Eloquent Images by Gary Hart
Insight, information, and inspiration for the inquisitive nature photographer
Navigating the Path to Exceptional
Posted on May 20, 2025
Bridalveil Fall and Dogwood, Valley View, Yosemite
Sony a7R V
Sony 24-105 f/4 G
ISO 800
f/4
1/250 second
Who doesn’t love being exceptional? Exceptional among your friends, or in your camera club, among your peers, or even in the world. Though I suspect the happiest photographers are simply content with being the best possible photographer they can be without measuring themselves against others, what fun is that?
Once upon a time, capturing exceptional images required little more than being at the most beautiful spots during the most spectacular conditions, and having a general sense for composition and metering. Today? Not so much. While there’s nothing wrong with chasing beautiful locations and conditions, these days when you work hard to get someplace special at just the right time, there’s a pretty good chance you won’t be the only one there. (But that doesn’t mean you should stop chasing beauty for beauty’s sake.)
In a world where pretty much everyone carries a camera 24/7, universal access to information makes “expert” guidance just a click away, and there’s virtually no such thing as a “secret” location, I’m afraid the “exceptional” bar just keeps rising. So, instead of settling for beautiful scenes in beautiful conditions (not that there’s anything wrong with that), how can we create images that truly stand out?
Laying the foundation
The key to capturing images that are more creative than cliché starts with understanding the vast difference between your camera’s view of the world and your own. Rather than forcing your camera to see the world as you do, lean into those differences and reveal the world in ways the eye can’t.
Fortunately, the biggest differences between camera and human vision have a corresponding exposure variable to manage them: for depth there’s aperture (f-stop); for motion we have shutter-speed; and ISO gives us control over light sensitivity. Even though you can get a perfect exposure with many combinations of these three exposure variables, there’s often only one combination where all the tumblers fall into place for the perfect combination of depth, motion, and light.
For example, photographing a crashing wave at the beach, (depending on the decisions I make with my exposure variables) the water in a perfectly exposed image could range from individual water droplets frozen in midair, to a homogenous froth of hazy white—or any degree of blur in between. Or, when I photograph a poppy that stands out in a field of wildflowers, my perfectly exposed image could range from every flower sharply defined, to only my subject-poppy sharp and the rest of the flowers some degree of soft—so soft, some are simply shapeless blobs of color.
One more factor to consider before making your depth of field choice, is the difference between humans’ naturally stereoscopic, 3-dimensional view of the world, and the camera’s single lens, 2-dimensional perspective. Even though our cameras can’t render our 3-dimensional world in their 2-dimensional medium, our perspective choices are essential to creating the illusion of depth that elevate an image.
Putting it all together
All of these factors should inform the decisions you make in the field. Instead of settling for the obvious, the path to “exceptional” requires conscious awareness of front-to-back relationships in your frame, and careful, deliberate exposure variable choices to manage the scene’s depth, motion, and light.
Which brings me to this image from last month’s Yosemite Waterfalls and Dogwood photo workshop. For good reason, Valley View (aka, Gates of the Valley for Yosemite purists) is almost certainly second only to Tunnel View on the list of most popular Yosemite photo spots. Which of course is somewhat problematic for those of us seeking to be exceptional.
Pulling into the parking lot here, before you’re even out of the car your eyes are slammed with a view of El Capitan, Cathedral Rocks, and Bridalveil Fall, with the Merced River in the very near foreground. And because the most obvious beauty is very first thing you see at Valley View, many photographers head straight down to the river to claim their version of this classic shot without first considering the other great options here.
For starters, there are three primary places to photograph Valley View: the first, and most obvious, is the view directly in front of the parking area that I just described; next, is the view slightly downstream where, instead of photographing across the river, you can photograph upstream and make El Capitan your prime subject with more foreground options; finally, there’s the view of Bridalveil Fall and its reflection, found just upstream from the parking area.
Each time I arrive at Valley View, I survey the conditions before deciding where to set up. Sometimes the whole scene is fantastic and I stay in front of the parking lot for my version of the shot that’s been taken a million times. But when El Capitan is getting the best light, I usually head strait downstream and try to build a foreground from the rocks, rapids, logs, and grass mounds. And when I want to feature Bridalveil Fall and Cathedral Rocks, I go (just a little) upstream for reflections and maybe a few protruding or submerged rocks. Regardless of my choice, I’m rarely more than 100 feet from my car, but my results are completely different.
Wherever I am, every time I compose a scene, I try to find a foreground that complements my background, or vice versa. At Valley View, my primary subject is almost always in the background (some combination of El Capitan, Cathedral Rocks, and Bridalveil Fall), so I’m usually trying to find a complementary foreground. Looking at the gallery below, you can see that sometimes I succeed, and sometimes I simply settle for a beautiful scene.
Bridalveil Dogwood, Yosemite
What sets today’s image apart in my mind is that my primary subject is in the foreground. I have the dogwood to thank for that. In fact, even though the results are entirely different, this is the very same tree I used for one of my oldest (and still favorite) images.
When I took my original Bridalveil Dogwood image, I visualized the concept (close dogwood subject, soft Yosemite icon background) on my drive to the park, then spent the day driving around until I found this scene.
