Organic Discovery
Posted on May 30, 2024
Sunbeams, Lóndrangar, Iceland
Sony a7R V
Sony 24-105 f/4 G
ISO 100
f/13
1/40 second
When I sit down each week to write a new blog post, I usually have a general idea of where I want to go, but little plan for how I’m going to get there. I’ll start with a couple of relevant sentences, then just see where that leads me. Depending on the topic, and my state of mind at the time, the effort that gets me from concept to completed blog can range from simple to Sisyphean. Regardless of the struggle, I’m always surprised by the insights the creation process itself uncovers—I learn so much about myself, photography, and the natural world in general, simply through exploring with words, that I realize writing this blog is as much for me as it is for my audience.
It occurs to me that this is very much the way I approach my photography—I’ll arrive at a location and identify something I like, but am usually not quite sure how I want to handle the scene until I frame it in my camera and start working. Or more accurately, I might think I know how I want to handle the scene from that initial spark of attraction, but usually discover much more as I work.
Whether I’m writing or taking pictures, beyond an overall general concept or theme (like coffee table books, or a moonrise), I prefer my creation to happen organically. That’s because, for me at least, I find going in with a predetermined mindset stifling. In life, the instant you think you know the answer is the instant you stop learning; in photography, the instant you think you have the shot is the instant you stop seeing.
I’m reminded of this every time I conduct a workshop image review and see the mind boggling variety of images shared. We’re all going to the same places, but everyone’s seeing something different. Even if the execution isn’t perfect, the vision that shines through can be downright inspiring.
Just as every writer starts with a blank page, when looking for photographs I try to challenge myself with the reminder that the shots are there, that my ability to see them is limited only by my own creativity. I’ve learned that my best view into a scene’s essence doesn’t come instantly—it happens organically, and can’t be rushed. Much like the first draft of whatever I’m writing, my first click is only the starting point that serves as a catalyst for the discovery process to follow.
Landscape photography in particular, with its primarily stationary subjects, lends itself to this organic discovery approach. Rather than anticipate and react, as sports and wildlife photographers must, as a photographer of mostly stationary landscape subjects, landscape photography (usually) provides all the time I need to identify a potential subject and evaluate it fully before pressing my shutter. I just feel more creative when I know that, no matter how long I take, my subject will still be there when I’m finally ready.
This need to spend time with my subjects, adjusting my compositions as they come to me, is a prime reason I feel so strongly about using a tripod. I’m old enough to remember writing longhand on paper with pen or pencil. And while it’s undeniable that some of the greatest writing in human history happened this way, largely because of my need to edit as I go, my own writing took a significant leap forward when I started using a computer and word processor.
I can say the same thing about the switch from the delayed results of film to the instant feedback of digital, and the tripod played a major part in that. I’ve always used a tripod with most of my photography because it allows me frame up my scene and study it as long as necessary. But since the arrival of digital capture and its instant feedback, my tripod plays an even bigger role. In addition to allowing me to spend time with my scene before clicking, with a digital camera I can immediately study my results and identify necessary adjustments secure in the knowledge that the composition that needs tweaking is patiently waiting in the viewfinder atop my tripod.
As happens with my writing, this edit on the fly approach almost always takes my images places I hadn’t imagined when I started. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve ended up with something much different, and better, simply because I had quality, unhurried time with my scene.
The image I share above was from this year’s version of the Iceland photo workshop that Don Smith and I partner on each winter. Snaefellsnes Peninsula is filled with visual highlights, especially in winter, but Londrangar is a highlight among highlights. This image features several of the (many) reasons we choose winter for our Iceland workshop: brooding clouds, pounding surf, and fresh snow. And while the prime focal point here is the Londrangar sea stack, the volatile conditions always provide something new to consider with each visit.
So this year when the group arrived at Londrangar, I was initially drawn to the dramatic surf and clouds, starting pretty wide to include more of these features—including very large waves battering the rocks about 40 feet below me. But as I worked the scene, the dusting of white snow on the rugged basalt drew my eye, so I tightened my composition to emphasize it.
Given how much I dislike a disorganized foreground and messy borders, in a scene like this, with its jumble of rocks and ever-shifting surf, create a particular challenge. It took me awhile to find a composition that satisfied those instincts, but once I had a working composition fixed atop my tripod, I was free to play with different motion effects in the surf. With churning surf, I’ll often use multi-second exposures, with the help of my Breakthrough Filters 6-Stop Dark Polarizer, but this time I was so enamored of the white-water explosions with each wave, I also tried freezing the collision with a fast shutter speed.
As I grew familiar with the waves’ patterns—how to anticipate their arrival point and timing—I refined my composition further. Then, with little warning, the sun broke through to cast golden beams on the gray horizon, forcing me to jettison my casual pace and respond quickly to the sudden beauty. Fortunately, by this time I’d become so familiar with the scene and all its idiosyncrasies that I didn’t feel at all rushed. With only slight adjustments to my current composition to balance the sea stack with the shafting sunlight, I spent the next five or so minutes timing the surf and enjoying the view.
The Motion of the Ocean
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Feeding My Muse
Posted on May 22, 2024
Spring Cascade, Tamarack Creek, Yosemite
Sony α1
Sony 16-35 f/2.8 GM
ISO 800
f/11
1/4 second
Ode to the Coffee Table Book
I grew up in an era when coffee table books were a thing. For decades, these dense rectangular blocks, packed with thick, glossy pages containing far more picture than text, dominated living rooms across America. Whether acquired by purchase or gift, once installed on a coffee table, most coffee table books would rest unopened for years, virtually untouched except by an occasional dust cloth, and maybe a micro-adjustment on the way to answer the door for company. It seems the CTB’s prime function was to generate the illusion of sophistication by enabling its owner to feign interest in a variety of esoteric subjects: the churches Europe, windmills, Iceland’s waterfalls, and so on.
But here’s a little secret. Turns out, many of these books were actually quite enjoyable. Who knew? As a child naive to the hands-off rules, to occupy myself while the adults were busy chatting about boring stuff, I’d sometime heft one of these beefy tomes onto my lap and page through it.
I found myself most drawn to books dedicated to nature and landscapes—pretty much anything with pictures of mountains, forest, desert, or coastline. For many years my attention was solely on the pictures and I paid no attention to the photographer responsible for them. But eventually I became aware that the images I lingered on longest came courtesy of David Muench. While some were in theme-based CTB photo anthologies filled with images from many photographers, I got to where I could instantly identify Muench’s beautiful captures before checking the photo credit. And I was especially excited whenever I found a book filled exclusively with Muench’s beautiful images of the American outdoors: the Southwest, National Parks, the Rockies—it didn’t really matter.
As a child, my analytical skills and photography aspirations were still many years in the future—I just knew I could spend several minutes on each page, visually caressing each mountain, lake, rock, tree, leaf, and flower. In hindsight, I know that my own photography today, both the scenes I’m drawn to as well as the way I approach them, were organically and profoundly influenced by this exposure to David Muench’s images.
Revelation
I’m writing about this because last month I had the good fortune to get my hands (and eyes) on William Neill’s latest book, “Yosemite: Sanctuary in Stone.” The instant I cracked it open, those childhood feelings of profound awe came flooding back, and instantly I was reminded how much, in this age of ubiquitous screens, I miss the tactile relationship with beautiful photography that can only be provided by a large, well-printed book.
Though it would be undeniably true, labeling “Yosemite: Sanctuary in Stone” a book full of pretty pictures would be a gross understatement. The opposite of derivative, Neill’s images are revelatory in their vision, a reminder that, in any scene, there’s so much more to photograph than we see at first glance.
Most of the images Neill shares in this book are intimate portraits featuring interactions of Earth’s more permanent features with its ephemeral elements, such as light, shadow, water, clouds, rain, fog, and snow. Though few depict the recognizable icons we associate with Yosemite (monoliths and waterfalls), each reveals the natural patterns, color, and contrast that makes Yosemite unique, somehow blending all this into coherent scenes that are so simple, it’s hard to believe no one saw them sooner. The product is a celebration of Nature’s most subtle beauty, rendered all the more beautiful because it’s been pulled from obscurity by a photography master. These images inspire me to continue cultivating my own personal vision, and to bolster my creative foundation by spending more time with profound photography like this.
Feeding My Muse
When I set out to write this, my intent was a straightforward piece honoring William Neill’s beautiful book, and acknowledging the role of the muse in its more conventional sense: an external influence that stimulates an artist’s creative instincts. But the more I wrote, the more I found myself leaning toward my own muse as an internal collaboration between a lifetime of external inputs.
Huh? What I mean is, we’re all influenced by the creations of others, and by our general interactions with the world. That influence can be conscious, like my experience paging through “Yosemite: Sanctuary in Stone,” or unconscious, like my childhood exposure to David Muench’s photography, or simply by spending a night on my back beneath a dark sky generously sprinkled with stars. Regardless, all that input is processed by my internal muse and organically output as inspiration: my internal muse.
