Downhill All the Way
Posted on June 5, 2017
El Capitan Reflection, Yosemite
Canon EOS 10D
1/4 second
F22
ISO 100
27 mm
On Saturday, with little fanfare, Alex Honnold stunned the climbing world when he free-soloed El Capitan in Yosemite, the world’s largest granite monolith. (What’s the big deal? From this image, you can clearly see that it’s downhill all the way….)
But seriously…
Speaking for all non-climbers, Alex Honnold didn’t just stun the entire climbing world, he stunned the entire rational world. Soaring three-thousand feet above Yosemite Valley, El Capitan is the Holy Grail of climbing. Among climbers, if you’ve summited El Cap, you’ve made the Major Leagues.
First conquered by Warren Harding in 1958, today dozens of climbers dot El Capitan’s vertical surface on any non-winter day with reasonable weather in the forecast. But until Saturday, all who scale El Capitan do it with ropes and a virtual hardware store worth of climbing aids. Most require multiple days to summit.
Alex Honnold chose to ascend El Capitan unencumbered by ropes or safety hardware of any sort (free climbing uses ropes for safety only; free-soloing is completely sans rope), scampering up the shear granite the old fashioned way, using only his hands and feet like a kid climbing a tree in his backyard. Even more astonishing, he accomplished his feat in less than four hours.
I’m not a climber, and in fact have a difficult time getting within three feet of any un-railed vertical drop greater than thirty feet. But I’ve always lived vicariously through climbers, devouring climbing books, videos, and documentaries just to marvel at their accomplishments. And for years Alex Honnold has been the climber I’ve followed most closely, not just because he’s the best (he is), but also because of our common affinity for Yosemite, and the fact that my daughters went to high school with him (and I was a Honnold fan even before I knew this connection).
I also admire Alex Honnold not only for his skill and accomplishments, but for his humble demeanor (I suspect that he’d prefer climbing in complete anonymity) and quiet wisdom. And though we’ve never met, I can’t help worrying a little about him when I think of the number of mistakes I make with my camera—”Oops, I’m still at ISO 3200 from last night’s Milky Way shoot”; “Crap, I forgot to orient my polarizer”; “Did I remember to focus?” (I could go on)—and realize that for Alex Honnold, even one small mistake likely means death. I mean, even if I knew with absolute certainty that missing my exposure by just 1/3 stop would cause my camera to explode, I’m pretty sure I’d still be dead long ago.
So hats off to you, Alex Honnold, here’s wishing you many happy years as the world’s greatest living climber.
Links
- Check out this “60 Minutes” segment
- Here he is climbing El Sendero Luminoso in Mexico
- And if the video makes you squeamish, here’s a simple interview
An El Capitan Gallery
Seeing the future
Posted on June 1, 2017
Rapids, Half Dome and Tenaya Creek, Yosemite
Sony a7R II
Sony 12-24 f4 G
12mm
.8 seconds
F/9
ISO 200
Ansel Adams and visualization
Most photographers know that Ansel Adams visualized his prints, and the darkroom work necessary to create them, 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 on a synergistic relationship between his 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), to photographers who channel their disappointment with an image into an overzealous Photoshop session, pumping color, adding “effects,” or inserting/removing objects until they achieve the ooooh-factor they crave.
The better approach is to understand the potential in a scene, anticipate the processing that will be required to make the most of it, and shoot accordingly. In other words, Photoshop should inform capture decisions, not fix them.
Putting Photoshop in its place
Every image ever shot, 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, or low-compression jpeg, there’s nothing inherently “pure” about your 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 in the camera, usually opt for the control provided by raw capture and hands-on processing.
Unfortunately, Photoshop’s power makes it difficult for many to know where to draw the processing line. And every photographer draws that line in a different place—one man’s “manipulation” is another’s “masterpiece.” 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 big Photoshop user, I readily acknowledge that it’s an amazing tool that’s an essential part of my workflow. I particularly appreciate that Photoshop gives the me ability to achieve things that are possible with black and white film and a decent darkroom, but difficult-to-impossible with the color transparencies I shot for over 25 years.