Since then, that experience has made me very aware of the relationship between this dogwood tree and Bridalveil Fall, and I can’t help checking it out when the dogwood are in bloom. But, aside from the fact that I wasn’t interested in repeating myself, I couldn’t have duplicated that image even if I wanted to, because so much has changed in the last 20+ years.
First, the conditions were completely different. In the original scene, I benefited from clouds that provided softbox light, and a gentle rain and sprinkled water droplets everywhere. This time I was working with a mostly clear sky that, while less than ideal in many ways, made the backlit flowers (technically bracts, but I’m sticking with flower) and leaves light up as if illuminated from within.
The other significant difference was the tree itself, which had grown so much that my once clear line of sight from the flowers to Bridalveil was now clogged with branches, leaves, and other flowers. So instead of getting super-close to one flower, I identified an inverted v-shaped branch sporting a collection of backlit flowers.
Moving back, I shifted until Bridalveil Fall was framed by the flowers. Then I zoomed my 24-105 lens tight and open the aperture wide for maximum background softness. The flowers swaying in a slight breeze, I bumped my ISO to 800 to ensure a fast enough shutter speed. I took a half-dozen or so image, each with micro-adjustments to the composition, until I was satisfied.
Disclaimer
Is this picture “exceptional”? I have no idea. That really isn’t even my call. In fact, many of my images that feel exceptional to me barely register a reaction from others; then I’ll share an image that feels pretty ordinary to me, and people will rave about it. So who knows? But since chasing other people’s definition of exceptional can make you crazy, I just think I’ll call any image that makes me happy exceptional (in my own personal Universe) and leave it at that.
Lots of Yosemite Photo Workshops Here
Valley View: Variations on a Scene
Click any image to scroll through the gallery LARGE
Yosemite and the Joys of Spring
Posted on May 15, 2025
Tree and Bridalveil Fall, Bridalveil Creek, Yosemite
Sony a7R V
Sony 24-105 f/4 G
ISO 200
f/16
1/5 second
Probably the number one question I’m asked about Yosemite is, “What’s the best season for photography?” My response always sounds as if crafted by a waffling politician, but I swear I just don’t have the absolute answer everyone wants. And since I get to photograph Yosemite far more than the average photographer, and have for many years, my priorities are quite likely different than those of the average photographer.
I can say that my least favorite season is summer, because that’s when the waterfalls dry, the sky suffers from a chronic case of the blues (great for tourists, not so much for photography), and tourists swarm the park like ants to ice cream on pavement. But even summer offers beauty not possible any other season, mostly in the form of High Sierra splendor. Closed by snow most of the year, (usually) by late spring the high country roads to Glacier Point and Tuolumne Meadows have opened vehicular access to the exposed granite, wildflower-sprinkled meadows, gem-like lakes, and all the other pristine joys of Yosemite’s incomparable backcountry. And while Yosemite’s high country isn’t quite the respite from crowds it once was, its wide open spaces make solitude still much easier to find.
My own personal favorite season for creative photography is autumn. Though the waterfalls have dried completely or (at best) dwindled to a trickle, in autumn Yosemite Valley’s abundant assortment of deciduous trees throb with yellow and red. Adding to this varied color are mirror reflections in the Merced River, which has been slowed to a crawl along the length of the valley. As an added bonus, by the time the color arrives (mid/late October), dry waterfalls also mean most of the crowds have disappeared.
Winter is probably Yosemite’s most photographically variable season. Show up on a blue sky day in the midst of an (not uncommon) extended dry spell, and you’ll likely find brown meadows, trickling waterfalls, and dirt instead of snow. But arrive during or shortly after a snowstorm, and you’ll enjoy Yosemite Valley at its hands-down most beautiful—arguably one of the most beautiful sights anywhere on Earth. And since winter is the heart of California’s rainy season, the swirling clouds of a clearing storms are never more likely—even when the temperatures aren’t cold enough in Yosemite Valley to turn the rain to snow. Winter (specifically, mid/late February) is also when Horsetail Fall might turn molten red at sunset. Then there’s the rising full moon, which aligns most perfectly with Half Dome only in the winter months.
Yosemite in spring is all about the water—the season when the vertical granite can’t seem to shed the winter snowpack fast enough. Not only are the spring views dominated by well known Yosemite, Bridalveil, Vernal, and Nevada Falls, a seemingly infinite supply of ephemeral falls appear as well for a few weeks or months each spring. Rainbows on the waterfalls, dogwood everywhere, and reflective vernal pools decorating the meadows offer enough beauty to thrill tourists and photographers alike. All that water, paired with fresh green foliage, make spring the time I recommend for first-time visitors—it’s simply the season most likely to live up to expectations, and the least likely season to disappoint.
I stress about the conditions for my students before every workshop, but spring is the least stressful season for me because in Yosemite, there’s just no such thing as a bad spring day. Even though this is a relatively down year for the snowmelt that feeds the falls, last month’s Yosemite Waterfalls and Dogwood got a firsthand taste of all the joys of a Yosemite spring: plenty of water in all the falls, still pools dotting the meadows, and dogwood approaching peak bloom. And despite more clouds than usual, we had enough sunlight to photograph waterfall rainbows from four locations: three from different views of Bridalveil Fall, and one at the base of Lower Yosemite Fall.
