Just a dash of moon…

Posted on December 11, 2012

Tree and Crescent, Sierra Foothills, California

A new moon debuts this week, and with it some nice opportunities for photographers to accent favorite scenes with a delicate crescent. This morning the diminishing vestiges of the waning moon rose in the east, a couple of hours before sunrise (did you see it?); tomorrow morning, what remains of the “old” moon will be too thin and close to the sun to be seen at all. Thursday night’s sky will be moonless, as the Earth/Moon/Sun alignment puts the moon’s dark side facing us. On Friday the (rejuvenated) moon reappears, this time in the evening twilight, a three percent crescent trailing the sun to the western horizon.

Because it frustrates me no end to see a graceful slice of moon suspended above the landscape when I’m on my way to somewhere else, I now put these lunar milestones in my calendar. When my schedule permits, I’ll schedule a trip around the sunrise or sunset crescent moon, but often I’ll just head up to the foothills east of town.

It helps to know that the more of the moon that’s illuminated, the farther in the sky from the sun it appears (a full moon is exactly opposite the sun, rising at sunset and setting at sunrise). A crescent moon is always in close proximity to the sun, hanging in the brightest part of the post-sunset/pre-sunrise sky, above a (relatively) dark landscape. A camera’s limited dynamic range makes it impossible to photograph a crescent moon against twilight color and landscape detail in a single frame. In these scenes, subtle subjects and fine detail are lost in the dark foreground. Instead, look for strong shapes to silhouette against the colorful twilight sky, or bodies of water that reflect the sky.

For my foothill forays I’ve identified a number of hilltop oaks that stand out against the sky. The best ones for a moon are those that are far enough from my vantage point to allow me to magnify the moon with a telephoto. But even without a telephoto, the moon holds so much “emotional weight” (I’ll need to write about that sometime) that even the tiniest sliver can carry a large portion of the frame.

The tree in the image at the top of this post stands on a ridge south of El Dorado Hills. I come here often, and have a variety of images from this spot that please me (one appeared on the cover of Sierra Heritage magazine a few years ago). When I arrived that evening I feared that the clouds would shut me out, but they turned out to be thin enough to let the moon shine through as the sky darkened. Just a couple of minutes later the thicker clouds rose to obscure the moon, but as they did the pink deepened to a rich crimson and I just kept shooting.

Learn more on my Crescent moon page.

Red Sky, Oak at Sunset, Sierra Foothills :: This is one of my last captures that evening, about eight minutes later than the crescent at the top of the post. To emphasize the fiery red, I slightly underexposed this frame.

Category: Moon, Photography Tagged: crescent moon, foothills, moon, Oak trees, Photography

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It’s my pleasure

Posted on June 7, 2012

New Day, Half Dome and Crescent Moon, Yosemite

Have you noticed a pattern here? Every spring I post an image or two (or three) of a delicate crescent moon rising above Yosemite Valley at sunrise. This spring is no exception, nor will next year’s be. Or the next. Or the next….

I certainly can’t justify this lunar obsession from a business perspective. While the moon rises in a slightly different spot each year, I have more than enough pictures of Half Dome and/or El Capitan silhouetted beneath a sliver of moon, in every possible variation—horizontal, vertical, wide, tight, and everything in between—to last until the next Venus transit.

But here’s the deal. Photography needs to be a source of pleasure. Otherwise what’s the point? So when I decided to make my living taking pictures, I promised myself that I’d photograph only what I want to photograph, without concern for what will or will not sell. For me that’s natural light landscapes. Only. Nothing that moves, nothing that breathes. No people, no wildlife, and nothing manmade. No flash, light painting, or any other artificial light. I don’t blend images or do any fancy Photoshop stuff. And I don’t shoot stock images. (Not that I have a problem with others doing all this other stuff–doing it just doesn’t give me pleasure.)

In other words, if I don’t want to shoot it, I don’t. I joke that if I were photographing a field of poppies and a mountain lion were to leap into my frame, I’d shoo it away. (Okay, so I might have other impulses, but you get the idea.) It also means that when something’s going to happen in nature that I really want to see, you can bet I’ll do my best to be there with my camera. Fresh snow forecast for Yosemite? I’m on the road early enough to be there before the snow starts falling. Moonlight on Badwater in Death Valley (a recent discovery)? Gotta do it. Milky Way above Kilauea Caldera? What do you think?