Creating an image, from start to finish
I was in Yosemite on a “secret mission” (my inner 10-year-old just loves saying that) for Sony, trying out the yet-to-be-announced (at the time) Sony 12-24 f4 G lens. Among the many places in Yosemite that are especially conducive to ultra-wide photography is Mirror Lake and its view of Half Dome from directly below, and that’s where I started.
Walking up the trail to Mirror Lake, I skirted Tenaya Creek in less than ideal light, scouting potential scenes for later. On the walk back after sunset, I returned to this scene that I’d found and mentally composed earlier. Despite already having an idea of how I wanted to shoot it, there’s quite a bit going on here, so it took some time and a bit of rock scrambling to get all the elements to work together: Half Dome, Tenaya Creek, the nearby evergreen, and the creekside boulders.
While most of the scene was in deep shade, the sky was still relatively bright. Capturing this much dynamic range in an unprocessed jpeg (or color transparency) would have been impossible—my highlights would have been too bright, the color in the sky would have been washed out, and the shadow detail would have been lost to blackness. And that’s exactly what I saw in the jpeg that popped onto my LCD. But despite the crappy looking jpeg on the back of my camera, my histogram told me all my color and detail was there in my raw file.
With a good histogram, I adjusted my ISO up and down, compensating with a corresponding shutter speed adjustment, to get different blur effects in the creek. Opening the raw file in Lightroom, I simply pulled the Highlights slider to the left and the Shadows slider to the right to confirm my successful exposure. While the exposure adjustment was essential, once that was done, there was very little processing left to do. And as much as he enjoyed the dark room, I suspect Ansel would have embraced any technology that gave him more time outdoors with his camera.
Workshop Schedule || Purchase Prints
Different Takes on Half Dome
A Star in the East
Posted on May 22, 2017
Yosemite Falls Sunstar, Yosemite (Sony 12-24 f/4)
Sony a7R II
Sony 12-24 f4 G
12mm
1/30 second
F/20
ISO 100
When Sony asked Don Smith and me to try out their new lenses, I immediately thought of a couple of El Capitan and Half Dome views in Yosemite that would be ideal for the new Sony 12-24 f4 G lens. After great success photographing Yosemite’s granite icons as I’ve never been able to before (okay, well there was that one time last year when I borrowed a friend’s ultra-wide lens), I was ready to go home. But before leaving, I decided to walk up to the bridge beneath Lower Yosemite Fall, which was bursting with spring flow.
With my Yosemite Moonbow and Dogwood workshop starting in just five days, my goal this morning was more to see exactly how wet it is on the bridge than it was to take any more pictures, but I decided to take my camera anyway. On the way back I played with ultra-wide (12mm) vertical compositions of this scene. Still getting used to how much I can actually fit in my frame at 12mm, I flipped the camera to horizontal and was startled to find the sun in the right corner of my viewfinder. Startled because from my location, the top of Yosemite Falls is due north (0 degrees), and the sun at that time was at 125 degrees azimuth (35 degrees south of due east).
I quickly came to terms with this revelation and repositioned myself until the sun was behind a tree, dialed the aperture to f/20, composed, metered, and focused, then clicked as the sun peaked out. For the next ten minutes or so I moved as the sun moved, keeping my lens right on the edge of the tree’s shadow.
I knew the sunstar’s highlights would clip, but I wanted to give the shadows as much light as possible without losing the highlights in the waterfall. And as important as the histogram is in these scenes with brilliant highlights and dark shadows, I knew in this case it wouldn’t tell me the entire story. As I increased the light by lengthening my shutter speed, in my viewfinder (I love mirrorless!) I monitored both the shadow side of the histogram and the highlight alert in the fall. I know that shooting raw on my Sony Alpha bodies, I can increase the exposure a stop beyond where the highlight alert appears, but in this case I found that I only needed to add 2/3 stop before the histogram showed me that I had all the recoverable data in the shadows I needed.
A few words about sunstars
Sunstars can be overdone, but they’re often the best way to make something interesting in difficult light. When I find myself wanting to photograph a clear sky scene facing the sun, I often use the sunstar to add visual interest to a sky that is otherwise pretty boring. Often the sunstar makes an excellent counterbalance to another strong visual object. And while a sunstar isn’t exactly what our eyes see when we look toward the sun, I think it makes a pretty good substitute for the blinding experience of looking into the sun. Take a look at the gallery of images below and ask yourself how many of these images would have been as visually appealing without a sunstar spicing up the sky.