One spot I never miss in spring is Bridalveil Creek, which offers an infinite number one-0f-a-kind scenes despite being in the heart of one of the most photographed locations in the world. Autumn is my favorite time to photograph Bridalveil Creek because I can add colorful leaves to the chain of cascades and pools beneath the fall, spring is a close second. While the creek in autumn seems to linger between each cascade, in spring it’s in far too much of a hurry to dally among the rocks.
Because of the intimate setting, its lack of a single obvious subject, and the sheer number of compositional elements begging to be composed into an image, I usually wait until the final day to bring my groups here. By then, everyone has refamiliarized themselves with their cameras, benefited from several days of training and image reviews, and had ample opportunity to get their creative juices flowing.
As usual, I started this group’s final morning at Bridalveil Creek, arriving just as the sky brightened ahead of the rising sun. Because this is an area to wander rather than stick together and photograph as a group, I began with a pretty thorough orientation, then set everyone free. I spent nearly an hour without my camera bag, just walking around trying to reach everyone to answer questions and make sure they were happy. Satisfied that all was well, I walked back to my car and grabbed my camera bag to see what I could find in the nearly one hour remaining.
I often head to the third bridge and work my way to some larger cascades (or small waterfalls) upstream; other times, especially when the group seems to require more help, I just shoot from one of the bridges. But this time I took advantage of a new gap in the trees that opened a new view of the fall just upstream from the third bridge. I’d been especially drawn to a young tree with brand new leaves, and envisioned juxtaposing it against the explosive white mist at the base of the fall. Three or four others in the group were working this scene, so I worked around them and finally ended up with the composition I’d visualized earlier.
With my 24-105 lens I started quite a bit wider, and gradually tightened my compositions as familiarity with the scene’s nuances enabled me to eliminate things. The patterns at the base of the wall changed continuously, so once I found a composition I liked, (true to form) I photographed it more than a dozen times, at several shutter speeds, to give myself a variety of water patterns and blur effects.
Join Me In Yosemite
The Joy of a Yosemite Spring
Click any image to scroll through the gallery LARGE
One Night, Two Moons
Posted on November 27, 2024
Through the Clouds, Tunnel View Moonrise, Yosemite
Sony a7R V
Sony 24-105 f/4 G
ISO 100
f/10
1/3 second
I wrapped up this year’s workshop schedule at the beginning of this month and am now enjoying a much anticipated Holiday breather before my schedule ramps up again in January. This isn’t exactly a vacation, because the end of the year is when all my permit reporting and next year’s permit applications are due, and my 2025 workshop prep starts to ramp up, but my schedule does get a bit less frenetic when the travel (and all its prep and recovery) is over.
As I often do when my travel schedule eases around the Holidays, I prioritize family over photography. That doesn’t mean no new pictures, but it does mean that most (all?) of the new pictures I share over the next couple of months will probably be pictures captured months, or even years, ago, but never got around to processing.
Going through my vast repository of unprocessed images is something I started doing while isolated during the early months of the pandemic (has it really been 4 1/2 years?!). I’d always been aware that I had lots of untapped gems languishing on my hard drive(s), but was nevertheless surprised by how much I enjoyed searching them out. Sometimes I’ll start by randomly picking a photo trip and scanning the Lightroom thumbnails for something that stops me, but the most productive approach has been going through my collection of already processed favorites to identify particularly special shoots, reasoning that there must certainly be more there. (I write more about this in my Back to the Future blog post.)
It always surprises me how much I enjoy revisiting past photo trips and workshops. Not only does the experience revive memories of special moments in Nature, lots of the best memories are of the people I was with. Sometimes that’s been other photo buddies, but since so much of my photography is centered around my workshops, the majority of those memories are actually my workshop groups.
Moonrise, Half Dome, Yosemite
Case in point: The seed for this “new” image was my “Moonrise, Half Dome, Yosemite” image from my February 2024 Yosemite Winter Moon workshop. Going through this workshop’s image folder, all the cloud-induced stress surrounding this particular moonrise came flooding back. And with it also came memories of the euphoria we all felt when the clouds opened just enough, at exactly the right time, to reveal the Half-Dome/moon/sunset alignment I’d been thinking about for more than a year. (Read the details here: Moon Swoon.)
Within minutes, the moon had climbed into the rapidly thickening clouds, and it looked like the show might be over—until, shortly before darkness was complete (or at least too dark to photograph the moon and foreground in one frame), it rose into a patch of slightly thinner clouds and briefly reappeared.
My strategy for moonrises is to go long until the moon separates from the landscape, then go progressively wider as it rises. This evening I’d set up two tripods, one with my Sony α1 and 200-600 lens, the other with my a7RV and 24-105 lens. So when the moon made its brief return, I was instantly ready to start clicking.
I chose a vertical composition to emphasize the foreground and minimize the lateral aspects of the scene. I also tried a few that were wide enough to include more of El Capitan, but ultimately decided to process this one to avoid shrinking the moon too much with a wider focal length.
Viewing these two images together provides a fantastic opportunity to make a point I’ve tried to make many times before: how to photograph a large moon. Thanks to the continued emphasis (and hype) focused on the largely irrelevant “supermoon” phenomenon, many people seem to believe the size of the moon in the sky is the most import part of a large moon image. It’s not.
