Striking lightning (before it strikes you)
Posted on August 15, 2012
Lightning Strike Above the Colorado River, Lipan Point, Grand Canyon
Canon EOS-5D Mark III
32 mm
1/20 second
F/16
ISO 100
Let’s start with the given that lightning is dangerous, and the distinct possibility that photographers are stupid. Combining the two is a recipe for disaster. Add a shear, one-mile deep canyon with lots of exposed outcrops and…, well, you get the idea.
Okay, seriously, lightning is both dangerous and unpredictable. Before attempting anything that requires you to be outside during an electrical storm, it behooves you to do your homework: the more you understand lightning, and how to stay safe in its midst, the greater your odds of enjoying the fruits of any attempt to photograph it. Not only will understanding lightning improve your safety, it will also help you anticipate and capture lightning.
The shocking truth about lightning
Lightning is an electrostatic discharge that equalizes the negative/positive polarization between two objects. (When you get shocked touching a doorknob, you’ve been struck by lightning.) The cause of polarization during electrical storms isn’t completely understood, but it’s generally accepted that the key factor is the extreme vertical convective air motion within a thunderstorm (convection is up/down circular flow caused when less-dense warm air rises, becomes more dense as it cools, and falls; convection is also what causes the rising bubbles in boiling water). Convection carries positively charged molecules upward and negatively charged molecules downward. Because opposite charges attract each other, the extreme polarization (positive charge at the top of the cloud, negative charge near the ground) is quickly (and violently) equalized: lightning.
With lightning comes thunder, the sound of air expanding rapidly (exploding) when heated by a 50,000 degree by lightning bolt. The lightning that caused the thunder travels to you at the speed of light, over 186,000 miles per second (virtually instantaneous regardless of distance). But thunder, traveling at the speed of sound (a little more than 750 miles per hour—a million times slower than light), takes its time. Knowing that the thunder occurred with the lightning flash, and how fast it travels, we can compute the approximate distance of the lightning strike. At 750 miles per hour, thunder will travel a mile in about five seconds. Dividing the time between the lightning’s flash and the thunder’s crash by five gives you the lightning’s distance in miles; divide the interval by three for the distance in kilometers. If five seconds pass between the lightning and the thunder, the lightning struck about one mile away; fifteen seconds elapsed means it’s about three miles away.
Lightning safety
The 30 people killed by lightning in the United States each year had one thing in common: each didn’t believe he or she would be struck by lightning when they started whatever it was they were doing when they were struck. The only sure way to be safe in an electrical storm is to be in a fully enclosed structure or metal vehicle, away from open windows, plumbing, wiring, and electronic devices.
Unfortunately, photographing lightning requires being outside. While there’s no completely safe way to photograph lightning, it doesn’t hurt to improve your odds of surviving to enjoy the fruits of your labor. Most lightning strikes within a six mile radius of the previous strike. So, if less than thirty seconds elapses between the flash and bang, you’re too close. And since “most” doesn’t mean “all,” it’s even better to allow a little margin for error. Thunder isn’t usually audible beyond ten miles—if you can hear the thunder, it’s safe to assume that you’re in lightning range.
But if you absolutely, positively must be outside with the lightning crashing about you, or simply find yourself caught outside with no available shelter, there are few things you can do to reduce the chance you’ll be struck:
- Avoid water
- Avoid high ground
- Avoid exposed areas
- Avoid metal or electronic objects
- Avoid tall objects such as trees and open structures (and tripods)
- Stay at least fifteen feet from other people
- If you’re surrounded by trees, position yourself near shorter trees, as far from trunks as possible
- Crouch with your feet together and your hands covering your ears
- Do not lie down
- A lightning strike is often preceded by static electricity that makes your hair stand on end and an ozone smell (best described as the smell of electricity—I think of bumper cars at the amusement park or the smell of my electric slot cars when I was a kid)—if your hair starts to stand up and/or you notice a distinct odor that could be ozone, follow as many of the above steps as you can, as quickly as possible (often you’ll only have time to crouch)
Photographing daylight lightning with a lightning trigger
Photographing lightning at night is mostly a matter of pointing your camera in the right direction with a multi-second shutter speed and hoping the lightning fires while your shutter’s open—pretty straightforward. Photographing daylight lightning is a little more problematic. Without a lightning trigger to recognize lightning and click your shutter, success is largely dumb luck (few people are quick enough see it and click).
So just what is a lightning trigger? I thought you’d never ask. A lightning trigger is a device that attaches to your camera’s hot shoe and connects via a special cable to the camera’s remote release jack. When engaged, it fires the shutter immediately upon detecting lightning.
There are many lightning triggers from which to choose. I went with the one that was the consensus choice among photographers I know and trust: Lightning Trigger from Stepping Stone Products in Dolores, CO. At slightly less than $400, it’s far from the cheapest option, but from all I’ve read, heard, and now experienced, these aren’t generic products and the internal technology matters a lot. No regrets so far.
I won’t get into lots of specifics about how to set up the trigger because it’s quite simple and covered well in the included documentation. You should know that connecting it does disable the LCD replay, so you won’t be able to review your captures or histogram without disconnecting it (a simple but inconvenient task).
