Eloquent Images by Gary Hart
Insight, information, and inspiration for the inquisitive nature photographer
In the Pink
Posted on February 14, 2026
Earth-Shadow and Setting Moon, Mt. Whitney and the Alabama Hills, Eastern Sierra
Sony a7R V
Sony 24-105 G
1/5 second
F/16
ISO 100
Photographing natural beauty starts with identifying relationships, then framing those relationships into something coherent and compelling. Usually we do that by finding a vantage point that aligns two or more fixed landscape features—for example, a distant peak reflected in a mountain lake, or a waterfall plummeting into crashing surf.
Of course, the more striking these relationships are, the more visitors they draw, the more images they inspire, and the more difficult it becomes to capture images that stand out. So, to distinguish our efforts, we photographers go to great lengths to augment inherently beautiful relationships with less permanent natural features—good (however it’s “good” defined) light, colorful sunrises and sunsets, dramatic clouds, celestial features like the moon or the Milky Way, and so on.
The Alabama Hills, in the shadow of the Sierra’s highest peaks, are thousands of large rounded boulders that make ideal foregrounds for the assortment of serrated mountains above. A more perfect arrangement for nature photographers couldn’t be assembled. But of course, this is no secret, and the Alabama Hills are among the most popular photography spots in California.
The first thing we do to distinguish our images is photograph this scene in the best light, which is almost always sunrise and just a little before, when the peaks glow with the warm rays of the rising sun. But alas, this too is no secret.
I’m not saying it’s impossible to capture special images in the Alabama Hills by just showing up at sunrise, but that usually requires a little luck—for example, great clouds that light up with color, or maybe a (rare) dusting of fresh snow.
My go-to move is adding the moon to my Alabama Hills / Sierra Crest scenes. (And when I say “add,” I mean the honorable, old-fashioned way, not with AI or other digital shenanigans.) Sometimes I make the trip by myself, but usually I make it happen on the final day of my Death Valley workshop. And because there’s only one “best” day to photograph a full (-ish) moon setting behind the crest in each lunar cycle, I have to be very careful scheduling this workshop.
But even nailing the day doesn’t ensure success. Clouds are the biggest concern, especially in winter, but each year the timing and position of the moon’s disappearance behind the crest on that ideal day is a little different. In January and early February (when I always schedule this workshop), from my preferred location the moon sets somewhere between Mt. Whitney and Mt. Williamson (California’s two highest peaks), usually closer to Williamson.
For any moon photography, the darker the sky, the better the moon stands out. So for me, the best time to photograph any setting full moon starts about 20 minutes before sunrise—as soon as the landscape has brightened enough to allow me to capture foreground detail without blowing out the moon (with one click, thank-you-very-much). As the sky brightens and the foreground gets easier, the essential contrast between the sky and moon decreases. By about five minutes after sunrise, the contrast has decreased enough for me to put my camera away.
One of my favorite things about my Death Valley (and Alabama Hills) workshop is we get two “ideal” sunrise moonsets for the price of one. On our last day in Death Valley we photograph the moon setting behind Manly Beacon from Zabriskie Point. Because the horizon behind which the moon sets is only 3 degrees, this moonset happens much closer to the “official” (flat horizon) sunrise that is universally used for any celestial rise and set. The next morning, even the the moon’s flat-horizon set is nearly an hour later than the day before, because the Sierra Crest is about 10 degrees above the horizon when viewed from the Alabama Hills, the actual moonset we see happens at just about the same time as the prior day’s moonset.
Which is exactly what happened for this year’s workshop group. We followed up a beautiful Death Valley Zabriskie Point sunrise moonset, with a similarly beautiful Alabama Hills sunrise moonset the next day. This year’s Alabama Hills timing was especially nice because we caught the moon hovering in the gorgeous pink and steely blue band that floats just above the western horizon about 20 minutes before sunrise, then descends and warms as the sun ascends toward the opposite horizon.
I (and many other photographers) have labeled this band the “twilight wedge,” but it has other similarly non-scientific names. The dark blue portion is actually Earth’s shadow, while the pink is the day’s first rays of direct sunlight, when the sun is still low enough above the horizon that the only wavelengths that can make their way all the way across the sky are the longest, red wavelengths. In fact, the Alabama Hills and Sierra Crest are known as among the best places on Earth to view alpenglow, which happens when the peaks above the viewer’s vantage point soar high enough to jut into this pink twilight wedge band.
The twilight wedge had just reached its most vivid hues when I clicked this image. To my eyes, this entire scene, except the moon, and especially the foreground, was much darker than this. But my camera’s ridiculous dynamic range, combined with Lightroom’s masking that allows me to process the sky and foreground independently from each other, made this image possible.