The size of the moon in any image is almost entirely a function of the focal length used, not the relatively small difference between a “regular” size moon and a supermoon. Compare the size of the moon in these two images, noting that they were captured from the same location, on the same night, less than 10 minutes apart. For the big moon image, I used a 450mm focal length that magnified both Half Dome and the moon and eliminated everything else. For today’s smaller moon image, I chose a 50mm focal length that enabled me to fit far more of the surrounding beauty, but also shrunk the moon.
I should add that as far as I’m concerned, the absolutely best light for photography is the shadowless light that starts 10-15 minutes after sunset. I captured my (wide) image about 15 minutes after sunset. To my eyes, the scene appeared much darker than what you see in the image. I had to be careful with the exposure to avoid blowing out the moon, making the foreground in my raw original nearly black, but by monitoring my histogram and knowing my camera, I knew that the shadows would be recoverable. And I think the thin clouds helped subdue some of the lunar highlights, enabling to give the scene a little more exposure.
I still have a few openings in my 2025 Yosemite photo workshops
The Moon Large and Small, from Full to Crescent
Click any image to scroll through the gallery LARGE
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
Click any image to scroll through the gallery LARGE
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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Natural Synergy: Building Relationships In Nature
Posted on July 24, 2023
Spring Bloom, Dogwood and Bridalveil Fall, Yosemite
Sony a7R V
Sony 100-400 GM
2 extension tubes (26mm total)
ISO 1600
f/8
1/60 second
After several weeks working through my New Zealand images, I’m giving myself (and you) a break from the land Down Under and returning to Yosemite. Because I absolutely refuse to visit Yosemite in summer, I returned to images from my trip in early May to photograph the dogwood, two subjects on my short-list of favorites.
Looking at these Yosemite images, combined with my still fresh New Zealand memories, reminds me of the extreme good fortune of my life. When I decided to make photography my career nearly 18 years ago, I promised myself I’d only photograph what I love. Not because I believed that’s where I thought I’d have the most success (I wasn’t that calculating), but simply because the only good reason I could come up with for leaving an excellent job with a great company was to do something that gave me joy. Lucky me—today most of my time behind a camera is spent pursuing subjects that touch a special place in my heart, subjects I’m naturally drawn to, camera or not. (And the bills are still getting paid.)
The first emotional magnets that come to mind are the fixed locations, like Yosemite, Grand Canyon, and New Zealand (to name just three) that draw and never cease to inspire me. More transient favorites include things like lightning, rainbows, and reflections, and seasonal subjects like fall color, winter snow, and spring flowers. And of course pretty much anything celestial excites me.
Relationships
As much as I enjoy these subjects individually, I especially love the natural synergy that happens when I can combine two or more in an image. While the Grand Canyon, an erupting volcano, or Yosemite Valley, are special by any standard, pairing the Grand Canyon with a lightning bolt, Kilauea Caldera with the Milky Way, or Yosemite with blooming dogwood always feels better to me than the sum of those individual parts.
This juxtaposition of subjects is so essential to photography that we often do it without thinking. For example, when we happen upon a scene and see El Capitan reflecting in the Merced River—click. Or look at that vivid sunset over the Sierra Crest—click. Nice pictures, but most successful photographers are more strategic and tactical about Nature’s juxtapositions. We find a subject we want to photograph, then figure out other natural elements that might pair well with it. Sometimes that’s simply a matter of walking around until we find an alignment that works; other times it means researching and returning months or years later to photograph the relationship we seek (with no guarantee it will happen).
When planning these shots, it helps me to think in terms of static and dynamic juxtapositions: static being relationships between permanent landscape features (mountains, waterfalls, etc.); dynamic juxtapositions always include at least one ephemeral phenomenon that we can never count on (a rainbow or lightning bolt). I know the places where I can put El Capitan and Bridalveil Fall in the same frame, or Mt. Whitney framed by Mobius Arch (static juxtapositions), timing dynamic elements like Yosemite’s annual dogwood bloom or the full moon setting behind Mt. Whitney require planning and execution.
Visual Motion
But just because an object is static, doesn’t mean an image of it should be; and a dynamic doesn’t automatically translate to motion in a still image. It’s my job to create motion in my still images by encouraging my viewers’ eyes to move through the frame, providing a path for their eyes to follow and/or a place for them to land. Accomplishing this isn’t necessarily difficult, but it does usually require some foresight and physical effort.
Once I’ve arrived at a location and identified my primary subject, I challenge myself to find at least one other element on a different visual plane. Sometimes that’s easy, other times…, not so much. Nevertheless, when my prime subject is in the distance, I look for something closer to balance it; likewise, if my subject is nearby, I want something in the background to complement it.
Foreground or background, sometimes my secondary subject has almost as much visual appeal as the primary subject; other times it’s there simply to balance my frame. Regardless of its aesthetic appeal, my secondary subject’s placement, both relative to the scene’s other visual elements and to the frame’s boundary, can make or break an image. And don’t forget that (lacking explosives) pretty much the only way to change the relative position of two static objects in a photographic frame is conscious positioning of the camera (and the photographer behind it!)—in other words, move!