A successful image happens at the intersection of vision and craft. Craft taps the analytical part of the brain, enabling us to master a scene’s motion, light, and depth through the control of the camera’s exposure variables, as well as command of hyperfocal technique for managing focus. Vision, more than the mere “eye for composition” many photographers talk about, is the ability to conjure unseen possibilities, and to channel the camera’s unique vision to uncover hidden patterns and relationships. Craft can be refined and honed by study and repetition, while vision is more elusive.
This is where I call on my internal muse to blend vision and craft to create (I hope) photographic synergy. But like any creative instinct, the internal muse must be nurtured and fed. I fear that the decline of big photography books like Neill’s has robbed many photographers’ internal muse of a prime source of sustenance. For proof, look no further than the proliferation of derivative photography online, a feedback loop of sameness where Photoshop amplification and AI manufacturing substitutes for inspiration and vision.
Of course taking my muse out into the field is easier said than done. I love sharing beautiful locations with my workshop students, but when I’m leading a photo workshop, my own priorities take backseat to theirs. I can’t explore and experiment the way I do when I’m on my own. But that doesn’t keep me from trying.
Putting My Muse to Work
In April I did two Yosemite workshops that focused on Yosemite at its saturated spring best. Both groups chased rainbows in Yosemite’s booming waterfalls, mirror reflections in the valley’s many ephemeral pools, and pristine dogwood blooms decorating the swollen Merced River. A particular highlight this year was the opportunity to share the Upper Cascades in full flow.
The Upper Cascades vantage point I like is the Cascade Creek Bridge on Big Oak Flat Road, just upstream from the Cascade Creek and Tamarack Creek confluence (which is visible from the bridge). Like most waterfalls, Upper Cascades is best in overcast or full shade. So the open southern exposure, and the fact that overcast is relatively rare in California, makes it difficult to find Upper Cascades in ideal light. And since Upper Cascades is fed entirely by snowmelt, its window of opportunity is very small. So I’m thrilled any time I can make it here when the water’s flowing and the light is soft.
On the visit with my first group, after a brief orientation and getting everyone set up, almost as an afterthought I pointed to the bridge over Tamarack Creek just 50 yards or so up the road, telling them it’s a beautiful little creek, but so overgrown that it’s pretty difficult to photograph. But when I noticed a couple heading that way a little later, I couldn’t help wander up there myself to see what they’d found.
This might be a good time to mention that one exercise I use to stimulate my muse when I’m in the field is to think of specific favorite images that were almost certainly not the obvious shot, then challenge myself to find my own less obvious shot. One of those favorite images is William Neill’s Dawn, Lake Louise, Banff National Park, Canada; another is Charles Cramer’s (wait for it…) Cascade Creek, Spring, Yosemite, captured just yards from where I stood that morning. (William Neill also has his own version of the Cascade Creek tree—not a duplicate and equally beautiful—and I honestly don’t know which came first. I default to Charles Cramer’s because it’s the first one I saw, but I love them both.)
So anyway, scanning my the scene, I was first bothered by a single alder tree, just starting to sport its spring green, right smack in the middle of the scene. Then it occurred to me that I could actually use that tree to anchor my scene. My idea was a wide, vertical composition that placed the tree front and center, with the creek racing down the steep slope directly behind it. After working with it for a while, I decided that, while I really liked the composition, the tree needed more leaves. So I made a mental note to try again in a week, on my second group’s Upper Cascades visit, when the leaves might have filled in more.
And that’s exactly what I did. While not as full as I’d hoped, on that second visit the leaves were definitely more visible than the first time and I went straight to work. Though it’s difficult to tell in a two-dimensional image, Tamarack Creek approaches waterfall steep right here. Since there wasn’t enough light to freeze the water at any reasonable ISO, so I just went all-in on motion blur.
Having already worked out the composition on my first visit, I just ran a range of shutter speeds from 1/10 to 5 seconds. Examining my results as I worked, it quickly became clear that the speeds from 1/5 to 1/2 would be best: faster than 1/5 looked scratchy (still blurred, but not smooth); longer than 1/2, the water started to lose definition. This image used 1/4 second—I chose it because it smoothed the water nicely, while still retaining all the definition that conveys its extreme speed.
Opportunities like this during a workshop are fairly rare because I usually need to put my muse on hiatus to focus on my group. When that happens, my best images are usually the more obvious beauty, such a vivid sunrise/sunset, arcing rainbow, rising/setting moon, or any of the many other natural phenomena nature photographers covet and chase relentlessly. But as beautiful as those special moments are, my muse and I are never happier than the quiet times I get to spend working in subtle light, using my creative instincts to extract a scene’s essence.
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My Muse and I
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Go With the Flow
Posted on May 16, 2024
Blur, Diamond Beach, Iceland
Sony a7R V
Sony 24-105 f/4 G
ISO 50
f/11
1 second
Despite many visits to Diamond Beach over the last half-dozen or so years, I still don’t feel like I’ve mastered the iceberg blurred water shot to my complete satisfaction. But I keep working on it, and this year I was at least was able to capture something I like.
In previous visits, when my attempts to capture the perfect motion blur shot failed, I’d fall back on sunstar images—partly because I find them easier, but mostly because the backlit translucence of an iceberg is spectacularly beautiful. But as much as I like these sunstar images, I’ve seen other photographers’ Diamond Beach flowing surf images that I like even better, and can’t help going for my own.
The problem (aside from only getting one shot at it per year), is getting all the scene’s many moving parts working together. Blurring a waterfall, or the whitewater of a flowing river or creek, is relatively simple because, even though the water is moving, the surrounding scene, including the position of the water feature itself, is stationary. And while crashing surf is fairly random from one wave to the next, again the surrounding scene (the beach or rocks upon which the surf is crashing) is fixed. But nothing at Diamond Beach is still for long.
Foremost among the Diamond Beach moving parts the frigid North Atlantic’s unpredictable power, which requires unwavering attention—in 2022, a rogue wave swamped four workshop members who reasonably believed their position above the beach was safe. Trying to coordinate all the other variables with one eye constantly on the ocean is the photography equivalent of patting your head while rubbing your belly.
The first essential element to consider is the location of whatever mini iceberg I target, which needs to be planted in sand, yet close enough to the water for an occasional wave to wash up and around it. Too far from the surf and the waves never reach the ice; too close, and the subject will actually float away mid-exposure. Often it’s difficult to tell whether a potential subject is properly positioned until actually attempting to photograph it for awhile. And even the best ice subject doesn’t in one place for more than a wave or two.
Adding more frustration to these Diamond Beach iceberg scenes is the power of moving water, which, even when it doesn’t reposition the ice, can still impart micro-movement during the long exposure. I can’t tell you how often I’ve thought I’d nailed a Diamond Beach shot, only to zoom in on the ice afterward to find an imperceptible rotation or wobble had made it too soft to use.
Then there’s the timing of the click. I’ve found that the most appealing blur happens when the wave has swept past the ice and is actually washing back out. Equally important is the duration of the exposure, which needs to be long enough to blur the water, but not so long that all definition in the water is lost. Even if I’ve nailed all the above variables, since I focus on my chosen ice subject before the wave arrives, even if it stays perfectly stationary during my exposure, just the slightest shift in the ice’s position before my shutter click can invalidate my chosen focus point.
Of course all these machinations are irrelevant to the people don’t like the silky water effect in any image. And while I agree that at times blurring water verges on cliché, the truth is that fast water illuminated by anything less than full sunlight usually offers little choice. In those conditions the question isn’t whether to blur the water, it’s how much to blur it?
The argument against blurring moving water that always amuses me most is the one that says blurred water “isn’t natural.” The reasoning is that blurred-water images should be disqualified because we never see blurred water in nature. My question for these “purists” is, how many times have you seen the alternative to blurred water: individual water droplets suspended in midair?
This question just underscores a photographic truth I’ve been hammering on for years: The camera and human eye experience the world entirely differently. Discarding images simply because they aren’t “natural” would eliminate not only all black and white images, but also every image that’s not, uhhh, three-dimensional. Hmmm—let’s count how many images that leaves us with….
On the other hand, embracing your camera’s unique vision is empowering. It opens doors to many creative possibilities, of which blurred water is just a scratch on the surface. While there’s no magic formula to achieve it, blurring water isn’t hard once you learn to see the world as your camera does.
The prime determining factor in blurred water is the distance any individual water drop traverses your frame while the shutter is open: the more of the frame it spans, the greater the blur effect. The amount of blur you capture starts with the speed of the water, over which you have no control. But take heart, because there are several variables you can control:
- Focal length: The longer your focal length (more telephoto), the shorter the distance from one side the frame to the other (a wide angle vista can encompass many miles; a telephoto from the same vantage point can reduce the image’s width to a few hundred yards or less), so our imaginary water droplet will span a greater percentage of the frame’s width in a telephoto exposure.
- Subject distance: Moving closer achieves the same thing a telephoto lens does because the closer you are to the moving water, the shorter the distance our water droplet has to travel to span the frame.