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More Alabama Hills Relationships
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A Photographer’s Vision
Posted on February 9, 2026
Day’s End, Hell’s Gate, Death Valley NP
Sony α1
Sony 16-35 GM II
1/80 second
F/20
ISO 100
I just returned from a spectacular workshop in Death Valley, one of the most fascinatingly unique locations on Earth. After missing Death Valley last year, it was especially nice to return. (Of course it didn’t hurt that I had a great group that enjoyed fantastic conditions from beginning to end.)
I first got to know Death Valley as a kid, when my family camped there several times over the Christmas school break. We’d spend a most of the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day exploring all kinds of cool stuff that would thrill any young boy: Scotty’s Castle, Rhyolite (a ghost town), and collections of abandoned mining equipment scattered about the desert. We also went to all the standard vistas like Zabriskie Point and Dante’s View, and hiked some of the shorter, most popular trails (Golden Canyon, Mosaic Canyon, Natural Bridge). But with all the cool old stuff, I was much less interested in the scenery and hiking part of those trips, and never really registered Death Valley’s spectacular natural beauty.
About 20 years ago I returned with a camera and saw Death Valley in a completely different way. Suddenly, beauty was everywhere. It would have been easy to—and I probably did—think to myself some version of, “Gee, I don’t remember Death Valley being this beautiful.”
When traveling more with my camera to other childhood family vacation destinations kept eliciting similar epiphanies, I started noticing the way photography was enhancing my overall view of the world. Suddenly, I was seeing the world as a photographer and finding beauty everywhere.
Today, camera or not, my eyes naturally scan my surroundings for scenes, large and small, that resonate personally. Even without a camera, I now seem to unconsciously create compositions in my brain, mentally identifying striking features and their relationships to one another, and figuring out the best way to position myself and frame the scene.
This photographer’s vision isn’t limited to a scene’s physical objects, it also extends to weather and light, both current and potential. What conditions will complement this scene best, and how do I get here to enjoy them? Warm early/late light, moonrise or moonset, fall color, overcast, the Milky Way, a reflection, sunstar—anything that might elevate the scene.
I don’t think this makes me especially unique—in fact I’d venture to guess that many (most?) serious nature photographers view the natural world similarly. And for those who don’t, I believe it’s a quality that can be cultivated with a little conscious practice until it comes naturally.
A great example of putting this mindset to use came the day before this year’s Death Valley workshop, while checking out the conditions at Hell’s Gate on Daylight Pass Road. At the end of an 8-hour drive that started a 7:00 a.m. (to ensure I could get here before dark), I pulled up to Hell’s Gate about 15 minutes before sunset.
I’ve been taking my groups here on my workshop’s first night for many years, but despite that familiarity, there are a few variables I always like to check out for their current status. And with heavy rain earlier this winter washing out many Death Valley roads and locations, I was especially keen to make sure there would be no surprises here.
What I like about Hell’s Gate is that it’s not commonly shot view, and it has a variety of photography options in multiple directions. Directly across the road from the Hell’s Gate parking area is a small mound dotted with photogenic rocks and shrubs that all make nice foregrounds for the long view down the valley toward Telescope Peak and beyond, and west toward pyramid-shaped Death Valley Buttes. There’s even a mini-canyon—7-foot vertical walls and no more than 30-feet long—that can be used to frame the view of the Funeral Mountains to the east and south.
Uphill from this little canyon is a short (100 yards or so) but steep (-ish) trail to an elevated prominence with a similar view. Foreground options up here include more striking rocks, plus an assortment of very photogenic cacti. My favorites are the many clumps of barrel cactus sprinkled around the surrounding slopes. Depending on the year, the condition of the barrel cacti can range from fresh pink with small flowers, to a dried out brown-gray. Though there were no flowers this year, I was happy to see that they were all beautifully pink and alive.
Walking up the trail on this visit, my eyes picked out the best cacti and I started making mental pictures without really realizing it. A little later, visualizing a potential sunstar I took note of exactly when and where the sun would drop behind the nearby buttes and distant Cottonwood Mountains.
Satisfied all was well, I hopped in my car and, instead of making the 30-minute drive to my hotel in Furnace Creek, I added 2 hours to my already long day by detouring to Pahrump so I purchase essential grocery items I’d foolishly left at home. (This is actually an improvement over my prior Death Valley workshop, when I forgot to bring my computer. And in my defense, that’s the only time in my 20 years of leading workshops I’ve done that, and I now triple-check to ensure it never happens again.)