Visual motion happens in a still image when elements in the frame create actual or virtual lines for the eye to (subconsciously) follow. Tangible lines might be a horizontal horizon, vertical waterfall, or diagonal river. But often it’s up to me to create virtual lines—an implicit, connect-the-dots path between visual elements. Objects in a scene have what I call “visual weight”: some quality like mass, brightness, or color that pulls the eye. After identifying these elements, we can move around until their relative positions in the frame (again subconsciously) move the viewers’ eyes.
The last important relationship consideration is depth. Photography is a futile attempt to render a 3-dimensional world in a 2-dimensional world. Lacking actual depth, we can create the illusion of depth by ensuring that objects with visual weight exist throughout the front-to-back plane. As a general rule I avoid merging these essential visual elements to avoid conflating them on the same plane and defeating the illusion of depth that’s so essential in a two-dimensional image.
Of course every situation is different, so to paraphrase Hector Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) in The Pirates of the Caribbean, my suggestions here are more guidelines than rules. But they should never be buried so deep in your memory that they’re not available to access and apply as situations arise.
About this image
Spring Bloom, Dogwood and Bridalveil Fall, Yosemite
A week or so before capturing the dogwood image I’m sharing today, my brother Jay and I drove to Yosemite hoping to photograph the peaking dogwood bloom with Yosemite’s waterfalls at historic flows. There was indeed lots of water, but a cool spring had slowed the dogwood and they weren’t quite ready.
No problem—based on the dogwood’s premature state I observed in that first visit, I figured they needed another week or so to reach their full spring potential, so a week later Jay and I returned. Finding the dogwood in excellent shape, we spent pretty much the entire day photographing it.
Bridalveil Dogwood, Yosemite
With a light rain falling most of the day, one of the things in the back of my mind was attempting to reprise some version of a dogwood image I’d captured nearly 20 years earlier, one I consider a milestone in my aggressive relationship-seeking approach to photography. On the drive to Yosemite on that wet morning nearly 20 years ago, I decided I wanted to photograph a dogwood with a Yosemite icon in the background. That was the extent of my vision, but I pursued it relentlessly until I found a dogwood bloom I could pair with Bridalveil Fall. The rest, as they say, is history.
My goal on this year’s spring visit wasn’t to duplicate the old image, just my approach: blooming dogwood with Bridalveil Fall in the background. I returned to Valley View and found that original view of Bridalveil Fall blocked by other trees. So I traipsed about the forest looking for blooming dogwood with a clear sightline to Bridalveil Fall. That’s not as easy as you might think, but as you can see, I finally found a relationship that worked.
Instead of the close, wide angle shot I’d chosen all those years ago, this time I set up farther back, using a telephoto to enlarge Bridalveil and compress the distance between the two subjects. Because it was impossible for the dogwood and Bridalveil to be sharp (without focus-stacking, a personal no-no), I just embraced the softness in the fall, which helps the dogwood bracts stand out and makes it the primary subject.
It actually took about ten minutes before I was satisfied with the juxtaposition of dogwood and Bridalveil. Because there was a slight breeze, I bumped my ISO to 1600 for a faster shutter speed. I also played with different f-stops to find the right balance softness and clarity in Bridalveil. I think I like the old image better than the new one, but this one pleases me too, and it was a fun experience.
Natural Synergy
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Tunnel Vision
Posted on April 24, 2023
Spring Rainbow, Bridalveil Fall, Yosemite
Sony a7R V
Sony 24-105 f/4 G
ISO 100
f/10
1/250 second
For everyone who woke up today thinking, “Gee, I sure wish there were more Yosemite pictures from Tunnel View,” you’ve come to the right place. Okay, seriously, the world probably doesn’t actually need any more Tunnel View pictures, but that’s not going to stop me.
Visitors who burst from the darkness of the Wawona Tunnel like Dorothy stepping from her monochrome farmhouse into the color of Oz, are greeted by a veritable who’s who of Yosemite icons: El Capitan, Cloud’s Rest, Half Dome, Sentinel Rock, Sentinel Dome, Cathedral Rocks, Bridalveil Fall, and Leaning Tower.
Yosemite Tunnel View subjects
Camera or not, that’s a lot to take in. First-time visitors might just just snap a picture of the whole thing and call it good. For more seasoned visitors like me, the challenge at Tunnel View is creating unique (or at least less common) images. But that’s not enough to keep me from returning, over and over.
Many people’s mental image of Yosemite was formed by the numerous Ansel Adams prints of this view. And while it’s quite possible those images were indeed captured at Tunnel View, many Adams prints assumed to be Tunnel View were actually captured from nearby Inspiration Point, 1,000 feet higher.
Before Wawona Tunnel’s opening in 1933 completed the current Wawona Road into Yosemite Valley, the vista we now know as Tunnel View was just an anonymous granite slope on the side of a mountain. Before 1933, visitors entering Yosemite from the south navigated Old Wawona Road, a steep, winding track more suited to horses and wagons than motorized vehicles. Inspiration Point was the Tunnel View equivalent on this old road.