And of course a crescent moon rising above Yosemite Valley at sunrise. In my world it just doesn’t get any more special than this. And as nice as the images are, nothing compares to the experience of witnessing it. Take one of the most beautiful vistas in the world, add the purity of sunrise, and garnish it with a delicate crescent moon—can’t get enough of it.

Last year I scheduled a workshop to coincide with this event; next year I’ll do the same. But this year I kept it to myself. While the time and position of the moon is never a secret—the information is available all over the Internet, not to mention software and smartphone apps—I never cease to be amazed at how many times I’m the only person present. Maybe that just means a crescent moon above Yosemite Valley doesn’t move others the way it moves me, but that’s fine with me.

Depending on the moon’s azimuth (the number of degrees south of due north) as it crests the horizon behind Yosemite Valley, I have several go-to locations. This year I decided the best spot was Tunnel View, Yosemite’s most popular vista. Each year I fear everyone has figured it out and I’ll be joined by a Horsetail Fall-style riot of photographers. So I held my breath as I approached the parking area a little after 4:30 a.m., and immediately exhaled when I found the lot empty. I set quickly set up two tripods, one with my 1dsIII and my 100-400 lens, the other supporting my new 5dIII and 24-105 lens. While waiting for the moon I composed, exposed, focused each camera, and fired a couple of test frames. Then I waited some more.

The moon appeared right on schedule, a few minutes before 5:00, a fine spear of light peeking above Half Dome. Flanked by my two cameras, a remote release in each hand, I started clicking, pausing every few clicks to adjust the exposure and recompose. I continued like this for about 25 minutes, capturing the moon’s ascent through pre-dawn twilight that transitioned from indigo to blue and finally gold right before my eyes.

As the brightening sky swallowed the moon another car pulled into the parking area and a trio of photographers rolled out, the first people I’d seen all morning. I was detaching cameras and collapsing tripods when they ambled over and casually began setting up, clearly confident that they’d arrived in plenty of time for sunrise. The moon was a faint sliver by then and I heard one of the newcomers comment that maybe they could include it their first few frames. I resisted the urge to show them what they’d missed, but couldn’t help feeling a degree of smug pleasure in what I knew was on my media cards.

Does that make me a bad person?

Category: Half Dome, Moon, Photography, Yosemite Tagged: crescent moon, Half Dome, Photography, Yosemite

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Photographic Reality: See the light

Posted on May 21, 2012

Crescent and Oaks at Dusk, Sierra Foothills, California

“Photography’s gift isn’t the ability to reproduce your reality, it’s the ability to expand it.”

(The third installment of my series on photographic reality.)

Dynamic range

One of photographers’ most frequent complaints is their camera’s limited “dynamic range,” it’s inability to capture the full range of light visible to the human eye. To understand photographic dynamic range, imagine light as water you’re trying to capture from a tap–if the human eye can handle a bucket-full of light, a camera will only capture a coffee cup. Any additional light reaching your sensor simply overflows, registering as pure white.

Limited dynamic range isn’t a problem when a scene is lit by omnidirectional, shadowless light. But while I can’t speak for other planets, here on Earth we’re illuminated by only one sun. Since most Earthlings prefer blue skies and brilliant, (unidirectional) sunshine that buries everything that’s not directly lit in dark shadows. Fortunately, human vision has evolved to the point where we can see detail in shadows and sunlight simultaneously.

Cameras haven’t evolved quite so far–on sunny days, photographers must choose between photographing what’s in the shade or what’s in direct sunlight. Exposing to capture detail in the shadows brings in so much light that everything in sunlight is overexposed; exposing to avoid overexposure of sunlit subjects doesn’t permit enough light to see what’s in the shadows.

Managing the light

Experienced photographers understand their camera’s limited dynamic range and take steps to mitigate it. For example, artificial light (such as a flash) can be used to fill shadows, or multiple exposures (covering a scene’s range of light) can be digitally blended into one image. But as a natural-light landscape photographer, I don’t even own a flash (really), and given that I only photograph scenes I can capture with a single exposure, I also never blend exposures.

The simplest solution for me is to avoid harsh, midday light. Full shade (absolutely no direct light) works, and a layer of clouds that spreads sunlight over the entire sky illuminates the landscape with even (low contrast), shadowless light that’s a joy to photograph. And the low, very early or very late light that occurs just after sunrise or before sunset has been subdued enough by its long journey through the thick atmosphere that the contrast falls into a camera’s manageable range. I’m also a huge advocate of graduated good old fashioned neutral density filters to reduce the difference between a bright sky and darker foreground.