To capture a sunstar, use a small aperture (I usually use f/16 or smaller), remove any filters (to minimize flare), and place the sun on a hard edge with most of the sun obscured: the horizon, a cloud, a tree, a flower, and so on. The more sun visible, the bigger (and more blown out) the sunstar will be. As a general rule, I try to avoid too much sun. And since each lens creates a slightly different sunstar, it helps to experiment with different lenses to determine which ones work best.
I’ll be on my annual Grand Canyon raft trip, off the grid and unable to respond, until May 30
Workshop Schedule || Purchase Prints
A Sunstar Gallery
The cat’s out of the bag…
Posted on May 19, 2017
Spring Rainbow, Catherine Creek Trail, Columbia River Gorge
Sony a7R II
Sony 16-35 f2.8 GM
18mm
1/125 second
F/11
ISO 400
For about three weeks I’ve had to bite my tongue about two new Sony lenses I got to try out a few weeks ago. But yesterday Sony announced their brand new 16-35 f2.8 GM and 12-24 f4 G lenses and I’m free to share.
I spent most of this week just outside of Santa Barbara, California with a hundred or so Sony Artisan and Creative Collective photographers at Sony’s Kando Summit. This event was revelatory in many ways: Not only did I get to commune with fellow Sony Artisan’s who had previously been just names on e-mails and pictures on Facebook, I also learned that the future of photography is in the very capable hands of the Collective members—such an impressive group of creative, intelligent young adults.
For most of the Summit the hardware show-stealer was the brand new Sony a9—each of us got our own a9 to play with (but not to keep) for the duration of the event, along with many great photo opportunities (models, sets, and demonstrations) provided to us by Sony. Without going into a lot of detail, I predict that time will prove that the Sony a9 is an actual photography game changer and not just another “next great camera” cliché.
But the availability of the a9 wasn’t a surprise; the surprise (to almost everyone else) was the announcement of the new 16-35 and 12-24 lenses, and their instant availability (again only to borrow). Since I’d already had nearly a week of quality time with them, I passed on this opportunity, but had to jump aside to avoid being trampled by a stampede of photographers intent on getting their hands on these two new lenses.
Don Smith and I were just wrapping up our back-to-back Columbia River Gorge workshops when Sony asked us if we could stay a couple of extra days to try out their two new (super-secret) lenses. They overnighted them to us, and since we had them for a week, Don and I decided we had time to try them for a couple of extra days at our favorite locations closer to home. For me that was Yosemite (Don went to Big Sur). Since I knew I wanted the 12-24 in Yosemite, I took the 16-35 for our two extra days in the CRG.
First Impressions: 16-35 f2.8 GM
The first thing that struck me about this lens was its compactness. As a landscape shooter always on a tripod, I value compactness over speed in a lens, but this one gives me both. Of course it’s not as compact as my Sony/Zeiss 16-35 f4, but it’s noticeably more compact than my Canon 16-35 f2.8 was. I was also pleased with its smoothness of operation and speed of focus—this lens is definitely a joy to use.
Of course compactness and ease of use mean nothing if a lens isn’t sharp, and I can tell you with certainty that this lens is as sharp as we’ve come to expect Sony’s GM lenses to be—that is, ridiculously sharp from corner to corner and throughout the aperture range. I haven’t really taken the time to do a/b tests against any other lenses (I leave the pixel-peeping to others), but I did magnify many images to 100% (on my 27-inch iMac Retina 5K monitor) and can’t imagine that I have any lenses sharper than this one (including primes).
First Impressions: 12-24 f4 G
Even more than with the 16-35, the 12-24 blew me away with its compactness. I’ve handled the Nikon 14-24 f2.8 many times, and actually used Canon’s 11-24 f4, and as sharp as those lenses are, the first thing I remember about those lenses is their heft—they’re beasts, and just too heavy to carry in my bag for regular use. Not so with the Sony 12-24: This lens is 1/3 the weight of Canon’s 11-24—in fact it’s noticeably lighter than the Canon 24-105, and not much heavier than the Canon 17-40. Wow.