The Lightning Trigger documentation promises at least a 20 mile range, and I saw nothing that caused me to question that. It also says you can expect the trigger to fire at lightning that’s not necessarily in front of you—I can attest to that too. For every click with lightning in my camera’s field of view, I got at least five clicks with no visible lightning. For most of my Grand Canyon trip I was waiting for lightning that appeared in the direction my composition, perhaps 5 to 15 miles distant, about one bolt every 15 or 20 minutes. In other words, these weren’t particularly active storms with multiple flashes per minute. When lightning did fire in my composition, I estimate that the trigger clicked the shutter at least 95 percent of the time (that is, even though I got lots of false positives, the trigger missed very few actual strikes). Of these successful clicks, I actually captured lightning in about 2/3 of the frames. I suspect that the misses were more a function of the lightning itself that a problem with the trigger or camera—some flashes are single strokes that finish far too quickly for capture. In general, the more violent the storm, the greater the likelihood of bolts with long duration, multiple strokes that are easier to capture.
The Lightning Trigger documentation also recommends shutter speeds 1/20 second or longer—faster shutter speeds risk completing the exposure before some or all of the secondary strokes fire. To achieve daylight shutter speeds in the 1/20 to 1/4 second range, I shot in manual mode, using a polarizer, at ISO 50 and f16. The exposure will vary with the amount of light, so your settings will vary. You can also use a neutral density filter to slow the shutter speed.
Because shutter lag (the time elapsed between the click of the shutter button and the shutter opening) is death to lightning photography, you’ll need to turn off autofocus. Even though I use back-button focus, Canon says simply having autofocus on initiates a brief communication between the lens and camera that very slightly delays response (I can’t speak for Nikon). If you must autofocus, go ahead and do it each time you recompose, then turn autofocus off as soon as you’re focused. Similarly, despite what the Lightning Trigger documentation suggested, I used manual exposure mode to eliminate any camera-slowing metering when the shutter trips. And, also despite what the Lightning Trigger documentation suggests, I didn’t worry about my noise reduction settings. Canon assures (again, I can’t speak for Nikon) that noise reduction is a post-capture function that might slightly delay continuous frames, but it won’t increase shutter lag.
Other equipment
In addition to a lightning trigger, you’ll need a solid tripod and, ideally, a camera with a shutter lag faster than 60 milliseconds. Slower shutter lag won’t shut you out completely, but it will reduce your success rate. The Lightning Trigger website has a good, albeit somewhat dated, camera shutter-lag table.
I also recommend (in no particular order):
- Rain gear that will keep you dry from head-to-toe
- An umbrella for shielding your camera and lightning trigger (the trigger is not waterproof) while composing and shooting in the rain
- Lens hoods to reduce the raindrops that might mar the front element of your lenses
- Neutral density filter and/or polarizer to show shutter speed
- A garbage bag (my choice) or rainproof jacket for your camera
- Extra lightning trigger batteries
- An infrared remote to make sure the trigger is functioning (we borrowed the remote from our hotel)
- A towel (also borrowed from the hotel)
Getting the shot
I’m a Californian, which means lightning is a novelty for me. Nevertheless, a few months ago I purchased my Lightning Trigger, which has since been collecting dust. Because the lightning wouldn’t come to me, I decided to go to the lightning—in this case that meant a twelve hour drive to the Grand Canyon, in the heart of monsoon season, with my friend and fellow pro Don Smith.
Our plan was to find a location with an open view of the canyon and that allowed us to set up our cameras within sight of the car (so we could safely wait out the storms). Based on previous visits, we thought Lipan Point would be a good spot and started there, but we hadn’t anticipated the crowds we’d encounter. We also quickly realized that it’s pretty unrealistic to expect to photograph lightning in the midst of the storm—not only is it dangerous, the heavy rain risks damaging equipment, dots lens elements with raindrops, and pretty much obliterates any view. So in very short order we went to Plan B: Wait until the cell passes and photograph more distant storms.
The open views at the Grand Canyon are ideal for this and served us well. Don and I quickly learned that the lightning is most likely to strike within or near the gray curtains that are clearly recognizable as distant rain. The wider the composition, the greater your odds of capturing lightning, but the smaller it will appear in your image. My general approach was to identify the most likely lightning source (rain curtain) and find the best composition that included it. I tended to start wider to ensure success, then tighten my composition once I was fairly confident I had something. I also recommend that you don’t check your captures until you’re done (or better yet, until you upload your images to your computer). Since viewing the LCD requires disconnecting the trigger, doing so risks missing a shot; you’ll also find that many successful captures, especially wide compositions, just aren’t that visible on an LCD viewed in daylight.
Be aware that electrical storms can move quite quickly, so you need to monitor them closely. Sometimes this simply means adjusting your composition to account for shifting lightning; other times it means retreating to the car if the cell starts to threaten your location. Also be aware of the height from which the lightning originates and be sure to include enough cloud to get all of the stroke.
The above image of a single bolt striking the Painted Desert east and north of Desert View, as viewed from Lipan Point, was one of my first captures of the trip. I was composed quite wide to ensure capturing something (because I was so wide, I cropped it a little in Photoshop). Over a one hour period I actually got four strokes in some variation of this composition, but this was by far the brightest.
Helpful links
2012 Grand Canyon Monsoon Mayhem tour
Posted on August 12, 2012
Rainbow, Lipan Point, Grand Canyon
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The drive from Northern California to the Grand Canyon’s South Rim is about twelve hours. When Don Smith and I scheduled our (first annual) 2012 Grand Canyon Monsoon Mayhem tour, the plan was to leave dark-and-early Monday morning, which experience told us would get us to the canyon just in time to photograph sunset Monday night. But with the National Weather Service forecasting waning monsoon conditions as the week progressed, it looked like Monday afternoon might be the best time to capture our prime goal, lightning. So on Sunday morning we decided to leave that evening, drive as far as we could, then drive the rest of the way Monday. Doing it this way would allow us to arrive by mid-afternoon with a full night’s sleep. Fueled by Starbucks and a steady diet of classic rock, Don and I made it all the way to the acclaimed Route 66 hot-spot, Barstow, California (the gateway to the Mohave Desert).