Less is more

The best photography often results from subtraction. Photographers who merely take steps to make their camera’s world more like their own miss a great opportunity to show aspects of the world easily missed by the human experience. In the right hands, a camera’s limited light capturing ability can be used to emphasize special aspects of nature and eliminate distractions.

Exposing to hold the color in bright sky or water can eliminate unlit distractions and render shaded subjects in shape-emphasizing silhouette. And compositions that feature brightly backlit, translucent flowers and leaves explode with natural color that stands out against a shaded, black background.

Whether the image is a silhouetted mountain or translucent dogwood, the camera’s rendering is nothing like your experience of the scene. But it is a true rendering from the camera’s perspective, achieved without digital manipulation.

For example

Daybreak, El Capitan and Half Dome, Yosemite

Last week I rose at 4:00 a.m. to photograph a thin crescent moon rising above Half Dome almost an hour before sunrise. It was one of those, “I’m witnessing the most beautiful thing on Earth” moments, and I couldn’t believe no one else was there to enjoy it. I arrived about fifteen minutes before I expected the moon to rise, more than enough time to set up one tripod with my 1DS III 100-400 lens bulls-eyed on Half Dome at 400 mm. Another tripod had my 5D III and 24-105 composed to include El Capitan and Half Dome (above).

When the moon arrived I gave the scene just enough light to reveal the rich blue in the twilight sky. At that exposure the thin sliver of moon was completely overexposed (no lunar detail), a crescent of pure white that stands out boldly against the dark blue sky. A few stars pop through the darkness as well.

My eyes had adjusted to the predawn light enough for me to barely discern the trees and granite in Yosemite Valley below, and the rising sun had already started to wash out some of the sky’s color. But at the exposure I chose, my camera saw only Yosemite’s iconic skyline, El Capitan on the left and Half Dome on the right, as distinct black shapes against the cool blue sky. Rendering the image this way reduces erases the rocks and trees that add nothing to the scene, reducing this special Yosemite moment to its most compelling elements, color and shape.

Autumn Light, Yosemite: Here I metered on the brightest part of the backlit leaves, slightly underexposing to capture the leaves’ exquisite gold and turn the shaded background to complementary shades that range from dark green to nearly black. A small aperture softened dots of sky to small jewels of light.

Up next: Accumulate light

Category: El Capitan, Half Dome, Moon, Photography, stars, Yosemite Tagged: crescent moon, El Capitan, Half Dome, Photography, Yosemite

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The Other Ninety-Nine Percent

Posted on May 2, 2011

Gary Hart Photography: Captive Crescent, El Capitan and Half Dome, Yosemite

Cradled Crescent, El Capitan and Half Dome, Yosemite
Canon EOS 1DS Mark III
4 seconds
400 mm
ISO 400
F8

Thomas Edison said, “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” (Without claiming genius) I think this applies to photography as well: Many successful images are more the product of being in the right place at the right time than divine inspiration. Of course anyone can stumble upon a lucky convergence of location and conditions and come home with a great photo, but the “genius” behind creating great photos consistently is preparation and sacrifice–a.k.a., perspiration.

The moonrise on the final sunrise shoot of last week’s Yosemite workshop spurred these thoughts about inspiration and effort. We were all in more or less the same place, photographing the same thing. And while everyone probably captured very similar images (in this case of a crescent moon squeezing between El Capitan and Half Dome), the true magic was simply being there.

But why were we the only ones there to witness this special moment that probably won’t repeat for decades? Determining the moon’s altitude and azimuth from any location on Earth is as easy as visiting one of many websites, or using one of many astronomical software applications such as The Photographer’s Ephemeris or (my preference) the Focalware iPhone app. Armed with this data, aligning the moon’s rise with any landmark isn’t rocket science.

Based on my calculations and plotting, I scheduled my “Yosemite Dogwood and Rising Crescent” workshop to coincide with a sunrise crescent moon. The dogwood bloom isn’t as reliable, but I know interesting weather is still possible in Yosemite in late April and early May. What we ended up with was mostly clear skies (great for tourists, but definitely not for photographers) and a very late dogwood bloom in Yosemite (probably two weeks behind “schedule”), forcing me to shift the daytime emphasis of my spring workshop to rainbows. I’m happy to report Bridalveil and Yosemite Falls delivered more photogenic rainbows than I can count, from a number of different locations.