But anyway… When I returned to Hell’s Gate with my group the following evening, I was able to point out all the possibilities and describe exactly what the light would do as the sun dropped. I encouraged everyone to identify the views they like best, as well as foregrounds to put with them, so they wouldn’t be scrambling around looking for shots when the light was at its best. (I’ve noticed that this kind of anticipation doesn’t happen naturally for some people at the start of a workshop, so it’s become a particular point of emphasis.)
On the first shoot of any workshop I try to get around to everyone and therefore rarely shoot, but as the sun dropped and I saw that everyone was quite content, I returned to a composition that I’d identified the prior evening.
Earlier I’d pointed out to my group the very large barrel cactus clump perched on the hillside about 20 feet above the trail, but I think the steep slope covered with loose rock, not to mention lots of easier access compositions nearby, had discouraged them from scaling the hill. So up I went. Reaching my target cactus, I checked out the even larger barrel cactus clump farther up the hill and maybe 20 feet away.
My vision on the first visit was to frame Death Valley Buttes and the sunstar (if the clouds permitted it) with these two cacti; once I was actually in position in front of the closest barrel cactus, I was pleased to confirm that what I’d visualized would in fact work. I just had to tweak my composition to account for the rocks at my feet and clouds near the horizon. The other thing I had to be careful about was my camera bag, which could very easily tumble down the hillside if I didn’t plant it firmly braces and balanced on the rocks.
To deemphasize the (ugly) brown foreground, I dropped my tripod to about a foot above the ground, which made the foreground all about the beautiful cactus and interesting rocks. And though scenes rarely fully cooperate with my goal for clean borders, I took special care to find the best place to cut the rocks at the bottom and sides of the frame, and the clouds at the top.
When I was satisfied with my composition, I picked my focus point—with the closest rocks about 18 inches away, it helped that I already needed to stop way down for the sunstar. Since I wanted everything in this frame sharp, I applied my tried-and-true seat-of-the-pants focus point technique: pick the closest thing that must be sharp (the rocks), then focus a little bit behind it—because focusing on the closest thing gives me sharpness in front I don’t need. (“A little bit” varies with the scene, focal length, f-stop, and subject distance, but the more you do this, the better you get at deciding what “a little bit” is.) I chose f/20 and focused on the close cactus, about 2 feet away.
When the sun reached the horizon, I started with a shutter speed that the balanced black shadows and white highlights as much as possible (knowing I’d be able to recover some of each in processing), and started clicking. After each click, I adjusted my exposure in 2/3 stop increments—first up about 3 stops above my starting point, then back down to 3 stops to below, continuing until the sun disappeared. This gave me a broad range of exposures to choose between on my computer later.
When we were finished, everyone seemed pretty happy with our start. Though I didn’t get a chance to process my own images until after the workshop, from what I saw in the image review, I’d say their excitement was justified.
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A Death Valley Gallery
Happy Anniversaries to Me
Posted on January 26, 2026
Rural Lightning Strike, Southeastern Wyoming
Sony a7R V
Sony 24-105 G
.6 seconds
F/8
ISO 800
I just realized that January 2026 marks a couple of milestones for me. Twenty years ago this month, I left my “real” job at Intel (good company, lousy manager) to pursue my dream of becoming a landscape photographer. And 15 years ago this month, I started writing this blog.
Leaving Intel was a leap of faith that, I now know, was far riskier than I believed at the time. That it worked out I attribute more to fortuitous timing than some kind of genius master plan. By the time I left Intel, I’d accumulated a pretty good portfolio of images that I’d printed and sold in weekend art shows. I also had prints in a few local galleries, but print sales alone didn’t generate anywhere near enough money to justify leaving a good job (or for that matter, even leaving a bad job).
My first post-Intel step was to ramp up my art show schedule and upgrade my art show booth lighting and display panels; despite decent art show success ($1000-$4000/weekend, doing the math told me that the time, effort, and relentless (intrastate) travel necessary to earn a fulltime income on the art show circuit would soon suck the joy from photography, and leave precious little time for actual photography. So I concentrated on a handful of quality shows within a 100 mile radius of my Sacramento home, and started looking for other ways to support myself with landscape photography.
I knew that many landscape photographers made a good living selling stock images, but by 2006 it was clear to me that digital photography was taking a toll on stock photography income, and there no end to the decline in sight. A couple of years earlier, just a few months after purchasing my first DSLR (a Canon 10D), I’d taken a weekend photography workshop to explore Point Reyes (thanks, Brenda Tharp!) and it occurred to me that I was qualified for something like that in Yosemite: I know photography well enough to teach it, I have a lifetime of Yosemite knowledge, my 20 years in the tech world had focused almost entirely on technical communications (training, writing, tech support), and (not insignificant) I like people. That this insight happened a few years before the photo workshop wave flooded the photography world was a fortunate fluke.