Monday morning we escaped the desert before the heat kicked in, and by 2 p.m. were rolling up to the Grand Canyon South Rim. After surveying the skies, we pointed the car east, along the rim, toward Lipan Point, a favorite photo spot about forty minutes away. Somewhere near Grandview we encountered a cell that delivered lightning and sheets of rain, a harbinger of what was in store. Though the Grandview cell was behind us, Lipan Point greeted us with looming black clouds that spit occasional raindrops that sounded like ripe grapes striking the roof, a car-rocking wind, and thunder separated from its flash by mere seconds. Hell hadn’t broken loose yet, but it was sure rattling the cage.
We’d counted on a little time to recover from the drive, but there’s nothing like urgency to reveal how unprepared you are. As a Californian (at the sound of thunder, bewildered Californians rush outside), I’d never had an opportunity to use my lightning trigger (an electronic device that detects lightning and fires the shutter in milliseconds); Don had forgotten to pack most of his rain gear. And neither of us had given adequate thought to the impracticality of our plan to avoid electrocution by setting up our expensive tripods and cameras at a popular Grand Canyon vista (in the height of tourist season) while waiting out the danger and discomfort of a thunderstorm in the security of the car. With the storm bearing down on us, what followed was a Keystone Cops swirl of activity—out of driving clothes and into wet-weather gear; extract and attach (and figure out) lightning triggers; find a suitable view comfortably removed from teaming tourists; meter and compose a scene—that culminated in a frantic retreat, sans cameras, when a much-too-close lighting bolt ripped a Niagara-size hole in the sky.
For the next five minutes our cameras couldn’t have gotten more wet if we’d have put them in a shower. Warm and dry in the car, I was suddenly gripped by visions of my wind-tossed camera and tripod plummeting into the Colorado River (5,000 feet below), so when the lightning paused, I mustered the courage rush to the rescue. (I think Don did the same thing, but at that point it was every man for himself.)
As I toweled down my gear back in the car, the wind and rain slowed to a more manageable pace. Unsure of how long our window of lightning opportunity would last, Don and I headed back out, this time in different directions and (somewhat) more prepared. I opted for the best composition that offered the possibility of distant lightning, turning my lens toward a gray curtain of rain a fair distance up the canyon, toward Desert View; Don, who was having technical problems with his lightning trigger, headed a little west and pointed his camera toward a nearby cell that was already flashing behind us.
For the next hour or so I heard my shutter respond to a half-dozen or so bolts in the direction of my composition, a good sign, but since the lightning trigger disables the LCD replay, all I could do was cross my fingers for success. When the electrical activity quieted, Don and I reconnected and traded notes. Though he’d resolved his technical issue (I’ll let him elaborate), he was similarly unsure of his success.
Lightning or not, we agreed that the sky was far better than anything we see in California. As we chatted, the sun appeared and a vivid double rainbow arced above Desert View—back to work. Lightning trigger off, I was happy to be back more familiar territory—trying to work a rainbow into an already magnificent scene without dodging raindrops or lightning bolts.
Because the rainbow touched down south of the rim, finding a composition that featured both the canyon and the rainbow required a wide shot that included close foreground elements. I wasn’t crazy about the shrubs and rocks immediately beneath the rock outcrop I was on, so I stood back from the rim a bit and hid them behind the more interesting texture of my grooved and weathered limestone platform.
For the rainbow’s thirty-minute duration, I moved along the outcrop, capturing about sixty combinations of foreground and sky, horizontal and vertical, wide and tight. I finished with many, many images that make me happy, but chose this one because (right now) I think it offers the most balanced combination of all that made the scene special: the warm light on the Grand Canyon’s south wall, the rainbow (duh), the rugged character of the limestone supporting me, and the saturated, arcing raincloud responsible for the moment.
Epilogue
That great start to our adventure was made even more memorable when Don and I, at the risk of spurring an international incident, selflessly declined the advances of two young German women seeking a bed for the night (seriously).
Viewing on my laptop back at the hotel, I was thrilled to find four frames that included lightning. Given all that was in store the rest of the week, my excitement at four frames now seems a little overdone, as was Don’s frustration that his technical problems resulted in a day-one lightning shutout. By week’s end we each had more than fifty lightning captures, most coming at the North Rim on an action packed final day that shrunk the beauty of this first day to a distant memory. Stay tuned….
From one extreme to another
Posted on August 1, 2012
Bristlecone at Sunset, Schulman Grove, White Mountains, California
* * * *
In my previous post I wrote about California’s extremes. I used Badwater in Death Valley to illustrate, but of course there are many more examples. Case in point: the bristlecone pines of the White Mountains, just east of Bishop, across the Owens Valley from the Sierra Nevada.
The more heralded, heavily traveled Sierra gets most of the rain and snow from the Pacific, rendering the White Mountains a high elevation desert. With very little water to sustain foliage, fierce winds scour the White’s rocky surface unchecked. Water (and foliage) also moderates temperatures (lower highs, higher lows)–without water’s moderating effect, high temperatures in the White Mountains are higher and low temperatures are lower than corresponding elevations in the nearby Sierra.
Enter the bristlecone pine, a hardy conifer that has evolved to not only survive in these extremes, it thrives. Thrives to the point that it is generally acknowledged as the oldest living thing on earth (older, even, than Larry King). Some bristlecones approach 5,000 years old; the tree in this image is around 4,000 years old, give or take a millennium (due to, believe it or not, concerns about vandalism, individual bristlecone ages aren’t revealed).
