this too is no secret.

I’m not saying it’s impossible to capture special images in the Alabama Hills by just showing up at sunrise, but that usually requires a little luck—for example, great clouds that light up with color, or maybe a (rare) dusting of fresh snow.

My go-to move is adding the moon to my Alabama Hills / Sierra Crest scenes. (And when I say “add,” I mean the honorable, old-fashioned way, not with AI or other digital shenanigans.) Sometimes I make the trip by myself, but usually I make it happen on the final day of my Death Valley workshop. And because there’s only one “best” day to photograph a full (-ish) moon setting behind the crest in each lunar cycle, I have to be very careful scheduling this workshop.

But even nailing the day doesn’t ensure success. Clouds are the biggest concern, especially in winter, but each year the timing and position of the moon’s disappearance behind the crest on that ideal day is a little different. In January and early February (when I always schedule this workshop), from my preferred location the moon sets somewhere between Mt. Whitney and Mt. Williamson (California’s two highest peaks), usually closer to Williamson.

For any moon photography, the darker the sky, the better the moon stands out. So for me, the best time to photograph any setting full moon starts about 20 minutes before sunrise—as soon as the landscape has brightened enough to allow me to capture foreground detail without blowing out the moon (with one click, thank-you-very-much). As the sky brightens and the foreground gets easier, the essential contrast between the sky and moon decreases. By about five minutes after sunrise, the contrast has decreased enough for me to put my camera away.

One of my favorite things about my Death Valley (and Alabama Hills) workshop is we get two “ideal” sunrise moonsets for the price of one. On our last day in Death Valley we photograph the moon setting behind Manly Beacon from Zabriskie Point. Because the horizon behind which the moon sets is only 3 degrees, this moonset happens much closer to the “official” (flat horizon) sunrise that is universally used for any celestial rise and set. The next morning, even the the moon’s flat-horizon set is nearly an hour later than the day before, because the Sierra Crest is about 10 degrees above the horizon when viewed from the Alabama Hills, the actual moonset we see happens at just about the same time as the prior day’s moonset.

Which is exactly what happened for this year’s workshop group. We followed up a beautiful Death Valley Zabriskie Point sunrise moonset, with a similarly beautiful Alabama Hills sunrise moonset the next day. This year’s Alabama Hills timing was especially nice because we caught the moon hovering in the gorgeous pink and steely blue band that floats just above the western horizon about 20 minutes before sunrise, then descends and warms as the sun ascends toward the opposite horizon.

I (and many other photographers) have labeled this band the “twilight wedge,” but it has other similarly non-scientific names. The dark blue portion is actually Earth’s shadow, while the pink is the day’s first rays of direct sunlight, when the sun is still low enough above the horizon that the only wavelengths that can make their way all the way across the sky are the longest, red wavelengths. In fact, the Alabama Hills and Sierra Crest are known as among the best places on Earth to view alpenglow, which happens when the peaks above the viewer’s vantage point soar high enough to jut into this pink twilight wedge band.

The twilight wedge had just reached its most vivid hues when I clicked this image. To my eyes, this entire scene, except the moon, and especially the foreground, was much darker than this. But my camera’s ridiculous dynamic range, combined with Lightroom’s masking that allows me to process the sky and foreground independently from each other, made this image possible.