To complicate matters further, there are actually three Inspiration Points in Yosemite. The original Inspiration Point is the location where the first non-Native eyes feasted on Yosemite Valley in the mid-19th century. Decades later, Old Wawona Road was carved into the forest and granite to provide an “easier” (relatively speaking) route between Wawona and Yosemite Valley. The valley vista that was established on this route and labeled Inspiration Point is the one popularized by Ansel Adams. But today that version of Inspiration Point has become so overgrown that hikers hardy enough to complete the steep climb up to the Ansel Adams Inspiration Point, must make their way a short distance down the slope to a spot where the view opens up, forming the New Inspiration Point. But I digress…
Almost certainly not my first visit
My total visits to Tunnel View, which predate my oldest memories, by now have to exceed 1,000. At first I had no say in the matter, having simply been a passenger on family trips since infancy. But when I became old enough to drive myself, my Tunnel View visits increased—most Yosemite trips included multiple visits.
The Tunnel View counter started clicking even faster as my interest in photography grew. More than just a one-of-a-kind scene to photograph, Tunnel View is also the best place in Yosemite to survey Yosemite Valley for a read on the current conditions elsewhere in the valley.
And as I’ve mentioned (ad nauseam), the view at Tunnel View is beautiful by any standard. And as it turns out, beauty is a pretty essential quality for a landscape image. Unfortunately, another essential landscape image criterion, especially for landscape photographers who pay the bills with their photography, is a unique image—ideally (aspirationally), but not necessarily, a one-of-a-kind image. So Tunnel View’s combination of unparalleled beauty and easy access means million of visitors each year, which makes finding something literally unique (one-of-a-kind) here virtually impossible.
But there are a few things I do to increase my chances of capturing something special enough to at least stand out—things you can do at any popular photo spot. Here are three:
- Experiment with focal length — At Tunnel View usually means using a telephoto to isolate individual elements, or combinations of elements: just El Capitan, or El Capitan and Half Dome; just Half Dome, or Half Dome and Bridalveil Fall; and so on. And an extreme telephoto allows me to zero in on just one aspect of a Tunnel View icon: Half Dome’s summit draped by clouds, El Capitan’s bold diagonals, the mist explosion at Bridalveil’s base, to name just three.
- Look behind you — Even though the granite walls outside Tunnel View’s classic view can’t compete with the money shot, failure to keep an eye on the surrounding walls risks missing light and clouds that can at times be spectacular. And even though I don’t photograph manmade objects, I’ve seen some great images by others using Wawona Tunnel to frame Yosemite Valley, or with the tunnel itself as the subject.
- Include special conditions — My favorite Tunnel View approach is to pair this already beautiful scene with one of the many ephemeral natural events possible here. Not only does the east-facing view mean warm late light on all the granite features, it also makes Tunnel View ideally situated for rising crescent (sunrise) and full (sunset) moons, and afternoon rainbows. And its position on Yosemite Valley’s west end means it’s usually the first place in Yosemite Valley that storms clear. Few sights in Nature more spectacular than a Tunnel View clearing storm, and no two are exactly the same.
The image I’m sharing today combines a couple of these approaches: a tighter than typical focal length, and special conditions. Though the Bridalveil Fall rainbow isn’t exactly unique, its combination of beauty and relative rarity keeps me coming back. And because the sun’s angle at any given moment, as well as the angle of view to Bridalveil Fall, are precisely known, I can predict the rainbow’s appearance each spring afternoon to within a few minutes (it varies slightly with the amount of water in the fall).
This rainbow makes a fantastic first shoot for my spring workshops. Usually I’m content to just stand and watch—and listen to the exclamations from my workshop students—but sometimes it’s to beautiful to resist. This year, with beautiful clouds overhead, dappled sunlight below, and a strong breeze to spread the rainbow’s palette, was one of those times.
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A Tunnel View Gallery
Putting It All Together
Posted on December 19, 2022
Sunset Mirror, Valley View (El Capitan and Bridalveil Fall), Yosemite
Sony α1
Sony 12-24 f/2.8 GM
1/6 second
F/11
ISO 100
Nature’s most spectacular visual moments come thanks to the glorious confluence of its static and dynamic beauty. Nature’s static beauty is its fixed features, the mountains, oceans, lakes, rivers, trees (and more) that inspire us to travel great distances with our cameras, confident in the knowledge that they’ll be there when we arrive. Nature’s dynamic beauty is its transient elements, like the light, clouds, color, weather, and celestial objects, that we try to anticipate—but that often surprises/disappoints us.
Whether it’s lightning at the Grand Canyon, the Milky Way in New Zealand, the northern lights in Iceland, or a moonrise above Yosemite, my photo trips are (selfishly) timed to maximize my chance for those times when the inherently beautiful scenes are blessed with special conditions. And though relying on the fickle whims of Mother Nature means the disappointments are frequent and frustrating, I’ve learned to roll with them because the thrill of success is greater than the frustration of failure.
But for a photographer, just being there isn’t enough, because, as thrilling as the moment might be, doing it justice with a camera usually requires more than just a simple point and click. Often (usually?), adding the best of Nature’s dynamic elements changes the scene enough to actually shift the balance of visual power—what might be the best picture in more typical conditions, suddenly takes backseat to the ephemeral beauty unfolding before us.