The Schulman Grove Discovery Trail is a one mile loop with great access to some magnificent trees. It’s a very well-marked, heavily used trail, but it’s quite steep. And at over 10,000 feet elevation, it will definitely test your lung capacity. At just about the halfway point of the trail, you’ll find a magnificent bristlecone pair, well worth the effort to get out there. The trail here loops around these trees, providing 270 degrees of perspective.
The most popular view here, the view that seems to attract the most photographers, is close and looking up at the trees against the sky. But this evening I liked that the (often obscurred by haze) Sierra crest was clearly visible, and saw that the sky had potential for color, so I picked a more distant vantage point up the trail a bit. From there I could isolate the tree against the mountains and compress the distance somewhat with a moderate telephoto.
Using some scruffy yellow shrubs to anchor my foreground, I decided a vertical composition allowed me to compose the tree a little tighter. It was about 75 feet away, which meant at f16 and 75mm, focusing just a little in front of the tree gave me sharpness from 25 feet to infinity (as reported by the hyperfocal app in my iPhone). The color came late, after many photographers had packed up and headed back to the visitor center. While the sunset didn’t paint the entire sky, it very conveniently peaked in direct line with my composition. I love it when everything comes together.
Everything’s up from here
Posted on July 25, 2012
Sunrise, Telescope Peak & Badwater, Death Valley
:: :: ::
At 282 feet below sea level, Badwater in Death Valley is the lowest point in North America. While that’s impressive by itself, consider that Telescope Peak, the sunlit mountain in center of this picture, is over 11,000 feet above sea level. But wait, there’s more…. Just 85 miles from where I stand here, Mt. Whitney towers 14,500 feet above sea level, the highest point in the lower 48 United States. And 5,400 feet vertical feet above me is Dante’s View; from there you can see both Badwater and Mt. Whitney. Pretty cool.
The Badwater playa is actually an ephemeral lake, filled only by unusually heavy rainfall and its runoff. With no outlet, and averaging less than two inches of replenishing rain each year, evaporation quickly empties Badwater Lake. Each evaporation cycle leaves behind a layer of salt. As the mud beneath the salt layer dries, polygonal cracks form openings that accumulate extra salt. Heat causes this salt to expand into corresponding polygonal shapes on the otherwise flat surface. Some winters I’ve found these shapes filled with water, like faceted jewels. And on my 2005 visit I watched a kayaker glide across the completely submerged basin.
Winter visitors have the best chance of catching the top salt layer before Death Valley’s ample airborne dust has had a chance to turn the playa from pure white to dirty brown. The north/south orientation of Death Valley means that the Panamint Range on the valley’s west side is bathed in the warm light of the rising sun. As with Mt. Whitney, the Panamint Range’s extreme elevation above the playa makes Badwater an ideal spot for early risers to photograph sunrise alpenglow. On this morning from early last February, the playa was pristine and a layer of thin cirrus clouds arrived at the same time as the sun, brushing the blue sky pink.
Sunsets are red because the sky is blue
Posted on July 17, 2012
Sunset, Mono Lake
A sunset myth
If your goal is a colorful sunset/sunrise and you have to choose between pristine or polluted air, which would you choose? If you said clean air, you’re in the minority. You’re also right. But despite some pretty obvious evidence to the contrary, it seems that the myth that a colorful sunset requires lots of particles in the air persists. If particles in the air were necessary for sunset color, Los Angeles would be known for its incredible sunsets and Hawaii would only be known for its beaches.
But what is the secret to a great sunset? Granted, a cool breeze, warm surf, and a Mai Tai are a great start, but I’m thinking more photographically than recreationally (sorry). I look for a mix of clouds (to catch the color) and sky (to pass the sunlight), with a particular emphasis on a clear western horizon (or eastern for sunrise). But even with a nice mix of clouds and sky, sometimes the color fizzles. Often the missing ingredient, contrary to common belief, is clean air, the cleaner the better. And like most things, it all makes sense when you understand what’s going on.
Light and color
Understanding sunset color starts with understanding how sunlight and the atmosphere interact to make the sky blue. As you probably know, visible light reaches our eyes in waves of varying length, with each wavelength perceived as a different color. Starting with the shortest wavelengths and moving toward the longest, visible light goes from violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red. (These color names are arbitrary labels we’ve assigned to the colors we perceive at various points along the visible portion of the electromagnetic spectrum—there are an infinite number of colors in between each of these colors.) When a beam of light passes through a vacuum (such as space), it moves in a straight line, without interference, so all its wavelengths reach our eyes simultaneously and we perceive the light as white.
Why is the sky blue?
When light interacts with a foreign object—for example, when a beam of sunlight enters our atmosphere—different wavelengths respond differently depending on the size of the molecules they encounter. If sunlight encounters molecules that are larger than its wavelengths, such as atmospheric impurities like dust or smoke, all its wavelengths bounce off (reflect). Because these large molecules are of varying sizes, a variety of wavelengths (colors) get blended into a hazy sky with a gray or brown cast. If all the wavelengths get bounced equally, the sky will appear white(ish).
When a beam of sunlight hits the much smaller molecules that comprise our atmosphere, such as nitrogen and oxygen, rather than reflecting, some of its wavelengths are absorbed, then scattered in all directions. Because the shorter wavelengths (violet and blue) absorb and scatter most easily, they’re the first to scatter, while the longer wavelengths (orange and red) pass through to color the sky of someone farther away. The more direct the sunlight’s path to our eyes (the less atmosphere it passes through), the more we see the first (blue) wavelengths to scatter. When the sun is high in our sky, its light takes the most direct path through the atmosphere and our sky is blue. In the mountains sunlight has passed through even less atmosphere and the sky appears even more blue than it does at sea level.