- Shutter speed: The longer the shutter is open, the farther our droplet can travel during exposure. You can keep the shutter open by reducing your ISO, shrinking your aperture, and/or cutting the amount of light with a polarizer or neutral density filter.
Because long shutter speeds increase the amount of blur, blurring water is easier when you photograph in reduced light, such as overcast or shade, that requires a longer shutter speed. In full sunlight it’s pretty much impossible to blur water without a neutral density filter to cut the light illuminating the scene.
In a river or creek, whitewater generally works best because not only does it move fast, it also shows the blur effect much better than rapidly flowing green water. In other words, for any given combination of conditions and settings, while the amount of blur is the same for green water as it is for white water, the blur will be much more noticeable in the white water.
When the blur subject is ocean waves, there’s always an abundance of white water to work with. But rather than the relatively consistent flow pattern of river rapids, each ocean wave is significantly different from the others. I think this extreme variability from one wave to the next is what I most enjoy about ocean wave motion-blur images.
Approaching Diamond Beach this February morning, I scanned for ice in the narrow subject zone. I’ve had visits with more potential targets, but also some with less, so overall I was pleased with this year’s opportunities. I spent most of my time there strolling the black sand, working with workshop students, and occasionally targeting an ice chunk of my own for a few unsuccessful frames.
It wasn’t until I was confident everyone in the group was comfortable with the surroundings and happily at work on shots of their own that I got serious about my own photography.
I approached this little iceberg, maybe the size of a large microwave, and set up my tripod a couple of feet away. For the next 15 minutes or so, I worked carefully as up to 10 waves approached my subject, wrapped it, then flowed back out. Each wave nudged the ice slightly, forcing me to move my tripod and recompose before every frame.
Having an LCD and viewfinder to immediately scrutinize each capture was a huge advantage that allowed me to zero in on the shutter speed that worked for my focal length and distance, as well as verify the sharpness of my subject. Having waterproof boots that went up to within six inches of my knees was another advantage I quickly appreciated.
I still don’t think this Diamond Beach blurred wave image is as good as others I’ve seen, but I’m working on it…
Join Don Smith and me in Iceland next year
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Water on the Move
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Visualize the Future
Posted on May 6, 2024
Twin Falls, Ribbon Fall and Bridalveil Fall, Yosemite
Sony α1
Sony 16-35 f/2.8 GM
ISO 50
f/16
2.5 seconds
Virtually every scene I approach with a camera is beautiful, but a beautiful scene isn’t enough if all the parts don’t work together. Human experience of the world differs greatly from what the camera captures—the photographer’s job is to understand and use those differences.
Ansel Adams and visualization
Most photographers know that Ansel Adams visualized his final print, and the darkroom work necessary to create it, 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 upon a synergistic relationship between his own 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; or shoot so it looks good, not realizing the exposure is wrong until they get it on their computer), to photographers who channel their disappointment with an image into an overzealous Photoshop transformation, pumping color, adding “effects,” or inserting/removing objects until they achieve the ooooh-factor the image lacks.
The better approach is to understand the potential in a scene while actually viewing it in Nature, camera in hand, then to anticipate the processing the image will require and shoot accordingly. In other words, Photoshop should inform capture decisions, not fix them.
Putting Photoshop in its place
Every image ever captured, 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, low-compression jpegs, or (especially) the latest smartphone there’s nothing inherently pure about your “unprocessed” 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 built into the camera, usually opt for the control provided by raw capture and hands-on processing.
Unfortunately, Photoshop’s power makes it difficult for many (myself included) to know where to draw the processing line. And every photographer draws that line in a different place—one photographer’s “manipulation” is another’s “masterpiece.” The reality is, 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 heavy Lightroom/Photoshop user, I readily acknowledge that they’re amazing tools that are an essential part of my photography workflow. I particularly appreciate that LR/PS give the me ability to achieve things possible with black and white film and a decent darkroom, but difficult-to-impossible with the color transparencies I shot for over 25 years. Of course processing is an ever-evolving art itself, one I’m still learning. I’m afraid to this day I find myself mortified by some of my earlier processing choices—as I no doubt will be at some later date by processing choices I make today.
Creating an image, from start to finish
Normally when I find myself at a popular Yosemite location like Valley View, I won’t get my camera out unless I can find something that feels truly unique. Last month, not wanting to stray from my workshop group, I was content to observe and assist. But when the clouds draping El Capitan and Cathedral Rocks started turning pink in the evening’s last light, I couldn’t resist.
I raced to my car and grabbed my tripod and Sony a1, already loaded with my 16-35 GM lens, and headed down to the large log embedded along the riverbank, just downstream from the parking lot. This log has been a Valley View fixture for years, but each year it gets nudged a little by spring runoff—some years more than others. I’m sure it will eventually be swept away entirely.
A trio of photographers was already in place on and around the log, but spying a spot I could squeeze into, I scaled the log and tightroped my way toward the small opening. Despite an extreme language mismatch, we were able to pantomime our way into a friendly equilibrium—lots of smiles and pointing, with a mutual thumbs-up for punctuation—that enabled me to set up in a spot that worked for me without disturbing them.
With the light changing quickly, I went right to work, framing up a wide draft version that included the entire Valley View scene: clouds, Ribbon Fall (on the left), El Capitan, Cathedral Rocks, Bridalveil Fall, and the Merced River. I was especially excited to be able to frame the scene with the two prominent waterfalls: well known and year-round Bridalveil on the right, and somewhat anonymous, seasonal Ribbon Fall (Yosemite’s highest vertical drop).
I wasn’t super crazy about the log in the middle of the river, but since it was right in the middle of the scene I wanted to photograph, I decided to lean into it and just make it part of my composition. And while I liked the whitewater, I was less than thrilled by its position in the lower right corner of my frame. Again, just something I’d need to accept and deal with.
Balanced atop my log, I raised my tripod as high it would go to prevent the foreground log’s protruding vertical branch from intersecting the far riverbank. To remove distracting texture from the whitewater, I decided to smooth the water with a long shutter speed, dialing to ISO 50 and stopping down to f/16. Exposure was tricky because the sky still held onto a fair amount of light, while the foreground was darkening fast, so I took care to monitor my histogram until I found a shutter speed that didn’t wash out the color, while still creating a pleasing (to my eyes) motion blur.
The preview image on my LCD looked mostly too dark, with the sky too bright, but I know my camera well enough to know that all the beautiful detail in the shadows and highlights would return like magic in Lightroom. Besides pulling down my highlights and dragging up my shadows, a small color temperature tweak, and some selective dodging/burning, this turned out to be a relatively simple image to process and get to come out exactly as I’d visualized it that evening.
One more thing
Check out the gallery below. All of these images were captured at Valley View. Rather than base my composition on the “standard” shot here, I crafted each to take advantage of whatever conditions were before me at the time. And while a few images do indeed settle for the more conventional composition, my decision to photograph that way was justified (in my mind) by the exceptional conditions that told me I should just get out of the way and let the scene speak for itself. So I guess the moral is, trust your instincts and don’t settle for the obvious—unless the obvious just hits you right over the head and you just can’t ignore it.
Valley View Variety
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The Battle of the Brains
Posted on May 3, 2024
Intimate Dogwood, Yosemite Valley
Sony a7RV
Sony 200-600 G
ISO 1600
f/10
1/125 second
Two photographers approach a dense forest festooned with blooming dogwood: One is drawn to a lovely bloom and can clearly visualize a uniquely beautiful image, but he has no idea how to manage his exposure variables to achieve it; the other photographer is so intent on minimizing diffraction while identifying the shutter speed that will freeze the gently swaying bracts without compromising the ISO, that to her, the scene is nothing more than a disorganized assortment of white splashes.
While most photographers don’t fall at these extremes of the creative/analytical continuum, the vast majority do approach their craft with a dominant intuitive or analytical bias, a right-brain versus left-brain struggle with one side or the other significantly stronger than the other. Compounding the problem, rather than simply getting out of the way and letting the strong side do its work, much like an irritating little brother, the less developed (notice I didn’t say “weaker”) side often seems committed to distracting its dominant counterpart.
But every once in a while I run into a photographer who seems to have negotiated a synergistic truce between her conflicting mental camps. She’s able to efficiently analyze and execute the plan-and-setup stage of a shoot, then check-in with her aesthetic counterpart for creative inspiration. As the time to click the shutter approaches, she seamlessly switches between the two camps: the right brain knows how much to soften the background and blur the water, while her left brain knows exactly how to make this happen. The result is images that consistently amaze with their creative inspiration and technical execution.
My job as a photo workshop leader (among other things) is to identify where each photographer falls on this analytical/intuitive spectrum so I can honor and refine the dominant side, and encourage and nurture the less developed side. And after more than 18 years leading photo workshops, I’ve learned that what most photographers perceive as a terminal shortcoming in their creative or analytical aptitude can usually be resolved once it’s untangled from the dominant side.