Getting the most from Nature’s glorious confluences means quickly identifying the scene’s best features right now, and finding a composition that emphasizes them—even if that means deemphasizing the static element that drew you in the first place. For example, at Valley View in Yosemite, photographers can choose between El Capitan, Bridalveil Fall, or both of the above (not to mention Cathedral Rocks, Leaning Tower, and Ribbon Fall). As I recently blogged, I’ll photograph this scene completely differently depending on the conditions—sometimes ignoring El Capitan or Bridalveil Fall in favor of the other, and other times including both.
And beyond subject choice are decisions like the amount of sky versus foreground to include, horizontal or vertical orientation, wide or tight focal length, polarizer orientation, motion blur in the water, and on and on. All of these choices depend on the conditions, and the way they’re handled can make or break an image.
My Yosemite Winter Moon photo workshops are timed to coincide with a full moon rising above Yosemite Valley at sunset, as well as (fingers crossed) fresh snowfall in Yosemite Valley. Yosemite Valley is the workshop’s known, static commodity; snow and the moon are its dynamic variables. While getting fresh snow is a complete a roll of the dice when scheduling a workshop a year or more in advance, the moon’s phase and position can be predicted with surgical accuracy. But there’s no such thing as a free lunch in photography, so even though I know where to be and when to be there for the moon, I still have to sweat the clouds—especially in winter.
Which is exactly what I did in this month’s workshop. Having billed this as a “winter moon” workshop, I took my students out to a view of Half Dome that aligned perfectly with the first of my three planned sunset moonrises, then watched and waited while Half Dome played games with the clouds and never came out completely. The moon? Not even close. If you read last week’s blog, you know that we finally had a moonrise success on our third and final try. But it’s what happened on the evening in between that stands out most in my memory.
In a static world, for our second sunset I’d have been at another location beside the Merced River, waiting for the moon to crest Half Dome. Because watching the moon rise above Half Dome at sunset is something I hate missing, even when there are lots of clouds, my usual approach is to lean into the moonrise despite the low odds—you just never know when the sky might open and surprise you by revealing the moon (see last week’s blog). But as the time to make the call on our sunset location approached, I could see that the east side of the valley, including Half Dome, appeared hopelessly engulfed by clouds, while the sky on the west side looked much more open. So I reluctantly (and uncharacteristically) pulled the plug on the moonrise and detoured to Valley View for sunset, hoping I wouldn’t regret it.
At Valley View, I instantly saw that the cloud swallowing Half Dome was a blooming cumulus monster that showed no hint of retreating. My decision to blow off the moonrise (somewhat) vindicated, I got my group settled in. While fairly confident we’d get something better than my Plan A Half Dome spot, I didn’t have especially high expectations for anything spectacular.
Pulling out my Sony α1 body, I surveyed the scene. Normally I start at Valley View with my Sony 24-105 f/4 G lens, but with such a nice sky this evening, I reached straight for my Sony 16-35 f/2.8 GM lens.
I see clouds like this one all the time at the Grand Canyon, but rarely in Yosemite—maybe way in the distance, but rarely this close. It only took two frames to realize the 16-35 still wasn’t wide enough, so I returned to my bag for my Sony 12-24 f/2.8 GM lens. Maybe I’ve used this lens at Valley View before, but it’s usually reserved for Yosemite’s closer El Capitan views.
When the cloud lit up and started glowing pink, its reflection switched on too, suddenly making that the scene’s most compelling element. There aren’t many situations where I’d photograph here ultra-wide and vertical, but this time I instantly knew that’s what the scene called for, even if that meant shrinking Valley View’s usually unrivaled landscape features. With my 12 – 24 oriented vertically, not only could I include all of Valley View’s primary static features (El Capitan, Bridalveil Fall, Cathedral Rocks), I could also fit the towering pink cloud and its reflection, top to bottom. To avoid including any of the sticks and leaves at my feet, I dropped lower and moved most of my tripod into the shallow water.
This evening’s show was as brief as it was spectacular. If there’s one takeaway, it’s the reminder the most successful landscape images start with finding a combination of Nature’s static and dynamic elements—identifying a location you want to photograph (static), and figuring out when to be there for the best light, color, sky, or whatever (dynamic). But your job isn’t done until you’ve identified what’s working at that moment, and put it into a composition that does the moment justice.
Natural Confluences
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The Third Time’s the Charm
Posted on December 12, 2022
Moonrise and Clouds, Tunnel View, Yosemite
Sony a7R IV
Sony 24-105 G
1/4 second
F/11
ISO 100
Large or small, crescent or full, I love photographing the moon rising above Yosemite. I truly believe it’s one of the most beautiful sights on Earth. The moon’s alignment with Yosemite Valley changes from month-to-month, with my favorite full moon alignment coming in the short-day months near the winter solstice when it rises between El Capitan and Half Dome (from Tunnel View), but I have a plan for each season. Some years the position and timing are better than others, but when everything clicks, I do my best to be there. And if I’m going to be there anyway, why not schedule a workshop? (He asked rhetorically.)
Strike one, strike two
For last week’s Yosemite Winter Moon photo workshop, I’d planned three moonrises, from three increasingly distant vantage points. On our first night, despite the cloudy vestiges of a departing storm, I got the group in position for a moonrise at a favorite Merced River sunset spot, hoping the promised clearing would arrive before the moon. The main feature here is Half Dome, but the clouds had other ideas. Though they eventually relented just enough to reveal Half Dome’s ethereal outline and prevent the shoot from being a complete loss, the moon never appeared. Strike one.