Sunrise/sunset color
When the sun is on the horizon, the light that reaches us has traveled through so much atmosphere that it has been stripped of its blueness (those wavelengths are coloring the sky of someone whose sun is high overhead), leaving only the long wavelengths. This paints our sunrise/sunset sky shades of orange and red.
Clean air for color
One problem with pollutants is that large airborne particles absorb light, which subdues the intensity of the sunrise/sunset. But more than subdued intensity, airborne junk just plain muddles color.
Anyone who has blended a smoothie consisting of a variety of brightly colored ingredients (such as strawberries, blueberries, and spinach—yum) knows the smoothie’s color won’t be nearly as vivid as any of its ingredients, not even close. Instead you’ll end up with a brownish or grayish muck that might at best be slightly tinted with the color of the predominant ingredient. That’s what happens to the color when the light has to interact with large airborne particles like dust, smoke, and smog. Because these particles aren’t of uniform size, they each reflect a slightly different color rather than allowing one vivid color to dominate. In the middle of the day pollution means less blue; at sunrise/sunset, it’s less pink, red, and orange.
For example
One of my favorite sunrise/sunset locations is the Eastern Sierra. Its location on the lee side of the Sierra keeps the air relatively pristine, and the clouds formed by the interaction of the prevailing westerly wind’s with the precipitous Sierra crest are both unique and dramatic.
Mono Lake makes a particularly nice subject for the Eastern Sierra’s brilliant shows. Not only does it benefit from the Eastern Sierra’s clean air and photogenic clouds, Mono Lake’s tufa formations and (frequently) reflective surface make a wonderful foreground subject. And the openness of the terrain allows you to watch the entire sunrise or sunset unfold. Many times over the course of a sunrise or sunset I’ve photographed in every direction.
The above image was at the tail end of a particularly vivid Mono Lake sunset. The air was clean and I was very fortunate to get not only clouds and color, but also perfectly calm wind that turned the lake’s surface to glass. As you may have noticed by the 15 second exposure, the color lasted quite long that night, and this was toward the end of the show.
I wanted sharpness throughout the frame, so I stopped down to f16—being on a tripod, the long shutter speed wasn’t a factor. I paid careful attention to orienting my polarizer to pick up the color reflecting on the water in the left side of the frame, while removing enough reflection on the right to reveal the submerged rocks. This resulted in differential polarization in the sky as well, but that was a relatively easy fix with my Dodge/Burn action in Photoshop. The rest of the processing for this image was pretty straightforward, with some noise reduction, a slight crop for framing, selective contrast adjustment, and a little desaturation of the blue channel.
I find that the more I can anticipate skies like this, the better prepared I am when something spectacular happens. I was at the lake well before the color started, but because it looked like all the sunset stars were aligning, I was able to plan my shots well before they arrived. I’m far from perfect at predicting conditions, but the more I learn (and experience), the better I get.
Photographers are stupid (and I have proof)
Posted on July 10, 2012
Saturated Sunset, Rush Creek, Eastern Sierra
When I was nine or ten my dad took me to the top of a towering granite dome in Yosemite and asked me to hold his umbrella while he tried to photograph lightning. My dad was not a stupid man, nor was he an unloving or irresponsible father. But it was the first example in my life of how the behavior of an otherwise rational adult can be altered by the simple act of holding a camera. I used to shake my head at some of the things I observed photographers do, and the get-the-shot-at-all-costs photographer stories I heard. That is, until….
October, 2006
An incoming storm had set up the sky for one of those electric sunsets that photographers come to Mono Lake for: towering clouds, shafting light, glassy water—all that was missing was me and my camera. You see, I’d gotten so caught up in the fabulous fall color in nearby Lundy Canyon that I’d lost track of time and was now rushing to beat the sunset to Mono Lake’s South Tufa. I’d chosen South Tufa because its familiarity meant I could pretty much roll out of my truck and find a shot without a hunt. Plus, I knew a shortcut that would save at least five minutes (and what self-respecting photographer passes an opportunity to take a shortcut?). Unfortunately, I’d become so focused on the goings-on in the sky (photographers rarely watch the road) that I’d missed my shortcut, which was why I was barreling down Highway 395 pondering two options: Continue to 120, or turn around and locate the dirt road shortcut? Neither would ensure a timely arrival at South Tufa.
Then, like a gift from Heaven, an unpaved road veering in the general direction of the lake materialized on my left and I swerved without conscious thought across all four lanes of highway, abruptly enough to send all my gear crashing to the floor behind me. This improvised route, all sagebrush and stone, was new to me, but it soon became clear that not only did the road head in the right direction, its washboard surface smoothed out quite nicely at a fairly brisk 40 mph. Congratulating myself on my truly excellent judgement, I nudged the speedometer even higher and started visualizing the sunset possibilities. Barely slowing for a sharp bend, my foot was already back on the accelerator as I exited the curve, which, it turns out, channeled me like a boat ramp toward the heretofore overlooked (and aptly named) Rush Creek, swift and swollen by recent rain. Traveling at more than 40 miles per hour allowed no more than a fraction of a second for deliberation: Hit the brakes and accept defeat, or accelerate and hope?
There must be a mutation polluting photographers’ gene pool, a “get the shot at all costs” mindset that causes paparazzi to pursue princesses with no regard for life, acclaimed photographic masters to clone full moons and zebras into already lovely images, and hungry landscape photographers to believe that really, really wanting a shot is enough to turn a two-wheel drive Toyota Tacoma into a flying machine.