Like the 16-35, this lens just felt good on my camera and in my hand. The operation was smooth, and focus was fast and easy. Having rarely shot with a lens this wide, I found myself frequently surprised by how much more I could get in my frame at 12mm than I can at 16mm—suddenly things not possible with a single click before were very doable. With so many views of very large and close subjects (such as El Capitan and Half Dome), this lens was made for Yosemite. And I did an actual double-take at the top of the trail to lower Yosemite Fall when I realized I could get the entire fall and a sunstar (with the sun behind my right shoulder) in one frame (see the gallery below).
Sharpness? Again, I didn’t do any pixel peeping beyond magnifying my images to 100%, but they looked every bit as sharp as the Canon 11-24 images that blew me away when I used it a year ago. I will own this lens the first day it’s available.
About this image
On the first evening with our new toys, Don and I went to Catherine Creek on the Washington side of the Columbia River Gorge. At the trailhead Don headed off in one direction and I went in the other, eventually ending up at this tree that I remembered from previous visits.
With the wind blowing like crazy, probably 25-35 MPH, this lens was perfect for the wide scenes that deemphasize motion. To further ensure against any motion blur I bumped my ISO to 400 and went to work. I started by balancing the tree with a small waterfall that was down the hillside to my left, but when a surprise rainbow fragment popped out above the Columbia River I quickly shifted position. My exposure variables were already set, so all I had to do was compose, focus, and shoot. Good thing, because the rainbow faded quickly and I only had time for a handful of images before it was gone completely.
Listen to Don and I discuss the new lenses on the Alpha Universe Podcast
Sony 16-35 f2.8 GM and Sony 12-24 f4 G Sample Images
Click an image for a closer look and slide show. Refresh the window to reorder the display.
Spring has sprung
Posted on May 15, 2017
Dogwood and Redbud, Merced River, Yosemite
Sony a7R II
Sony 70-200 f/4
1/40 second
F/4
ISO 200
I spent most of the last week in Yosemite and can confirm that spring has definitely sprung there. The Merced River, swollen by snowmelt, is overspilling its banks, flooding meadows and submerging riverside trails. Reflections are everywhere, and viewing the waterfalls without getting wet? Forget about it.
Another spring highlight is the moonbow that colors the mist beneath Yosemite Falls. A fortunate convergence of Yosemite Falls’ southeast exposure and the angle of the rising full moon when the snowmelt is at its peak make Yosemite one of the best locations in the world to witness a lunar rainbow. I was able to photograph it three times last week, twice with my workshop group and once with a private tour customer. Easily visible to the naked eye as a silvery arc in the billowing mist, a long exposure reveals the moonbow’s true colors.
But of all the spring treats Yosemite offers, for creative photography I think the dogwood might be my favorite. For just a few short weeks in April and May, these graceful blooms shower Yosemite Valley with splashes of white that remind me of the Fourth of July sparklers of my childhood. But unlike the ephemeral sparks of a sparkler, the dogwood progress in slow motion so I can appreciate them at a much more relaxing pace.
I found this branch at the Bridalveil Fall vista on Northside Drive, about a mile east of Valley View. The river was gold with late light, and the air was still as I went to work on the scene. Careful positioning allowed me to juxtapose three layers in my frame: in the foreground is the dogwood branch with varying degrees of detail; the middle-ground is a blend of heavily blurred redbud and more dogwood; all this spring beauty stands out against a backdrop of the sunlit Merced River. I experimented with different depths of field by varying my f-stop, focal length, and focus distance until I was satisfied.
Yosemite Spring
Click an image for a closer look and slide show. Refresh the window to reorder the display.
Moving the eye
Posted on April 29, 2017
Sierra Dawn, Mt. Whitney and the Alabama Hills, California
Sony a7R II
Sony/Zeiss 16-35 f/4
.4 seconds
F/10
ISO 100
With virtually every still camera now equipped with video capability, the last few years have seen an explosion of nature videos. When done well, videos of nature can be quite effective, conveying motion and engaging both eyes and ears to reveal the world in a manner that’s closer to the human experience than a still image is. But like other sensory media whose demise has been anticipated by the arrival of something “better,” (with apologies to Mark Twain) let me say that the rumors of still photography’s death at the hands of videography have been greatly exaggerated.