When I hear, “I have a good eye for composition…,” I know before the “but” exits the photographer’s lips that I’ll need to prove that he’s smarter than his camera (he is). Our time in the field will be spent working on jettisoning the camera’s automatic modes because as smart as it might seem, your camera is not creative. I try to demystify and simplify metering, exposure, and depth management until they become second nature, comforting allies rather than distracting antagonists. Fortunately, despite the fact that much of the available photography education seems designed to intimidate Einstein, laying a foundation for mastering photography’s technical side is ridiculously simple.
On the other hand, before the sentence that starts, “I know my camera inside and out…,” is finished, I know I’ll need to foster this photographer’s curiosity, encourage experimentation, and help her disengage the rules that constrain her creativity. We’ll think in terms of whether the scene feels right, and work on what-if camera games (“What happens if I do this”) that break rules. Success won’t require a brain transplant, she’ll just learn to value and trust her instincts.
Intuition is the key to breaking the rules that inhibit creativity, while simplification and repetition create technical confidence. Alone, these qualities are incomplete; in conflict, they’re mutually exclusive anchors that prevent movement; in concert, their synergy is the foundation of photographic success.
For example
Coincidentally, just this week I happed to find myself in a dense forest festooned with blooming dogwood. Go figure. A few minutes earlier I’d set my workshop group free just upstream from Valley View, and after making sure everyone was content, I grabbed my camera, tripod, and 200-600 lens and went dogwood hunting.
I started by switching on my creative brain and wandering slowly, scanning the surroundings for a dogwood flower (yes, I know they’re technically not flowers, they’re bracts) to isolate from its surroundings. Eventually I made my way across the road, and soon my eyes landed on a single bloom swaying gently in full shade. Its slightly green tint and pristine center (this is where the actual dogwood flowers reside) told me this specimen was young—exactly what I was looking for.
Instead of framing my subject up and clicking, I scanned the background and found a branch with more young flowers a couple of feet away. Positioning myself to align my target flower with the background flowers, I framed up a vertical composition. Briefly engaging my analytical brain, I opened my aperture wide for the absolute softest background, increased my ISO to mitigate the effects of the breeze, and focused on the dogwood’s center. Then I dial my shutter speed until the histogram looked right, checking to be sure my chosen speed could freeze the flower”s gentle bobbing.
My favorite moment when doing these creative selective focus shots is the instant my subject snaps into focus. Suddenly, the world in my viewfinder is completely different from the one outside my camera. In addition to the pillowy background flowers, I liked the way a few rays of sunlight had penetrated the dense branches overhead to illuminate a couple of green leaves in my frame.
My creative brain really liked the framing I’d found, but thought the background could use just a little more definition. So back to my analytical brain I went, stopping down to f/10—just enough to distinguish individual flowers in the soft background. But stopping down also reduced my exposure—since I couldn’t increase my shutter speed to add light, instead I increased my ISO knowing that whatever noise the higher ISO introduced would easily clean up in processing. Click.
Of course this creative/emotional switching doesn’t really happen consciously anymore, but there was a time when I was far more deliberate about the distinction. Like most things in life, the longer I do this, the more unconscious and seamless this switching becomes, and the better my two sides play together.
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More Dogwood!
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Happy Earth Day
Posted on April 26, 2024
Valley Fog, Tunnel View, Yosemite
Sony a7R V
Sony 24-105 f/4 G
ISO 100
f/10
1/6 second
My commitment for this blog is one image/post per week. With a workshop that started Sunday and ended Wednesday, I’m a little behind this week, but I made it! Next week I have a workshop that goes from Monday through Thursday, and the following week I’ll be completely off the grid rafting the Grand Canyon. But one way or the other, I’ll continue with my once per week commitment, even if I’m a little late. And if I do have to skip a week, I’ll catch up eventually, I promise. I return you now to your regular programming…
Happy Earth Day to you
How did you celebrate Earth Day (April 22) this year? I was fortunate enough to celebrate up close and personal, guiding a workshop group around Yosemite. It’s easy to appreciate a planet when you’re surrounded by some of its most exquisite beauty, and with a group of people who appreciates it as much as you do, but every time I visit, I’m reminded that we may in fact be loving our wonders to death.
It’s impossible to have zero impact on the natural world. Every day, even if we never leave the house, we consume energy that, directly or indirectly, pollutes the atmosphere and contributes the greenhouse gases that warm our planet. The problem only worsens when we venture outdoors. Our vehicles belch exhaust, or consume electricity that was the product of invasive mining. At our destination, the clothing we wear introduces microscopic, non-indiginous flora and fauna, while the noise we create clashes with the natural sounds that comfort others and communicate information to animals. Even foot travel, the oldest, most fundamental mode of transportation, crushes rocks, plants, and small creatures with each footfall. And let’s not forget the artificial light that dilutes our once black night sky.
I’m not suggesting that we all hole up beneath a rock. If everyone just considered how their actions impact the environment and acted responsibly, our planet would be a better, more sustainable place.
Let’s get specific
The damage that’s an unavoidable consequence of keeping the natural world accessible to all is a tightrope our National Park Service does an excellent job navigating. With their EVs, organic, and recycling mindset, it’s even easy for individuals to believe that the problem is everyone else.
I mean, who’d have thought merely walking on “dirt” could impact the ecosystem for tens or hundreds of years? But before straying off the trail for that unique perspective of Delicate Arch, check out this admonition from Arches National Park. And Hawaii’s black sand beaches may appear unique and enduring, but the next time you consider scooping a sample to share with friends back on the mainland, know that Hawaii’s black sand is a finite, ephemeral phenomenon that will be replaced with “conventional” white sand as soon as its volcanic source is tapped–as evidenced by the direct correlation between the islands with the most black sands beaches and the islands with the most recent volcanic activity.
Sadly, it’s Earth’s most beautiful locations that suffer most. Yosemite’s beauty is no secret—to keep it beautiful, the National Park Service has been forced to implement a reservation system to keep the crowds (marginally) manageable. Similar crowd curtailment restrictions are in place, or being strongly considered, at other national parks. And while the reservations have helped in Yosemite and elsewhere, the shear volume of visitors who make it through guarantees too much traffic, garbage, noise, and too many boots on the ground.
While Yosemite’s durable granite may lull visitors into environmental complacency, it is now permanently scarred by decades of irresponsible climbing. And Yosemite’s fragile meadows and wetlands, home many plants and insects that are an integral part of the natural balance that makes Yosemite unique, suffer from each footstep to the point than some are now off-limits.
A few years ago, so many people crowded the elevated bank of the Merced River to photograph Horsetail Fall’s sunset show, the riverbank collapsed—that area is now off limits during Horsetail season. Despite all this, I can’t tell you how often I see people in Yosemite cavalierly trampling meadows to get in position for a shot, as a trail shortcut, or to stalk a frightened animal.
Don’t be this person
Despite the damage inflicted by the sheer volume of garden variety tourists, my biggest concern is the much smaller cohort doing a disproportionate amount of damage: photographers. Chasing the very subjects they put at risk, photographers have a vested interest and should know better. But as the urge to top the one another grows, more photographers seem to be abusing nature in ways that at best betrays their ignorance of the damage they’re doing, and at worst reveals their startling indifference to the fragility of the very subjects that inspire them to click their shutters in the first place.
If I can’t appeal to your environmental conscience, consider that simply wandering about with a camera and/or tripod labels you, “Photographer.” In that role you represent the entire photography community: when you do harm as Photographer, most observers (the general public and outdoor decision makers) simply apply the Photographer label and lump all of us, even the responsible majority, into the same offending group.
Like it or not, one photographer’s indiscretion affects the way every photographer is perceived, and potentially brings about restrictions that directly or indirectly impact all of us. So if you like fences, permits, and rules, just keep going wherever you want to go, whenever you want to go there.
It’s not that difficult
Environmental responsibility doesn’t require joining Greenpeace or dropping off the grid (not that there’s anything wrong with that). Simply taking a few minutes to understand natural concerns specific to whatever area you visit is a good place to start. Most public lands have websites with information they’d love you to read before visiting. And most park officials are more than happy to share literature on the topic (you might in fact find useful information right there in that stack of papers you jammed into your car’s center console as you drove away from the entrance station).
Most national parks have non-profit advocacy organizations that do much more than advocate, maintaining trails and underwriting park improvements that would otherwise be impossible. For example, the Yosemite Conservancy funded Bridalveil Fall’s recently completed (significant) upgrade that included new flush toilets (yay!), new trails and vistas, and enhanced handicapped access.
If you spend a lot of time at a national park, consider supporting its non-profit partner. The two I belong to are Yosemite Conservancy and Grand Canyon Conservancy.
Develop a “leave no trace” mindset
Whether or not you contribute with your wallet, you can still act responsibly in the field. Stay on established trails whenever possible, and always think before advancing by training yourself to anticipate each future step with the understanding of its impact. Believe it or not, this isn’t a particularly difficult habit to form. Whenever you see trash, please pick it up, even if it isn’t yours. And don’t be shy about gently reminding (educating) other photographers whose actions risk soiling the reputation for all of us.