So. It turns out that Toyotas don’t fly. Nor do they float. Of this I have empirical proof. At 40 miles per hour they do, however, have significant inertia. In this case enough inertia to deliver me to the center of a rushing creek before turning me over to another, more inconvenient, force of nature: gravity. Thus, in water swift enough to nudge a one-and-a-half ton truck several feet downstream, my Tacoma sank like a stone. To the doors. Had it been equipped with four-wheel drive, or even front-wheel drive, I might have been able to gain enough purchase to extricate myself, but rear-wheel drive on a submerged pickup is about as useful as wheels on a boat.
Once I came to a rest I turned off the ignition and sat, feeling quite stupid and thinking, maybe if I just sit here, nobody will ever find out. I’m not sure how long I entertained this fantasy, but frigid creek water tickling my toes finally spurred me to action–if my feet were getting wet, what about all the camera gear on the floor in the back? With (selfless) disregard for my own safety, I dove into the back of the cab and rescued my camera bag from the incoming torrent. After stuffing my cell phone in a pocket, I rolled down my window, scrambled onto the hood, stepped gingerly across to the front fender, and leapt to shore.
Out of harm’s way, I surveyed my surroundings. I was actually on a small island, though the channel in front of me wasn’t nearly as deep and swift as the one that had swallowed my truck. Unlike my truck, the road emerged from the creek and disappeared into the inhospitable landscape. With no cell signal and snow promised for later, I knew rescue would require a hike, perhaps as far as South Tufa (a couple of miles away). For some reason it occurred to me that most carnivorous predators are nocturnal. I eyed the darkening sky and with renewed focus charged forward, traipsing through the rest of the creek without bothering to remove my sandals and socks or roll up my pants.
Fortunately, I only had to trek about a half mile before finding a cell signal. Because this was in the days preceding ubiquitous GPS devices, I had to muster all my descriptive skills before the CHP dispatcher could assure me help was on the way. Somewhat assuaged, and having overdosed on urgency for more than hour, on the walk back I finally allowed myself to slow and appreciate the sunset (which had manifested as advertised), though my enthusiasm for photography had dampened considerably. (And when I heard the coyotes planning dinner, the urgency returned.)
Back at my truck, I sat on a rock and watched the wedge of daylight shrink behind the Sierra. After what seemed much longer than it probably was, a tow truck appeared (I never imagined a tow truck could be so beautiful), parking pretty much where I should have stopped in the first place. The driver got out and surveyed the scene, finally hand-signaling (the roar of the creek drowned his shouts) that he’d need to drive around to the other side to pull me out. I was less than enthusiastic about letting him leave, but there was clearly no way he was going to extricate my truck from way over there, and he seemed to know where he was going.
Relieved that I probably wasn’t going to be left to the coyotes, I decided it might be a good idea to snap a picture of my misfortune. Since I was reluctant to venture back onto the Toytanic to retrieve my tripod and remote-release, I switched to the fastest lens in my bag (f2.8), dialed my camera to ISO 3200, turned on the two-second timer, and plopped my butt onto the sand in front of the truck. With a flashlight clamped between my teeth and the camera firmly pressed to my chest (and one eye out for the tripod police), I fired a couple of frames, hoping one would be sharp enough. (If you look closely, you can see the concentric circles of the flashlight on the hood, as well as footprint.)
The darkness was nearly complete when the tow truck reappeared on my side of the creek, and within five minutes my truck was winched out and draining on dry land. I’d envisioned a long, shame-filled tow truck ride back into Lee Vining, but the tow truck driver suggested I try starting my truck—imagine my surprise when the engine turned over and fired right up. Not only that, when the driver found out I’m a AAA member, he told me there’d be no charge. When I sheepishly suggested that I might just be the stupidest person he’d ever helped, he told that in the spring he’d rescued another driver in a high clearance 4×4 who had tried crossing at the same spot (a photographer no doubt) when the water was high enough to actually turn his truck around. That made me feel marginally better.
Epilogue
I hadn’t driven far when my check-engine light came on, but everything continued to run fine. And anyway, I think three hundred dollars damage to my exhaust system, a saturated carpet, and a few soggy books and magazines is small price to pay for an education and a story.
Oh yeah–the snow started falling before I was done with dinner.
The “Oooh” and “Ahhh” of photography
Posted on July 6, 2012
Sunset, Point Lobos, Big Sur
Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III
81 mm
1/8 seconds
F/11
ISO 200
It’s a getaway weekend and you’re browsing a quiet photo gallery near the wharf. The photography is nice, but soon Vivaldi’s gentle strings mingling with the aroma of warm banana bread command most of your attention. Your brain starts bouncing between Thai or Italian for dinner, and you wonder whether you remembered to close the garage door—maybe your brother-in-law can swing by the house and check it on his way home from work…. Suddenly, just as you reach for your cell phone, your eyes stop, your brain exclaims, “Oooh…” as your eyes latch onto a Pacific sunset on the far wall, a solitary cypress clinging to the rocks above the surf. Instantly the cell phone is back in its holster and your hunger has vanished.
What just happened? Volumes have been dedicated to identifying the combination of composition, color, and light that “grabs” a viewer in just this way. But what then? Do you simply nod approval and return to your phone? Or do you cross the room, plant yourself before the the scene, and beckon your date? Maybe you’re even moved enough to check the price, to mentally banish to the attic the flower print above the sofa that has survived three moves, an earthquake, and come to think of it, you can’t even remember what kind of flower it is.
Art of any form appeals on two seemingly contradictory planes: it must stimulate enough to attract, yet soothe enough to sustain. These are art’s “oooh” and “ahhh” factors. You probably understand the “oooh!” that grabs your attention and draws you from afar, but once that initial jolt has faded, it’s the soothing “ahhh…” that holds you. We each have our own oooh and ahhh triggers. Some are touched by an intimate flower portrait, others find inspiration in a sweeping landscape; some seek connection to a familiar place, others long for vicarious exploration. Before reaching for your wallet, you need to know whether this is a scene that will uplift you each time you enter the room.