Just as I much prefer reading the book to watching the movie, I prefer the unique perspective a still image presents. For example, while motion in a video is similar to being there, a still image gives me the freedom to apply my own motion, at my own pace. A video’s frame rate dictates the pace of my relationship with the scene, while entering the world of a photograph gives my eyes the freedom to linger and explore a scene’s nooks and crannies, to savor its nuances at my own pace.
In a video my eyes are essentially fixed while the scene moves before them. In a still image, on the other hand, my eyes do the moving, often following lines in the scene the way a hiker follows a trail to reach a destination. But also like a hiker, I can choose to venture cross-country through an image to more closely scrutinize whatever looks interesting.
About this image
I’d been in the Eastern Sierra, exploring the Alabama Hills specifically looking for scenes near the famous Mobius Arch that didn’t include the arch. Detouring from the well-worn path back to the car, I headed up a rocky creek bed that was carrying water for the first time in recent memory. Soon the creek’s quiet whisper was replaced by the sound of a more agitated rush, hinting at a little faster water somewhere around the next bend. Continuing upstream, I scrambled up a large boulder and was rewarded with an unobstructed view of the Sierra Crest, freshly glazed with snow. Below me the creek cut a diagonal path across weathered granite, rushing through a narrow gap and over a rocky ledge.
The light was poor for photography that evening, so my camera stayed in my bag. Instead, I simply cinched my jacket against the January wind and appreciated the view. Standing there, I thought about the next day’s sunrise, its softer light, and (especially) the nearly full moon that would descend through twilight’s pastel hues.
Having already plotted the moon’s path, I was able to visualize its nearly full disk at the top of my frame, low in the sky between Mt. Whitney and Mt. Williamson. But including the creek in the same frame would pose a problem. Normally I’d drop to creek level to shrink the middle-ground, but because the creek was in a steep-walled ravine of its own creation, any view that included the creek and the Sierra Crest needed to be on higher ground. So I scanned the nearby terrain and soon found a narrow gap between two elevated rocks, just wide enough for me and my tripod with a little creative contortion (by both tripod and photographer), and just high enough to see the mountains.
The next morning I beelined back to “my” spot and went right to work in the predawn gloaming. Wedged into the rocks about five vertical feet above the creek, my perch felt more awkward than dangerous. To fit the entire scene, I used the full width of my Sony/Zeiss 16-35 lens. I was thrilled by how well each visual element meshed vantage point: the mountains—Lone Pine Peak, Mt. Whitney, and Mt. Williamson connected to the tumbling cascade by a slash of moonlit creek, and moon as the scene’s exclamation point. I even liked the way the nearby granite sand and rocks, and the shrubs stripped bare by winter cold and wind, filled the empty surroundings with a pleasing textures and shapes without distracting.
Once I identified and refined my composition until I was confident I’d done as well as I could with it, I clicked at regular intervals to capture the entire sunrise sequence. The moment of this image was darker to my eyes what you see in this frame, dark enough that the creek still reflected moonlight. I was particularly grateful for the dynamic range of my Sony a7RII, which allowed me to capture all this wonderful detail in my scene without turning the moon into a useless white blob.
Images that Move the Eye
Click an image for a closer look and slide show. Refresh the window to reorder the display.
Dogwood days
Posted on April 21, 2017
Forest Dogwood, Yosemite Valley
Canon EOS 5D Mark III
1/80 second
159 mm
ISO 800
F4
People ask all the time for my favorite season in Yosemite, and I really can’t give them an answer that doesn’t sound like a press conference by a waffling politician—there are things I love about each season in Yosemite, so asking me to choose is like asking me to pick a favorite child. But I can tell you what I like about each season, and I’ve always felt that spring in Yosemite is the most consistently photographable—it doesn’t really matter what the conditions are, I can always find something to photograph.
Spring is when Yosemite’s waterfalls peak, and Yosemite Valley starts to green up. Many of the meadows are home to ephemeral pools that reflect Yosemite’s iconic monoliths, soaring cliffs, and plunging waterfalls. And with all the water in the falls, spring sunshine means rainbow opportunities from many spots if you know when to be there.