A few years ago, as a condition of my national parks’ workshop permits, I was guided to The Center for Outdoor Ethics and their “Leave No Trace” initiative. There’s great information here–much of it is just plain common sense, but I guarantee you’ll learn things too.
Armed with this mindset, go forth and enjoy nature–but please save some for the rest of us.
About this image
Valley Fog, Tunnel View, Yosemite
When I started taking pictures, long before the dawn of digital, my emphasis was outdoor subjects ranging from natural landscapes to urban skylines and bridges. But as my eye and overall relationship with the world has evolved, I’ve gravitated naturally toward landscapes and away from the cityscapes.
I understand now that this evolution has much to do with my love (and concern) for the natural world, both the beauty that surrounds us and damage we’re doing, and a desire to honor it. In recent years I’ve very consciously striven to, as much as possible, create images that allow people to imagine our planet untouched by humans—perhaps hoping that they’ll understand what’s at risk somehow do their share to stem the tide.
Though only number six on the current list of most visited national parks, Yosemite needs to cram the vast majority of its nearly 4-million annual visitors into the less-than 10 square miles of Yosemite Valley. In fact, for more than half the year, almost all of the park outside of Yosemite Valley is smothered in snow and closed to vehicles. This creates congestion and other problems that are unique to Yosemite.
One of the most beloved vistas on Earth, Tunnel View attracts gawkers like cats to a can-opener—all I have to say about that is, “Meow.” Despite its popularity, and the fact that the vista has indeed been crafted by the NPS (paved parking, enclosed by a low stone wall, and many trees removed to maintain the view), Tunnel View remains one of my favorite places to imagine a world without human interference.
My history with Tunnel View in Yosemite dates back to long before I ever picked up a camera, but I never take it for granted. Each time I visit, I try picture Yosemite before paintings, photographs, and word of mouth eliminated the possibility for utter surprise and awe, and what it must have been like to round a corner or crest a rise to see Yosemite Valley unfolding before you (earlier views of Yosemite were not at the current location of Tunnel View, but the overall view and experience were similar).
Dance of the Veils, Tunnel View, Yosemite
Today, unless I’m there for a moonrise, I rarely take out my camera at Tunnel View, preferring instead to watch the reaction of other visitors—either my workshop students or just random tourists. But every once in a while, the scene is too beautiful to resist. That happened twice for me in February, when I added two more to my (arguably already too full) Tunnel View portfolio: today’s image and the one I shared last week.
This week’s image came in the first workshop, before sunrise following an overnight rain. Though the compositions are similar, the moods of the two images are completely different. First, in last week’s image, the valley sported a thin glaze of snow, while the overnight temperatures for this week’s image weren’t quite cold enough to turn the rain to snow in Yosemite Valley (though we did find some had fallen on the east side of the valley).
But to me the biggest difference between the two images is the mood. In the snowy image I shared last week, the storm had moved on and the sky had cleared—most of the remaining clouds were local, radiating from the valley floor. The warm light of the approaching sun coloring the sky gives the scene a brighter, more uplifting feel.
The new image I share this week came during a break in the storm, but not at its end. With more rain to come, the moisture-laden sky darkened and cooled the scene, creating a brooding atmosphere. I especially like these scenes for the way they convey the timeless, prehistoric feel I seek.
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Tunnel View Views
The Other AI
Posted on April 16, 2024
Dance of the Veils, Tunnel View, Yosemite
Sony a7R V
Sony 24-105 f/4 G
ISO 100
f/10
1/10 second
What’s wrong with ACTUAL intelligence (the other AI)?
I love all the genuine eclipse photos popping up on social media—almost as much as I DESPISE all the fake eclipse photos. Though we’ve had to deal with a glut of fabricated photos since the introduction of computers and digital capture to photography (all the way back before the turn of the 21st Century), the advent of artificial intelligence, combined with insatiable social media consumption, has put the bogus image problem on steroids. Despite being downright laughable, these AI frauds seem to fool a disturbing number of viewers. More concerning, many who claim they’re not fooled claim they don’t care because they still find these AI-generated fakes “beautiful.”
Acknowledging that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, all I can do is shrug and offer that my own definition of beauty is founded on truth. Not necessarily a perfect reproduction, or repetition of literal fact, but an overarching connection to some essential reality.
Whether it’s a painting, a work of fiction, a photograph, or any other artistic creation, I need to feel that essential truth connecting the scene, the artist, and me. The reality in a work of art—visual, musical, written, or whatever—doesn’t need to be, in fact usually isn’t, a literal reproduction of the world as I know it. Rather, I prefer artistic creations that reveal a previously unseen (by me) truth about the world. In other words, while paintings are rarely literal interpretations of the world (and in fact can be quite abstract), and novels by definition aren’t factual, the artistic creations I’m drawn to tap the creator’s unique take on reality to expand my own.
Even photographs, once relied on as flawless reproductions of reality, can’t possibly duplicate our 3-dimensional, unbounded, dynamic, multi-sensory reality. But they can, in the right hands, leverage the camera’s reality to expose hidden truths about the world. No matter how “stunning” an AI-generated or dishonest composite (two or more unassociated scenes in one image) image might be at first glance, they lack the artist’s perspective, or any connection to reality, sometimes both. Even worse, counterfeit images pretend to represent a reality that doesn’t exist. While it may be possible for an AI creation to require genuine human insight and creativity, so far all I see is people using AI as a shortcut around actual intelligence.
Of course photographic deception started long before digital capture, but like so many other things computers simplified, digital capture made it easy for people more interested in attention than connection to attract the strokes they covet. At least in the film days, manipulating a photo still required a bit of skill and effort—back then, when it was done honestly, you could at least admire the perpetrator’s skill.
Full disclosure (I digress)
I have to confess that I was actually party to blatant image manipulation at the age of 11, when my best friend Rob and I did a sixth grade Science Fair project on UFOs. In Rob’s backyard (and with help from Rob’s dad), we first photographed a homemade styrofoam “flying saucer” suspended on a wire against a plain tarp. Next, without advancing the film, we photographed our school, then sent the film off to be processed (who remembers those days?).
A few days later, we had a pretty convincing black-and-white print of our school beneath a hovering UFO. But, since our sole goal was to prove how easy it is to fake a UFO sighting, we did reveal the sleight-of-camera trick in our presentation (so no harm, no foul).
The digital dilemma
The introduction of computers to the world of photography, even before digital camera’s were anything more than a promising novelty, created an almost irresistible temptation for photographers who lacked the ethic or inspiration to create their own images. At the time, with no consensus on where to draw the line on digital manipulation, some photographers innocently stepped over the spot where most of us would draw it today.
For example, in the mid-90s, when Art Wolfe cloned extra zebras into his (already memorable) zebra herd image, many cried “Foul!” Wolfe, who had no intent to deceive, was taken aback by the intensity of the blowback, arguing that the resulting image was a work of art (no pun intended), not journalism.
In the long run, the discussion precipitated by Wolfe’s act probably brought more clarity to the broader digital manipulation issue by forcing photographers to consider the power and potential ramifications of the nascent technology, and to decide where they stood on the matter. Expressing his disapproval in a letter to his friend Wolfe, renowned landscape photographer Galen Rowell probably said it best: “Don’t do anything you wouldn’t feel comfortable having fully revealed in a caption.” Great advice that still applies.
Nevertheless, left up to each photographer, the “how much manipulation is too much” line remains rather fuzzy, but I think most credible photographers today agree that it excludes any form of deception. Which brings me back to the absolutely ridiculous eclipse fakes we’ve all been subjected to. I honestly don’t know what upsets me more—the fact that “photographers” are trying to pass these fakes off as real, or the number of people who they fool. (And I won’t even get into the fact that every image and word I’ve shared online has almost certainly been mined to perpetrate AI fabrication—that’s a blog for a different day.)
One risk of that mass gullibility, and people’s apathy about the distinction between real and artificial, is the dilution of photography’s perception in the public eye. As beautiful as Nature is without help, it’s pretty hard to compete with cartoonish captures when a connection to reality isn’t a criterion. I’m already seeing the effects—the volume of enthusiastic praise for obvious fakes is disturbing enough, but even more disturbing to me is the number of people responding to legitimate, creative, hard-earned images with skepticism.
So what can we do?
I’m not sure there is a complete solution to the AI problem, but I hope that enough people crying “Foul!,” on social media and elsewhere, will open eyes and force discussions that might help the public draw a line—just as the zebra debate did three decades ago. If the blowback is strong enough, perhaps even the potential stigma will be enough to discourage AI purveyors and consumers alike.
As much as I appreciate people calling out AI perpetrators in the comments of obviously fake social media posts—I’ll do this occasionally myself when I think I can contribute actual insight that might help some understand why an image is fake—I’m afraid these well-intended comments get so buried (by the “Stunning!” and “Breathtaking!” genuflections) that very few people actually see them. So one step I’ve started taking with every single fake image that soils my social media feeds is to permanently hide all future posts from that page/profile/poster. I’m probably fighting a losing battle, but at least this unforgiving, one-strike-and-you’re-out policy gives me a little satisfaction each time I do it.