The way we enjoy art is just as personal as the art itself. I sometimes browse other photographers’ online galleries, but much prefer the intimacy of paging leisurely through a glossy, hardcover photography book. Art shows are fun, but a little frenetic; galleries can be nice, albeit somewhat pretentious. But nothing beats having a special print on my wall, though I see far more I’d like to own than I can afford to own. Nevertheless, I’ve purchased prints from other photographers. (And of course my walls at home bear many of my own prints.)
I’m very thankful that some people do decide that my prints are worthy of living with. But I can’t pretend to know what inspires your oooh’s and ahhh’s, nor can I let those thoughts influence my photographic choices. Before plunking down $600 dollars for that stunning sunset image (or the orange and black velvet matador that your date’s been eyeing), spend a little time with it. Does its virtual world transcend your literal world, even briefly? Do the emotions it generates rejuvenate or deplete your energy? My own, private answers to those questions determine the things I photograph and the way I photograph them. I think it’s also why photography will always be a source of pleasure for me.
A sand and surf gallery
Click an image for a closer look, and a slide show. Refresh your screen to reorder the display.
Bracketing digital style
Posted on June 29, 2012
Dogwood, Merced River, Yosemite
Film shooters used to bracket high dynamic range scenes because there was no way to know if they’d nailed the tricky exposure until the film was processed. For some reason this bracketing approach has carried over to digital photography, when it’s a complete waste of storage and shutter clicks (not to mention all the unnecessary images to wade through at home) that shortens the life of media cards and cameras alike (the shutter is usually the first thing to wear out on a DSLR).
The histogram gives digital shooters instant, accurate exposure feedback with each capture. Today the only reason to exposure bracket is if you plan to blend images later, yet the practice persists. I suspect the persistence of exposure bracketing can be attributed to a subtle but significant paradigm shift introduced by digital capture: With film, each shutter click cost money; with digital, each shutter click increases the return on your investment.
Film shooters use exposure bracketing sparingly, as a last resort for important shots with a small margin for exposure error, but digital photographers get lulled into complacency by the (apparent) free ride digital capture offers. While the invisible per-click cost creates great opportunities, it has also engendered bad habits in digital photographers who either don’t trust their histogram, don’t know how to read it, or simply are too lazy to take the (simple) steps get the right exposure. (I’m not saying you shouldn’t adjust and reshoot when the exposure is off, I’m saying you should try to get the exposure with the first click and only reshoot when you miss.) And I suspect these photographers leave many shots on the table.
On the other hand, I’m a huge advocate of thoughtful application of digital’s “free” click paradigm. In my workshops I encourage students to take lots of pictures, with one proviso: Always have an objective. The objective doesn’t even need to be a good image; sometimes it can just be a “what if” game to educate yourself. But for me the greatest benefit is the ability to work a scene and capture composition, depth, and motion variations that can be selected later with the aid of time and a large monitor.
I apply this approach in virtually everything I shoot. When I find a scene that works (near, far, or in between), I work it obsessively. Compositions wide to tight, orientation horizontal and vertical, depths shallow to broad. And when there’s motion in the scene also vary its effect. Sometimes that means using a variety of shutter speeds; sometimes it means timing the motion differently with a variety of clicks. Ocean waves are a perfect example of this, as is the dogwood image above.
For example
My general approach in the field is to find a subject to isolate and juxtapose it against a complementary background. This is pretty straightforward when everything’s stationary, but when things are in motion I don’t always know what I have until I click and check my LCD. And when things are moving fast, I don’t have enough control over the result to get it with a single click. In May, while photographing dogwood around Yosemite Valley, I found this dogwood branch with two perfect blooms jutting away from other nearby branches. Positioning myself on the Pohono Bridge with my 70-200 lens all the way out to 200mm, I was able to isolate the blooms against the dark green of the Merced River.
With a slight breeze waving the branch, I increased the ISO to 400. To limit depth of field (and help the blooms stand out more) I selected f4, then spot-metered a bloom and dialed my shutter speed until the meter indicated +1 (above a middle tone). I composed so the branch cut diagonally across the scene, clicked, and checked my LCD. The exposure was dead-on (dogwood perfectly exposed against an underexposed river), but what caught my eye was the glistening bubbles whizzing by in the background. They flew by so quickly that I hadn’t really registered their compositional potential, but as soon as I saw them on my LCD I knew I had the potential for something cool.
With the exposure dialed in and my composition still sitting there on my tripod (don’t get me started on my whole tripod rant again), I didn’t need to change a thing, I just needed to time each click for the bubbles. I quickly realized that I could anticipate their arrival by looking upstream, so that’s what I did, timing my exposure and checking the result. After the first few clicks I started to recognize and anticipate patterns.
For the next ten minutes I just stood there on the bridge watching bubbles, timing my click for when they entered the frame. I must have at least twenty versions of this composition, exposed exactly the same, but each with a completely different background. (I also just had a blast.)
Goosebump moments
Posted on June 22, 2012
Sunrise Reflection, Mono Lake
Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III
1/13 second
F/16.0
ISO 100
25 mm
On consecutive nights last week I had the good fortune to witness two memorable non-photographic events: Last Wednesday I watched on TV as Matt Cain pitched Major League Baseball’s twenty-second Perfect Game (and the Giants’ first ever); on Thursday night my wife and I went to see the touring Broadway production of “Wicked.” Both events were amazing, but only one moved me to tears. If you know I’m a life-long baseball fan who harbored Major League aspirations all the way through college, you probably guessed which one.