With a better forecast for the second evening, we headed into the park that afternoon with high hopes. But as the sun dropped, the clouds thickened to the point where not only did I fear we’d miss the moon again, I was pretty sure Half Dome would be a no-show as well. So I completely aborted the moonrise shoot and opted for sunset at Valley View, where El Capitan and freshly recharged Bridalveil Fall were on their best behavior. The result was a spectacular sunset that made me look like a genius (phew), but still no moon. Strike two.
Revisiting nature photography’s 3 P’s
Because the right mindset is such an important part of successful photography, many years ago I identified three essential qualities that I call the 3 P’s of Nature Photography:
- Preparation is (among many things) your foundation; it’s the research you do that gets you in the right place at the right time, the mastery of your camera and exposure variables that allow you to wring the most from the moment, and the creative vision, refined by years of experience, and conscious out-side-the-box thinking.
- Persistence is patience with a dash of stubbornness. It’s what keeps you going back when the first, second, or hundredth attempt has been thwarted by unexpected light, weather, or a host of other frustrations, and keeps you out there long after any sane person would have given up.
- Pain is the willingness to suffer for your craft. I’m not suggesting that you risk your life for the sake of a coveted capture, but you do need to be able to ignore the tug of a warm fire, full stomach, sound sleep, and dry clothes, because the unfortunate truth is that the best photographs almost always seem to happen when most of the world would rather be inside.
Most successful images require one or more of these three essential elements. Chasing the moon last week in frigid, sometimes wet, Yosemite got me thinking about the 3 P’s again, and how their application led to a (spoiler alert) success on our third and final moonrise opportunity.
Meanwhile…
As we drove into the Tunnel View parking lot, about 45 minutes before sunset, our chances for the moon looked excellent. There were a few clouds overhead, with more hanging low on the eastern horizon behind Half Dome, but nothing too ominous. My preparation (there’s one) had told me that the moon this evening would appear from behind El Capitan’s diagonal shoulder, about halfway up the face, and that area of the sky was perfectly clear. So far so good.
Organizing my group along the Tunnel View wall, I pointed out where the moon would appear, and reminded them of the previously covered exposure technique for capturing a daylight-bright moon above a darkening landscape. Eventually I set up my own tripod and Sony a7R IV, with my Sony 200 – 600 G lens with the 2X Teleconverter pointed at ground 0. In my pocket was my Sony 24 – 105 G lens, which I planned to switch to as soon as the moon separated from El Capitan. Then we all just bundled up against the elements and enjoyed the view, waiting for the real show…
But, as if summoned by some sinister force determined to frustrate me, the seemingly benign clouds hailed reinforcements that expanded and thickened right before our eyes. Their first victim was Half Dome, and it looked like they’d set their sights on El Capitan next. By the time sunset rolled around, my optimism had dropped from a solid 9 to a wavering 2. I knew the moon was up somewhere behind the curtain and tried to stay positive, but let everyone know that our chances for actually seeing it were no longer very good. I reminded them not to get so locked in on waiting for the moon that they miss out on the beauty happening right now. Ever the optimist, I switched to my 24-105, privately rationalizing that even without the moon, we’d had so much spectacular non-moon photography already, nobody could be unhappy. But still…
At that point it would have been easy to cut our losses, come in out of the cold (pain), and head to dinner. But I have enough experience with Yosemite to know that it’s full of surprises, and never to go all-in on it’s next move. So we stayed. And our persistence (we’ve checked all three now) was rewarded when, seemingly out of nowhere, a hole opened in the clouds and there was the moon. The next 10 minutes were a blur of frantic clicking and excited exclamation as my group enjoyed this gift we’d all just about given up on.
A few full moon photography tips
- Sun and moon rise/set times always assume a flat horizon, which means the sun usually disappears behind the local terrain before the “official” sunset, while the moon appears after moonrise. When that happens, there’s usually not enough light to capture landscape detail in the moon and landscape, always my goal. To capture the entire scene with a single click (no image blending), I usually try to photograph the rising full moon on the day before it’s full, when the nearly full (99% or so illuminated) moon rises before the landscape has darkened significantly.
- The moon’s size in an image is determined by the focal length—the longer the lens, the larger the moon appears. Photographing a large moon above a particular subject requires not only the correct alignment, it also requires distance from the subject—the farther back your position, the longer the lens you can use without cutting your landscape subject.
- To capture detail in a rising full moon and the landscape (in a single click), increase the exposure until the highlight alert appears on your LCD (any more exposure blows out the moon). At that point, you can’t increase the exposure any more, even though the landscape is darkening. You’ll be amazed by how much useable data you’ll be able to pull from the in nearly black shadows in Lightroom/Photoshop (or whatever your processing software). In the image I share above, my LCD looked nearly black except for the single white dot of moon. Eventually the scene will become too dark—exactly when that happens depends on your camera, but if you’re careful, you can keep shooting until at least 15 minutes after sunset.
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Moon Over Yosemite
Eloquent Images by Gary Hart 