About this image
Dance of the Veils, Tunnel View, Yosemite
One thing a still photo can do better than any other visual medium, better even than human vision, is freeze a moment in time. From explosive lightning, to crashing surf, to a crimson sunset, to swirling clouds, Nature’s most beautiful moments are also often its most ephemeral. No matter how much we believe at the time that we’ll never forget one of these special events, sadly, the memory does fade with time. But a camera and capable photographer, in addition to revealing hidden aspects of the natural world, records the actual photons illuminating those transient moments so they can be revisited and shared in perpetuity.
Which was the very last thing on my mind as this year’s February workshop group and I pulled into the Tunnel View parking lot in the predawn gloaming of this chilly morning. Instead, we were abuzz with excitement about the unexpected overnight snow that had glazed every tree and rock in Yosemite Valley with a thin veneer of white.
Our excitement compounded when we saw the scene unfolding in Yosemite Valley below. One of my most frequent Yosemite workshop questions is some version of, “Will we get some of that low fog in the valley when we’re at Tunnel View?” My standard answer is, “That’s only in the Deluxe Workshop,” but they rarely accept that. The real answer is, while this valley fog does happen from time-to-time, it’s impossible to predict the rare combination of temperature, atmospheric moisture, and still air it requires. (It’s much easier to predict the mornings when it absolutely won’t happen, which is most of them.)
But here it was, almost as if I’d ordered it up special for my group. (I tried to take credit but don’t think they were buying it.) Since I’ve seen this fog disappear as suddenly as it appears, or rise up from the valley floor to engulf the entire view in just a matter of seconds, as soon as we were parked I told the group to grab their gear and hustle to the vista as fast as they can. Then I did something I rarely do at Tunnel View anymore: I grabbed my gear and hustled to the vista as fast as I could.
While Tunnel View is one of the most beautiful views I’ve ever photographed, I’ve been here so many times that I usually don’t get my gear out here anymore—not because I no longer find it beautiful, but because it’s a rare visit that I get to see something I’ve not seen before. But since the view this morning, while not unprecedented, was truly special, I just couldn’t help myself. Another factor in my decision to photograph was that here we can all line up together, allowing me to check on and assist anyone who needs help, and still swing by my camera to click an occasional frame. This morning everyone seemed to be doing fine, so I was actually able to capture a couple of dozen frames as the fog danced below.
There were a lot of oohs and ahhs when a finger of fog rose from the valley floor and pirouetted toward Half Dome. There were many ways to photograph it, but I chose to frame it as tightly as possible, ending up with a series of a half-dozen of this particular fog feature before it morphed into something completely different. I included minimal sky because the sky above El Capitan, Half Dome, and Cathedral Rocks was relatively (compared to the rest of the scene) empty and uninteresting.
With the fog continuously shifting, to avoid cutting off any of the zigzag beneath Bridalveil Fall, I had to be extremely conscious of its spread. Depth of field wasn’t a concern because everything in my frame was at infinity. The most challenging aspect was exposure of the bright sky with the fully shaded valley. To get it all, I underexposed the foreground enough to spare the warmth of the approaching sun. The result was a virtually black foreground and colorless sky on my camera’s LCD, but I took special care to monitor my histogram and ensure that I’d be able to recover the shadows in Lightroom/Photoshop.
So, as you can see from my description, I did indeed leverage digital “manipulation” to create the finished product I share here. But my processing steps were designed to brighten the nearly black foreground my camera captured, because exposing it brighter would have resulted in a completely white sky. Since neither a white sky or a black foreground were anything close to our experience this morning, I applied actual intelligence to expose the scene and create an image that more closely reflects this actual (and unrepeatable) event in Nature.
My group rose in the frigid dark and stood bundled against the icy cold to witness this scene and capture permanent, shareable memories of our glorious morning. I imagine it might have be possible for us to have stayed in our cozy hotel rooms, open our computers, and input a few prompts in an AI image generator to come up with something similar (and why not throw in a rainbow, lightning bolts, and rising moon while we’re at it?). But where’s the joy in that?
Ephemeral Nature
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There’s No Whining in Photography
Posted on April 10, 2024
Icewater, Kvernufoss, Iceland
Sony a7R V
Sony 24-105 f/4 G
ISO 50
f/18
1/4 second
Do I need to tell you it was brutally cold this afternoon? Of course not (and I doubt anyone really wants to hear me whine about it anyway).
I also probably don’t need to tell you that this scene was spectacularly beautiful. And unfortunately, these two facts are often inexorably intertwined because the best time for photography is usually the worst time to be outside. As nice as it is to stroll up to a scene in shorts and flip-flops to discover the image of my dreams just waiting for me, the majority of my most memorable images required some degree of suffering.
That suffering can take many forms, but whenever I start feeling sorry for myself, I remind myself that most of my favorite images were earned. I say this less to pat myself on the back than to force me back outside when my resolve starts wavering.
With this in mind, many years ago I created a simple mnemonic that describes the effort-centric mindset that consistently good photography requires that I call, “The 3 P’s of Nature Photography”: Preparation, Persistence, and Pain.
Let’s review
Nightfall, Full Moon and Yosemite Valley, Yosemite
1: Preparation is your foundation, the mastery of your craft combined with the creative vision that allows you to wring the most from every moment in nature. It’s the location experience you’ve earned, the craft you’ve worked hard to perfect, the research that puts you in the right place at the right time, and your ability to see the world the way your camera sees it.
Prepared photographers possess a firm grasp of exposure and hyperfocal focus techniques. They research their subjects to understand when the light will be best, where and when the wildflowers bloom, and the precise time and place of the full moon’s appearance above their favorite landscape. They know at capture how they’ll leverage their processing skill for the best possible result.
The moon’s arrival above Yosemite Valley on this snowy February evening was no fluke—it had been on my radar for over a year, and I’d arranged my schedule to ensure that I wouldn’t miss it. So, while (from all appearances) most of the photography world shivered in Yosemite Valley with their cameras trained on Horsetail Fall, waiting for the fickle sunlight to do its unpredictable thing, my camera and I were set up with a small cohort of similarly prepared photographers at Tunnel View, anticipating the moon’s arrival. As is often the case, the Horsetail Fall crowd was disappointed this evening; the moon chasers were not.
But just being there wasn’t enough, because photographing a daylight bright moon above a landscape washed in diminishing post-sunset shadow is an extremely tricky exposure.
Sunrise, Lone Pine Peak and Mt. Whitney, Eastern Sierra
2: Persistence is patience—with a dash of stubbornness. It’s the determination that keeps you going back when the first, second, or hundredth attempt has been thwarted by unexpected light, weather, or a host of other frustrations. Persistence keeps you out there when the chances look bleak, and sends you over that next rise when there’s no sign of reward.
With virtually no control over our subjects, nature photographers soon learn that persistence is sometimes the only fuel that keeps us going, and we all have stories of rewards that more than compensate for the far greater number of failures.
Many years ago my brother and I holed up for several days beneath a solid gray deck of low clouds above Lone Pine, waiting for the clouds to lift enough for Mt. Whitney to come out to play. Every morning we’d drive up into the Alabama Hills full of hope to wait for a sunrise that never happened. With a weather forecast that promised snow along our route home, we had every reason to forego photography and hit the road early on our final morning. But we drove back up into the Alabama Hills one last time, and were finally rewarded when the clouds broke up just as the rising sun illuminated the Sierra Crest.
Starry Night, Lake Wanaka, New Zealand
3: Pain is the willingness to suffer for your craft. I’m not suggesting that you risk injury or death for the sake of a coveted capture, but you do need to be able to experience more than a little discomfort, and to ignore the tug of a warm fire, full stomach, sound sleep, and dry clothes, because the unfortunate truth is that the best photographs usually seem to happen when most of the world would rather be inside.
Pain and persistence often go hand-in-hand, and the ability to persist is often a function of your tolerance of the pain it brings—not just physical pain, but the monotony of repetition or just enduring minutes or hours of absolutely nothing happening. For most photographers, there’s a direct correlation between the joy an image brings and the pain experienced pursuing it.
My day at Lake Wanaka in New Zealand had started long before dawn with a walk along the lakeshore to spend sunrise with this truly special tree and its reflection. Sunrise was nice, but we weren’t done, not even close. From there our group drove three hours to Aoraki / Mt. Cook National Park, making several stops along the way for more hikes and beautiful winter photography. We wrapped up the day, or so I believed, waiting for darkness to reveal the Milky Way over Tasman Lake. Following our Milky Way shoot, we walked back to the van in the dark, and made the three-hour drive back to Wanaka to wrap up the longest photography day of my life.