Maybe my favorite Yosemite spring treat is dogwood, which usually peaks around May 1, give or take a week or two. I enjoy photographing dogwood in any kind of light, from sunshine, to overcast, to full shade. In sunshine, I put backlit blooms against a dark background, expose for the flower, and go to town. The translucence of these backlit flowers gives them a luminosity that appears to originate from within. In overcast and shade, I opt for soft focus that emphasizes my primary subject and reduces the background to colors, lines, and shapes.
Regardless of the light, I start with a bloom, group of blooms, or entire branch, that I can isolate from surrounding distractions. Once I identify a likely candidate, I maneuver myself until I can get the subject against a complementary background, such as shade, shape, and color.
I worked this scene for about a half hour before I was satisfied. I started with the flower-laden branch and moved around a bit until the background was right. Then I tried a variety of focal lengths to simplify, balance, and soften the composition. Once I was satisfied with my composition, I used live-view to focus toward the front of the center cluster. Finally, I ran the entire range of f-stops from f4 to f16, in one-stop increments, to ensure a variety of bokeh effects to choose from.
A Dogwood Gallery
Seeing the whole frame
Posted on April 14, 2017
Moonrise Reflection, Leidig Meadow, Yosemite
Sony a7R II
Sony/Zeiss 24-70 f4
1 second
F/10
ISO 100
Photographers are responsible for every square inch of their frame—not just the primary subject, but every other point of visual interest, and the relationships of those points to each other. Nevertheless, there’s a natural tendency give too much attention to the primary subject at the expense of the rest of the scene. The result is moments in nature that felt special in person fall flat in an image.
I’m a tripod evangelist because there’s just too much going on in most scenes to nail an image on the first click: Reviewing a hand-held image requires us to pull the camera down from the scene we just shot, while composing on a tripod, we can evaluate and refine without changing the prior shot, ensuring that each subsequent click is an improvement of the prior click.
For example
We wrapped up last week’s Yosemite Moonbow and Wildflowers workshop in Leidig Meadow, photographing Half Dome reflecting in small vernal pools. I’d spent most of the evening photographing about 30 feet west of this spot, mostly tighter (but still fairly wide) compositions that used the stump in the center of this frame as a foreground balance-point for Half Dome, and the tall trees splitting the middle to frame the right side. The sunset color had left Half Dome, and I saw that most of the group was starting to pack up.
The April full moon doesn’t align well with Half Dome, so it wasn’t a consideration in that night’s sunset plans. But because the moon (two days from full) rose about two hours before sunset, as the light faded I guessed that it might just about be high enough to top the valley wall. With low expectations I glanced toward the high ridge just east of Sentinel Rock (partially visible on the right in this image), where, what to my wondering eye should appear (oh, wait a minute, wrong story)…, and saw the glow of the moon’s leading edge pushing up through the trees.
I called out to the group and soon everyone was back in action. The window to could capture foreground and lunar detail in a single frame was closing fast, but I knew I’d need to relocate to include the moon effectively.
One important concept I try to convey to my workshop students is “visual weight,” the idea that elements in the frame draw the eye the way gravity tugs an object earthward. Visual weight isn’t quantifiable like gravity; it can vary with many factors that change with the conditions, perspective, and even the viewer (that is, visual weight isn’t entirely a function of the object the object itself). Qualities of an object than can pull the eye in an image include: size, brightness, color, contrast, position in the frame, and emotional connection (for example, the moon).
In this scene I felt that the moon and Half Dome carried equal visual weight: Half Dome for its bulk and iconic status, the moon for its brilliance and emotional pull. Given this, if nothing else I needed to balance the two of them in my frame, so I moved eastward along the pool’s bank until Half Dome and the moon were equidistant from their respective sides, connected by the diagonal of the ridge. The diagonal was a bonus, because another important concept is the power of diagonal lines, both literal lines or lines implied by a virtual connection between two objects, and their ability to generate visual tension by moving they eye along two planes at once.
My next concern was how to handle the rest of the scene. I try to avoid cutting strong elements in my frame, so I opted for a vertical that included all of the tall nearby evergreens and their reflection. This required nearly all the width my 24-70 lens offered (if I’d have had more time, I’d have switched to my 16-35), and shrunk the moon quite a bit. Since I’ve always believed that even a small moon (in a wide composition) carries lots of weight, I don’t usually worry too much about that if the rest of the composition calls for it, and I’m happy with my choice here.