I’m not sure what this has to do with photography, except that I think it’s the unexpected component of sports and nature photography that moves me. The understanding that nothing is promised, and that no matter how hard we work to to do our absolute best, we ultimately have no control over the result and just about anything is possible. When something truly special does happen, an event we’ve never witnessed before, it feels like a gift.
The tears that well up after witnessing a Perfect Game or Olympic Gold performance are stirred by empathy—I’ve had similar dreams and understand some of what the athlete must be feeling. But other people experience a physical response to great theater (and are bored to tears by baseball). My response to a magic moment in nature is actual chills and hair-raising goosebumps—different, but no less emotional (or controllable).
The morning I captured this sunrise on Mono Lake, I was there because it was the last day of my Eastern Sierra workshop and that’s where I take my groups for our final sunrise. No divine insight or lofty expectations guided me—simply a good knowledge of the area and prior experience that told me this is a nice spot in any conditions. I certainly never expect (and try not to even permit myself to hope for) something as magic as what we got that morning.
We rose in the frigid, predawn darkness, navigated a network of rutted dirt roads, and walked a trail-less half mile by flashlight through heavy sand and (ultimately) shoe-sucking mud to get here. The morning brightened to reveal a perfect mix of herringbone clouds and blue sky. The air was utterly still and the lake surface spread before us like an infinite mirror. We started with silhouettes, using the shoreline shapes as foreground elements, and when the color arrived we found shots in all direction. As the color faded, but before the sun appeared, I made sure everyone was ready for the brief opportunity to capture a sunburst as the sun peaked above the horizon: We dialed our apertures down (f16 or smaller) and prepared for the difficult light by pulling out graduated neutral density filters (my choice) or setting up bracketing to allow post-exposure blending. When that was over we still had a few minutes of exquisite warm sidelight. One of my responsibilities during these shoots is to remind everyone to stop being photographers long enough to appreciate what they’re witnessing—it seems counterproductive, but I truly believe tapping these goosebump feelings inspires the best photography.
Just as not everyone who loves theater has a Tony, or everyone who loves baseball has thrown a Perfect Game, not everyone who loves nature has people clamoring for their photos. But I’m pretty sure that those who have risen to the highest level of their profession have chosen something that touches them in ways they can’t completely understand or control.
My essential smartphone apps for photography
Posted on June 12, 2012
Moonset, Zabriskie Point, Death Valley
I have a few iPhone apps that I use all the time, and am always on the lookout for more (so feel free to share). There are many great apps out there, but given the amount of photography time I spend off the grid, a prime consideration for me is the ability to use an app without cell or wifi coverage, taking many out of the running. For example, I think The Photographer’s Ephemeris is a great piece of software for getting sun and moon information, but never use the app because I rarely photograph in locations with adequate cell or wifi service. (A recent update may now enable PE to pre-download maps, but my sun/moon workflow is already in place so I haven’t tried it yet.)
On the other hand, at the top of my own list of essential apps is Focalware, which gives me sun and moon rise/set time, altitude, and azimuth for any location on Earth, regardless of connectivity. For example, until recently Death Valley had no cell coverage whatsoever; even now most of Death Valley is a cell dead zone, and wifi is limited to the (extremely unphotogenic) hotels in Furnace Creek Ranch and Stovepipe Wells. But using my iPhone’s GPS to pinpoint my location, Focalware gave me the sunrise and moonset information I needed to capture this full moon setting behind Manly Beacon (I won’t even touch the Freudian ramifications of that name) at Zabriskie Point. It’s also handy to be able to input the GPS coordinates of any location, which allows me to get the astronomical data I need for remote locations as well.
Another app that works great regardless of connectivity is Depth of Field Calculator by Essence Computing. With it I’m able to quickly compute hyperfocal focus info for any camera or lens. I don’t need it all the time, but having this information instantly available when I’m trying to focus near and far objects in a single frame makes my life considerably easier. It’s also a fun app to play what-if games when I find myself waiting on hold or in line somewhere. I just plug in arbitrary values and try to guess the hyperfocal distance—a great exercise for improving hyperfocal focus skills.
Dropbox is a bigger part of my home and mobile computing, but I do use my Dropbox app to access essential files when I’m on the road and away from a computer and the Cloud. While the Dropbox app requires connectivity to access files in the main Dropbox folder in the Cloud, I can specify files as “Favorites” to be kept downloaded and current on my iPhone at all times. My most important files are always flagged as favorites, and before leaving home I add other files I’m pretty sure I’ll need on that trip.
The state of the tides makes a huge difference when photographing coastal scenes. Tide pools will materialize or vanish with the tide, and the look of the coast can change drastically when the tide swallows or reveals rocks. And some areas I’m accustomed to shooting may be completely inaccessible when the tide’s in. For all these reasons, before photographing on the coast I check the state of the tide with Ayetides. Ayetides stores its information on my iPhone, so I don’t need to worry about connectivity. On the other hand, I’m not crazy about Ayetides’ interface, which I find less than intuitive.
Another app that I recently started using and have high hopes for is Trail Maps by National Geographic. In theory it’s exactly what I need—-an app that allows me to download specific topographic maps onto my iPhone for anytime, any connectivity access. It also allows me to plot point-to-point azimuth and distance for any location, great for computing moon and sun rise/set position. While I’ve been able to use it some, I’m afraid the current version of this app has far too many bugs, large and small, for me to recommend it.
Since I don’t have vast experience with other similar apps, I can’t guarantee that the apps I mention here are the best. But I can say that they work great for me, and they make my photography life much easier. How about you? Do you have any apps on your iOS or Android phones that you find indispensable?
Eloquent Images by Gary Hart