The return drive was made even longer by dense fog that hugged most of our route back. Thoroughly exhausted, at our Wanaka hotel, where warm beds beckoned, I glanced skyward and saw stars. Somehow that sight infused me with a second wind and rather than return to my room, I beelined back to the lake.
It was so dark that at first I couldn’t find the tree—had I hiked too far? Not far enough? After a couple of test images to orient myself, I started working on the scene. I was aware of the cold, but strangely unaffected by it, something that photography seems to do to me. I got in about 30 minutes of joyful photography before the fog expanded and swallowed the scene.
So which of my 3 P’s do I credit for this one?
Icewater, Kvernufoss, Iceland
This image was all about the Pain. I captured it just couple of months ago, on the last full day of the Iceland winter workshop that Don Smith and I do each year.
Having never been to Kvernufoss, we took the word of the two photographers Don and I had hired to guide this year’s group, Albert Dros and Vincenzo Mazza, that it was worth the one mile hike. As you can see, they were right.
My difficulty (pain) this frigid afternoon was exacerbated by the fact that a couple of days earlier the crampons that had enabled me to successfully navigate Iceland’s frequently treacherous icy footing had mysteriously disappeared, making each outdoor step a potential disaster. Not knowing the trail, I had no idea whether I’d make it to the fall without my crampons, but I didn’t want to miss a new waterfall. Most of the hike turned out to have a slight uphill grade that was not too icy and much easier to navigate than I’d feared, but as we crested a rise and got our first look at the fall, I saw that the trail descending to the fall was quite icy.
That first view was quite beautiful—so beautiful that it would have been very easy to just set up there and go no farther. But I really wanted to get closer. Slowed by my banana peal boots, I quickly fell behind the group. As I cautiously descended, I could see that many in the group had actually followed the trail behind the fall, a potentially very cool perspective. But the trail kept getting icier, and after witnessing several people with crampons fall hard and struggle to navigate the trail’s final stretch, I reset my plan about 150 feet from the fall.
Resigned to Plan B, I decided to focus my attention on the ample opportunities nearby: glacial blue-green river punctuated with icy disks, snowy riverbank, and plunging waterfall framed by spear-like icicles. I tried a few frames firmly planted on the main trail, but knew I could better emphasize the river and ice by getting down to river level. Hmmm…
I spied a short, narrow trail curving down to the river and gingerly made my way down, concentrating with each shuffle-step lest I reprise (a winter version of) the Romancing the Stone mudslide scene. Safely down at the river, I planted myself back on solid (-ish) footing and framed up a scene in my viewfinder. With each peek, decided I needed to be closer to river level to make the water and ice as prominent as possible, slightly lowering my tripod each time. When I finally started working the scene from river level, I realized I should have just bypassed all those incremental tripod steps and plopped straight down, but (speaking of “pain”) the older and colder I get, the more difficult the simple act of dropping to ground level becomes (and don’t even get me started on getting back up).
Grateful for my heavy duty, waterproof down parka that goes down to mid-thigh, I plopped my butt down onto the snow to position myself closer to eye level with my viewfinder—and to minimize my chances of ending up in the river. I framed the scene to maximize the nearby ice disks, minimize the flat gray sky, and eliminate distractions along the riverbank. The trickiest part was finding a clean border with minimal subjects cut off or jutting in, but I finally found something I was pretty satisfied with. Because sharpness throughout my frame was essential, and the closest ice was just a few feet away, I stopped down to f/18 and focused on the second ice disk. To add a little blur to the water, I dialed to ISO 50.
While it would have been easy to complain about the cold, or to feel sorry for myself for missing my crampons, I was here by choice. Scenes like this are exactly why I do this photography thing—and a perfect reminder why there really is no whining in photography.
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To the Pain
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Bonus Blog: Eclipse Special
Posted on April 5, 2024
Solar Return, Total Solar Eclipse, Central Idaho (August 21, 2017)
Sony a7RII
Sony 100-400 GM
ISO 100
f/16
1/6 second
The following article isn’t a comprehensive eclipse photography how-to, but for eclipse viewers, it might be worth reading anyway
I’m getting a lot of questions about next week’s (April 8, 2024) total solar eclipse. In addition the standard “how-to” questions, many have asked if I plan to write a blog about how to photograph it. My response has been that, having photographed exactly one total solar eclipse in my life, I’m far from qualified to portray myself as an eclipse expert. But the questions keep coming, so I figured I’ll put my limited knowledge, along with some unsolicited experience-based advice, in a short(-ish) blog post with the qualifier that there are many people out there with far more eclipse photography experience than I have. And please note that the words that follow are intended for my kindred spirits, those whose passion for photography is an extension of their love of Nature—if your goal is a career-making eclipse image that you can retire on, you probably want to look elsewhere.
Safety first
And before I say anything else, don’t even think about viewing the eclipse without proper eye and camera lens protection—anything less risks permanent eye and sensor damage. Rather than try to provide safety guidance here, I’ll just refer you to NASA’s Eclipse Viewing Safety page.
Trust me
Based on my 2017 experience, my number one piece of advice to anyone lucky enough to be in position for eclipse totality is don’t get so caught up the photography that you fail to appreciate the majesty above you. I can’t emphasize this enough. For many, this will be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and (I promise) if you’re trying to photograph it, the short duration of totality (four minutes or less) will take your breath away (like a knee to the midsection if you realize you missed it fiddling with your camera).
After my experience in 2017, my recommended approach to photographing any total eclipse while prioritizing the experience, is to put your camera on a tripod well in advance, attach your longest lens, and frame up the sun. In other words, don’t get fancy.
Trying to add landscape features to your eclipse image is probably a mistake, because during totality the sun will be so high in the sky that any (legitimate) image that includes the landscape will be so wide, the eclipse will shrink close to insignificance in the frame. Even going wide enough to include stars and planets will shrink the eclipse more than I’d prefer.
Not only will shooting a telephoto of the eclipse maximize the eclipse’s beauty, a tight frame eliminates all terrestrial objects, making your location within the path of totality irrelevant—whether you’re at a beautiful mountain lake or the parking lot of a 7/11, your telephoto eclipse images will look the same. That said, if you can be in a relatively remote area away from crowds, by all means do it. While the photography aspect won’t be any different, the multi-sensory personal aspect will be much better.
Time to start clicking
Don’t misunderstand: I’m not saying you shouldn’t photograph the eclipse—I can’t imagine witnessing something this special and not photographing it. I just want to make sure your priorities are straight before you begin. So here goes…
I think the best eclipse images happen in the few seconds before and after totality, so make sure you’re ready for both of these very brief windows. During the actual period of totality, you’ll have time to catch your breath, appreciate the view, and prepare for the sun’s return.
Though in 2017 I took a ton of images long before and after totality, I never did a thing with them—they just weren’t that interesting (a bright disk with a bite taken out). But that doesn’t mean these images didn’t have value, especially my before images, because there’s no better way to appreciate the speed of Earth’s rotation than to frame up any celestial object in a long telephoto lens and watch how quickly it exits the frame. If nothing else, even if you won’t use your before images, this is your best opportunity to gauge the sun’s pace across the frame at your chosen focal length, and its general path across the sky. In 2017, armed with this knowledge, I set a timer on my watch (can’t remember how long—30 seconds?) to remind me to check my framing. Don’t forget, the longer your focal length, the more frequently you’ll need to check your framing.
In final minute (or so) before totality, remove the solar filter (from the lens, not your eyes), stop down to f/16 or smaller (for a sunstar as the sun shrinks to nothing), and reframe the sun by moving it toward the edge of your frame to maximize the length of time until you’ll need to reframe again—ideally you won’t need to touch your camera again until after totality starts and you’ll have about four glorious minutes to enjoy a view that doesn’t change a lot. (FYI, the reason you don’t see any 2017 pre-totality sunstar images from me is because I was just a few seconds late removing my solar filter until it was too late—fortunately, I was prepared when the sun returned two minutes later.)
Don’t forget to check your exposure, both after removing the solar filter, and again when the sun is completely eclipsed. Since most of your frame will be black, your histogram will be skewed far to the left, but don’t worry about this—the most important thing is to make the remaining sunlight as bright as possible without clipping those highlights.
In the final seconds before and after totality, look for the Baily’s Beads and the diamond ring effects on sun’s perimeter (you might not see them until you view your images later). Both are brilliant splashes of light on the sun’s rim, caused when the last rays pass through irregularities on the lunar surface. Once the sun has disappeared completely, you can increase your exposure and remove eye protection (but keep it nearby—like on top of your head) until the sun returns.
Once totality arrives, a possible compositional option that will require a wider focal length is to include Venus, about 15 degrees below and right of the eclipse, and Jupiter, about 30 degrees above and to the left of the eclipse. As cool as that sounds, they’ll just be white dots, and as I said earlier, the wider focal length will shrink the sun. But if that sounds appealing, you’ll have time to do this in the four minutes of totality without completely distracting yourself from the eclipse experience. (But if you change your focal length for any reason, don’t forget to refocus.)