With the primary subjects handled, I still needed to address the rest of the frame. My prime concern was the grass in the reflection—though it doesn’t carry nearly the visual weight of Half Dome and the moon, it does have some visual pull, especially the way it stands out against the pristine reflection. I try to avoid anything that my draws the eye to the edge of my frame, so after evaluating my first click on my LCD, I tweaked the composition slightly to keep the borders as free of grass clumps and blades as possible.
In a perfect world the large clump on the bottom left would have had a little more room around it, but the world rarely cooperates perfectly and I soon realized that going wider to give that clump more space would have introduced even greater distractions elsewhere. I was also aware that the stump that had been a focus point of my earlier compositions (lots of visual weight), in my new position was mostly swallowed by the reflection, but there was nothing I could do about that.
The hyperfocal distance at my current focal length and f-stop was 9 feet (focusing nine feet in would have given me “acceptable” sharpness from 4 1/2 feet to infinity), but since the closest grass was at least 10 feet away, I focused farther into the scene to ensure an even sharper background.
Exposing a scene like this on my Sony a7RII is so easy it feels like cheating: I just kept dialing my shutter speed longer until the “zebra” highlight alert appeared in the moon, then pushed the exposure another 2/3 stop knowing I could easily recover the moon’s highlights in Lightroom.
Though this was billed as a “Moonbow and Wildflowers” workshop, we got neither: clouds prevented us from photographing the moonbow in Yosemite Fall, and the wildflowers in Merced River Canyon weren’t quite ready for primetime. But I don’t think anyone in the group would trade what we got for what we’d planned. This workshop included (daylight) waterfall rainbows, multiple clearing storms, more reflections than we could count, and even a little snowfall. Our shoot this evening was a fitting finale.
Using the whole frame
A few of my favorite things
Posted on March 30, 2017
Yosemite Falls Reflection, Swinging Bridge, Yosemite
Sony a7R II
Sony/Zeiss 16-35 f/4
1/20 seconds
F/9
ISO 100
I love being a photographer, but it’s an unfortunate reality that turning your passion into your profession risks sapping the pleasure when earning money takes priority over taking pictures. When I decided to make photography my livelihood, it was only after observing other very good amateur photographers who, lulled by the ease of digital photography, failed to anticipate that running a photography business requires far more than taking good pictures. Rather than an opportunity for further immersion in their passion, their new profession forced them to photograph not for love, but to put food on the table. And with the constant need for marketing, networking, bookkeeping, collections, taxes, and just plain keeping customers happy, these newly minted photographers soon found that little time remained for the very thing that led them to become photographers in the first place.
I changed from photographer to Photographer about twelve years ago. After seeing what the change had done to others, my transition started with a vow to photograph only what I want to photograph, and to never photograph something simply because I thought I could sell it. In my case that meant sticking with landscapes: no people or wildlife (in other words, pretty much nothing that moves).
But how to make money? For that answer I had to look no farther than my career in technical communications: For five years I’d been a technical writer for a (very) large high tech company; before that I’d spent fifteen years tech training, supporting, documenting, and testing a programming language for a small software company. This experience, combined with a lifetime of camping, hiking, backpacking, and (of course) photographing throughout the western US, made photo workshops a logical choice. Today my workshops, supplemented by writing and print sales, allow me to pay the bills, visit favorite destinations, and explore new locations.
And most importantly, my new life has allowed me to concentrate on photographing the subjects and locations I love most. In no particular order (and far from all-inclusive), my favorite subjects include: poppies, the Milky Way, the moon (both crescent and full), rainbows, moonlight, fresh snow, dogwood, bristlecone pines, lightning, fall color, reflections. Among my favorite locations are Yosemite Valley, Grand Canyon’s North Rim, the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, California’s foothills, Maui’s bamboo forest, and Kilauea Caldera.
Of course nothing beats photographing a favorite subject at a favorite location. To maximize my opportunity to combine favorite subjects and locations, I monitor weather forecasts, check local condition reports (to learn where the trees have turned or the wildflowers are blooming), study natural phenomena to learn how to anticipate an event (such as rainbows and lightning), and plot celestial alignments and add them to my calendar.