As spectacular as they were, overshadowing the rainbows was the moonrise on our penultimate morning. I promised the group that departing at 4:50a.m. would get us to Tunnel View in time to photograph a 7% crescent moon rise above Yosemite Valley, between Sentinel Dome and Cathedral Rocks, in the pre-dawn twilight. (I knew this because I’ve been calculating moonrise and moonsets in Yosemite and elsewhere for many years, and have photographed more of these from Tunnel View than any other location.) That moonrise came off exactly as advertised–so far so good.

But the Tunnel View success, as beautiful as our images were, was merely a warm-up that gave everyone an opportunity to hone their silhouette exposure and composition skills in advance of the rare moonrise opportunity I’d planned for the next morning. When scheduling this workshop I’d determined that about 45 minutes before sunrise on May 1 of this year (2011), a delicate 3% crescent moon would slip into the narrow gap between El Capitan and Half Dome for anyone watching from Half Dome View on Big Oak Flat Road.

Lunar tables assume a flat horizon, so unless I’m at the ocean, the primary uncertainty is when the moon will appear above (or disappear below) the not-flat horizon. Once I’ve photographed a moonrise (or set) from a location, I simply check the precise time of its appearance (or disappearance) against the altitude/azimuth data for that day to get the exact angle of the horizon from there. Until I have this horizon information, I only have the moon’s direction and elevation above the unobstructed horizon and can only make an educated guess as to the time and location of its appearance.

The other big wildcard in moon and moonlight photography is the weather, but a last minute check with the National Weather Service confirmed that all systems were go there. Nevertheless, despite all my obsessive plotting, checking, and double-checking, having never photographed a moonrise from this location, and the fact that an error would affect not just me but my entire group, I couldn’t help feel more than a little anxious.

The afternoon before our second and final pre-dawn moonrise, I brought the group to Half Dome View so they could familiarize themselves with the location and plan their compositions. Due to the horizon uncertainties I just described, the first time I photograph a moonrise/set from a location, I generally give my group only an approximate time and position for the moon’s rise/set. But during this preview someone asked exactly where the moon would rise, and I confidently blurted that it will appear in the small notch separating El Capitan and Half Dome between 5:15 and 5:20 a.m. (about 25 minutes after the official, flat-horizon moonrise). Standing there that afternoon, however, I realized how small the notch really is, meaning that even the slightest error in my plotting could find the moon rising much later, from behind El Capitan or Half Dome. So I quickly qualified my prediction, explaining that I’ve never photographed a moonrise here and the uncertainty of knowing the horizon. But given all of my perfectly timed waterfall rainbow hits so far, not to mention our Tunnel View moonrise success earlier that morning, I had the sense that my group had unconditional (blind) confidence in me. (Yikes.)

Sunday morning we departed dark and early (4:45 a.m.), full of anticipation. We arrived at Half Dome View a little after 5:00, early enough to enable everyone to set up their tripods, frame their compositions, and set their exposures. Then we waited, all eyes locked on the gap separating El Capitan and Half Dome. Well, almost all eyes–mine made frequent detours to my watch and the Focalware iPhone app responsible for my bold (rash?) prediction. (What was I thinking, promising a moonrise into a paper-thin space in a five minute span from a spot where I’d never photographed a moonrise?) My watch crawled toward the 5:15-5:20 window: 5:15 (Is the notch shrinking?); 5:16 (It’s shrinking–I swear I just saw Half Dome inch closer to El Capitan); 5:17 (I entered the coordinates wrong, I know I did–what if it comes up behind us?). Surely this wasn’t the kind of perspiration Edison was thinking about.

As I frantically re-checked my iPhone for the umpteenth time, somebody exclaimed, “There it is!” I looked up and sure enough, there was the leading sliver of nearly new moon perfectly threading that small space between El Capitan and Half Dome. Phew. The rest of the morning was a blur of shutter clicks and exclamations of delight (plus one barely audible sigh of relief). (How could I have even dreamed of doubting the tried and true methods that had never failed me before?)

Before the shared euphoria abated, I suggested to everyone that they take a short break from photography and simply appreciate that they’re probably witnessing the most beautiful thing happening on Earth at this moment (a feeling every nature photographer should experience from time to time). It’s always exciting to witness a moment like this, a breathtaking convergence of Earth and sky that may not occur again exactly like this in my lifetime. It’s even more rewarding when the event isn’t an accident, that I’m experiencing it because of my own effort, and that I get to share the fruit of my perspiration with others who appreciate the magic just as much as I do.