One potentially very cool addition to your eclipse frame is Comet Pons-Brooks, in the sky near Jupiter. On the cusp of naked-eye visibility, the comet should be visible to a camera during the few minutes of eclipse totality darkness. Don’t expect anything like 2020’s NEOWISE, but you might get a small tail that will identify the fuzzy dot as a comet, a truly rare opportunity that could set your eclipse photos apart.
If you must include landscape with your eclipse, to avoid an image that’s merely a single tiny sun somewhere near the top of the frame, you’ll probably want to do a time-lapse composite: a series of images captured at regular intervals, then combined in the computer with a before or after picture of the landscape, which will depict in one frame the eclipse’s evolution and path above the landscape. If you attempt a composite, please don’t cheat and manufacture a composite that shows the eclipse above an unrelated landscape—for example, an image of the Golden Gate Bridge with an eclipse series transposed above it (yuck). Nor should you magnify the eclipse larger than its actual size. (If you do either of these things, I don’t want to see them.) Since my 2017 composite attempt was a failure, and trying to do that composite was the distraction I most regret, I’ll refer you to the countless other photographers who have had more time-lapse success and generously offer guidance online.
A few processing points
The three images I’ve processed from 2017 (below) are cropped. Even though I used a 400mm lens (I’d have used a 200-600 if it had been available at the time), I wanted the eclipse bigger, so I cropped closer in Photoshop. Because there’s not a lot of fine detail in an eclipse image, you have a fair amount of latitude for cropping without doing great harm, so if you’re disappointed by the size of the eclipse in whatever lens you use, you’re not necessarily stuck with that.
I shoot everything in raw, which enabled me to warm the color temperature quite a bit in Lightroom. To my eyes, the eclipse looked more blue than this, but I just like my images being the yellow color we associate with the sun.
I also had to clean up some lens flair in Photoshop. Lens flair is pretty much unavoidable if the sun is in your frame, but the Photoshop Remove tool handles it pretty well.
Experience first, then photography
However you choose to photograph the eclipse, during totality step away from the camera and bask in the experience. As totality approaches, observe the sunlight’s subtle dimming, and the way shadows appear more crisply etched as the area of the sun providing illumination diminishes. With a good view of the surrounding landscape, in the final seconds you might see the moon’s shadow rapid approach before engulfing you in totality.
Now you’re eclipsed. Marvel at the sun’s corona dancing against the surrounding blackness. As your eyes adjust, look for stars, planets, and (if you’re lucky) Comet Pons-Brooks. And don’t limit your focus to the visual. When the sun disappears, note the rapturous awe, or elated celebration, of those surrounding you. Monitor animal behavior, and check in with your non-visual senses: notice the cooler temperature, listen for bird, insect, and other creature sounds to go quiet, perhaps replaced by the calls of nocturnal creatures.
There you have it, the extent of my eclipse photography knowledge. If you encounter advice from a photographer with more eclipse experience than I have, it’s entirely possible (likely) that they know more about it than I do. But don’t let them talk you into trying something so complicated that you miss your four-minute opportunity to experience one of Nature’s most special gifts, because there are no do-overs.
Now enjoy, and good luck!
Read about my 2017 eclipse experience
August 21, 2017
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Ripping Off the Band-Aid
Posted on April 3, 2024
Frosted, Cathedral Rocks from El Capitan Bridge, Yosemite
Sony a7R V
Sony 24-105 f/4 G
ISO 100
f/13
1/10 second
We were in the midst of a beautiful Yosemite Tunnel View clearing storm when I told my group it was time to pull up stakes and move on. Some thought they’d misheard, others thought I was joking. Since we’d only started the previous afternoon, I hadn’t even really had a chance to gain the group’s trust. When one or two in the group hesitated, I assured everyone it’s like ripping off a Band-Aid, that it will only hurt for a minute and they’ll soon be glad they did it.
Many factors go into creating a good landscape image. Of course the actual in the field part is essential—things like photogenic conditions, a strong composition, and finding the ideal camera settings for exposure, focus, and depth of field. You could also cite processing that gets the most of the captured photons without taking them over the top. But an under-appreciated part of creating a good landscape image is the decision making that happens before the camera even comes out.
Some of this decision making is a simple matter of applying location knowledge. Other factors include the ability to read the weather and light, and doing the research to anticipate celestial and atmospheric phenomena (such as the sun, moon, stars, aurora, rainbows, and lightning). All of these decisions are intended to get to the right place at the right time.
A photo workshop group relies on me to do this heavy lifting in advance, and while I can’t guarantee the conditions we’ll find in a workshop scheduled at least a year in advance, my decisions should at least maximize their odds. These decisions don’t end when the workshop is scheduled—in fact, they’re much more visible (and subject to second guessing) after the workshop starts. Case in point: This morning in February.
Though the overnight forecast had promised a few rain showers followed by clearing that would last all day (yuck), before we’d even made the turn in the dark toward our Tunnel View sunrise, it was apparent the forecast had been wrong. Snow glazed all the trees, patches of fog swirled overhead, and I knew my plan to start at Tunnel View would give me the illusion of genius. At this point, my morning seemed easy.
For the next hour or so it was easy and my “genius” status remained intact as my group was treated to the Holy Grail of Yosemite photography: a continuously changing Tunnel View clearing storm, made even better by fresh snow. And if easy were my prime objective, I’d have just kept them there to blissfully bask in the morning’s beauty.
But the secret to photographing Yosemite in the snow is to keep moving, because when the conditions are beautiful in one spot, they’re just as beautiful at others. Since Yosemite’s snow, especially the relatively light dusting we enjoyed this morning, doesn’t last long once the sun hits the valley floor, our window for images of snowy Yosemite Valley was closing fast. I took comfort in the knowledge that it was virtually impossible that everyone in my group didn’t already have something truly spectacular. But, grumpy as they might have been about leaving (no one really showed it on the outside), I also knew I’d be doing them a disservice not giving them the opportunity for more great Yosemite images elsewhere in the park.
So I made the call: we’re leaving. Our next stop was El Capitan Bridge. The obvious view here is El Capitan and its reflection, visible from the bridge, but best just upstream along the south bank (actually, this bank is more east here, but since the Merced River, despite its many twists and turns, overall runs east/west through Yosemite Valley, that’s the way I’ll refer to it), but before everyone scattered I made sure they all knew about the Cathedral Rocks view and reflection from the downstream side of the bridge. Good thing.
As lovely as El Capitan was this morning, it was the downstream view that stole the show. By departing Tunnel View when we did, we were in place on the bridge when the sun broke through the diminishing clouds and poured into the valley, illuminating the recently glazed trees as if they’d been plugged in. I’d hoped that we’d make it here in time for this light, but I’d be lying if I said I expected it to be this spectacular. I hadn’t been shooting when the light hit, but when I saw what was happening I alerted everyone and rushed to capture the display before the sunlight reached the river and washed out the reflection. Some were already shooting it, but soon the rest of the group had positioned themselves somewhere along the rail to capture their own version.
Assessing the scene, I called out to no one in particular (everyone) that we shouldn’t just settle for the spot where we’d initially set up because the relationships between all the scene’s many elements—Cathedral Rocks, snow-covered trees, reflection, floating logs, etc.—was entirely a function of where they stood. With the entire bridge to ourselves, we all had ample space to move around and create our own shot.
I was especially drawn to the moss-covered tree tilting over the river on the bridge’s north (west) side. With a few quick stops on the way, I decided to go all-in on this striking tree and ended up on the far right end of the bridge. Being this far down meant losing some of the snowy trees and their reflection, but I decided I had enough of that great stuff and really liked the tree’s outline and color, not to mention the way this position emphasized the sideways “V” created by the tree and its reflection.
In general, I love the shear face of Cathedral Rocks from El Capitan Bridge (it’s a very popular Yosemite subject, especially among photographers looking for something that’s clearly Yosemite without resorting to its frequently photographed icons), but featuring the granite in this image would mean including blank sky that I felt would be a distraction. And I was also concerned that the sunlit rock just above the top of this frame would be too bright. So I composed as tightly as I could, eliminating the sky and sunlit rock, getting just enough of Cathedral Rocks to create a background for the illuminated evergreens. I was pleased that composing this way still allowed me to get more of the granite in my reflection.
At f/13 with my fairly wide focal length, getting front-to-back sharpness wasn’t a big problem, so I just focused on the featured tree. The greater concern was exposure. Sunlit snow is ridiculously bright, which meant that with much of my scene still in full shade, the dynamic range was off the charts. So I took great care not to blow-out the brightest trees, which of course resulted in the rest of my image looking extremely dark. But a quick check of my histogram told me I’d captured enough shadow info that brightening it later in Lightroom/Photoshop would be difficult.
By the time we were done here, I’m pretty sure everyone’s skepticism of my early exit had vanished, and that the brief sting from ripping off the Tunnel View band-aid was more than assuaged by the images we got after we left. By late morning, the snow was gone.
Yosemite in the Snow
Eloquent Images by Gary Hart 