Despite (and more likely because of) a lifetime of visits, Yosemite Valley remains at the top of my favorite locations. I can’t give you a favorite season, but I can tell you that my favorite time to be in Yosemite is just after a snowstorm, when every exposed surface is glazed white and overhead swirls an ever-changing mix of clouds and blue sky.
Today’s image of snowy Yosemite with Upper Yosemite Fall reflected in the Merced River is the product of a week’s worth of monitoring weather reports and schedule shifting. That day started with a lock-down blizzard that obscured all views beyond 100 yards, but by late morning the clouds started to lighten and lift and soon the clearing was underway in earnest. Sometimes when a storm clears in Yosemite I’ll pick a spot and work it through the entire clearing process; on this day I took the other approach, moving around capture the clearing in a variety of locations.
I ended up at Swinging Bridge in mid-afternoon. The Merced River widens and slows here, making reflections possible even in high water months. Though Swinging Bridge no longer swings (but I remember when it did), it does bounce enough to jiggle a tripod at the slightest step. To minimize the vibration, I try to set up my tripod atop one of the bridge’s support pillars, but that didn’t give me the exact angle I wanted on this afternoon so I just needed to take extra care to stay still and time my clicks when the bridge was empty.
In the fifteen or so minutes I photographed here that afternoon I tried a variety of compositions, horizontal and vertical. I also played with my polarizer, sometimes maximizing the reflection, other times dialing it down to reveal the rocky riverbed below. Most of my compositions were a little tighter than this, but here I went with a vertical orientation wide enough to include lots of blue sky, and the trees and their reflection from top to bottom. My polarizer was turned to the partial range, enough to capture Upper Yosemite Fall’s reflection, while still revealing some of the submerged smooth stones nearer the bridge. The trees were partially lit by cloud-filtered sunlight just starting to break through.
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Silent Night
Posted on March 21, 2017
Silent Night, Yosemite Valley from Tunnel View
Sony a7R II
Sony/Zeiss 16-35 f/4
20 seconds
F/5.6
ISO 1250
One perk of being a photographer is the opportunity to experience normally crowded locations in relative peace. That’s because the best nature photography usually happens at most people’s least favorite time to be outside: crazy weather and after dark. A couple of weeks ago in Yosemite I got the opportunity to enjoy both.
After spending a snowy Sunday guiding a couple around Yosemite Valley in a snowstorm, I dropped them back at (the hotel formerly known as) The Ahwahnee with nothing but the drive home on my mind. But winding through the valley in the fading twilight I saw signs of clearing skies and made a snap decision to check out the scene at Tunnel View.
I found the vista at Tunnel View gloriously empty. By the time I’d set up my camera and tripod the darkness was nearly complete, but as my eyes adjusted I could make out large, black holes in the once solid clouds overhead. Soon stars dotted the blackness above El Capitan and the white stripe of Bridalveil Fall. Each time light from the waxing gibbous moon slipped through the shifting clouds, the entire landscape lit up as if someone had flipped a switch.
Because the best parts of the view were in a narrow strip starting with the snow-glazed trees beneath me and continuing through the scene and up into the star-studded sky, I opted for a vertical composition. To include as much foreground and sky as possible, I went nearly as wide as my 16-35 lens would allow, more or less centering El Capitan and Bridalveil Fall to give the snow and stars equal billing.
Being completely comfortable with my a7RII’s high ISO performance, I didn’t stress the 1250 ISO that allowed me to stop down to a slightly sharper f/5.6 (virtually every lens is a little sharper stopped down from its largest aperture). Night focus with the Sony a7RII is extremely easy, easier than any camera I’ve ever used that isn’t an a7S/a7SII. Often I manually focus on the stars and use focus peaking* to tell me I’m sharp; in this case I back-button auto-focused on the contrast between the moonlit snow and dark granite near Bridalveil Fall. I chose a long enough shutter speed to capture motion blur in the rapidly moving clouds, knowing the potential for visible star streaking was minimized by my extremely wide focal length.
My favorite thing about that evening? The 20 seconds my shutter was open, when I didn’t have anything to do but stand there and enjoy the view in glorious silence.
* Focus peaking is a mirrorless feature that highlights in the viewfinder the in-focus areas of your scene.
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Yosemite After Dark
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Eloquent Images by Gary Hart 