Pivoting to the photo workshop plan, I did a little teaching and guiding as 2006 progressed, but most of that first year was spent setting my workshop business up: building a website, scheduling workshops for the best times to photograph Yosemite, and getting the word out. I also stuck with my modest weekend art show schedule, doing one every two or three months.
Looking back now, I realize the I never would have succeeded had I not spent money I didn’t really have to hire a professional web designer to create a professional website (this was before website templates made web design easy for the masses), and display a monthly ad in “Outdoor Photographer” magazine. By the time my full workshop schedule kicked off in early 2007, every 2007 workshop had filled, and subsequent workshops started filling almost as soon as I posted them.
That first year was all Yosemite, but I soon expanded to include the Eastern Sierra and Death Valley, then Hawaii, Grand Canyon, and beyond. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my friend Don Smith, who’d already had a very successful career as a professional sports photographer, but was hoping to transition to landscape photography. Don assisted virtually all of my early workshops, and within a year or two was doing his own workshops too, which I in turn assisted. (Over the years our workshop schedules became so packed that we’re no longer able to assist each other much, but Don and I still partner on the New Zealand and Iceland workshops, and stay in pretty close contact throughout the year.)
Between arranging lodging, applying for location permits (not to mention meeting all the criteria each permit requires), answering e-mails from workshop students and potential workshop students, preparing workshop material, and actually conducting the workshops, my plate became pretty full. As much as I enjoyed doing the art shows (I really did), I felt like I was running two businesses. When the Great Recession took and obvious bite from my art show sales, while my workshops attendance didn’t even flinch, dropping the art shows became a no-brainer.
To further increase my exposure, I started writing a blog on a small photoblog site in early 2009. I say this was to increase my exposure, but it was just as much in satisfy my insatiable urge to write. I’ve been a writer all the way back to first grade, when each Monday we were assigned a list of spelling words to learn before the Friday spelling test (am I dating myself, or do they still do that?). The week’s homework assignment was to a create a “spelling sentence” for each word. But instead of spelling sentences, I always wrote spelling stories that used all of that week’s words. I can’t explain why I gave myself that extra assignment for no tangible benefit, except that I thought it was fun.
Ever since, I’ve always had to be writing something. For many years it was short stories (plus a novel that has lived in my head, but so far hasn’t made it to the page). At Intel I was a tech writer, which helped me refine my technical communication skills while feeding my internal writing monster. (One reason I left was resistance from “above” to my attempts to make inherently dull writing more readable.)
While I enjoyed the small community of photographers on that original photoblog site, I quickly found its interface limiting, and soon realized my page wasn’t attracting the eyeballs I’d hoped for. So I started looking for a blogging site that addressed those concerns, and in January 2011 landed on WordPress. What started as a weekly (-ish) blog of a few hundred words, grew to include posts with word counts in the thousands, photo galleries, and a Photo Tips section. By my estimation, I’ve probably written close to two-million words—and counting….
As much I’d love to attribute that volume to my own herculean work ethic, I don’t think I, or anyone for that matter, could sustain a weekly blog, week-in and week-out, for 15 years on guts and willpower alone. This anniversary says less about my dedication and discipline than it does about the fact that I simply love to write.
According to WordPress, I have nearly 40,000 subscribers. But because this blog is as much (more?) for me as it is for my readers, I’ve never tried to monetize those numbers by displaying ads or intrusive affiliate links. It’s satisfying to know that it has led to many workshop signups—probably not enough to justify all the time I spend on it, but that’s okay. And I never tire of hearing that people actually read and benefit from what I’ve written.
Though it wasn’t my conscious intent at the beginning, this blog has become an integral part of my photography. That’s because the subjects I choose, and the way I choose to capture them, are very much a reflection of my relationship with the natural world. To me, much of the beauty in my subjects transcends the visual and resides in the underlying natural laws. Augmenting my images with descriptions and explanations of those natural processes, makes my subjects even more beautiful to me, and (I hope) through my words, to my readers.
For example, lightning. I will freely admit that lightning’s appeal might be much greater to a life-long Californian like me, than it is to, say, a Floridian, to whom lightning is at best a nuisance, and at worst a persistent source of danger. But I do love everything about lightning—not just the way it looks, but the processes that cause it. Along with enabling me to share my images of lightning, my blog gives me an excuse to learn more about lightning, and to share that knowledge. Whether it’s the fascinating science that causes lightning, how to read the sky to understand where lightning might strike next, staying safe when lightning threatens, or the even best way to capture lightning with a camera, I’ve learned so much and am grateful to have a platform for sharing it.
Even though I’ve photographed lightning at Grand Canyon every year since 2012, it took last June’s Midwest storm chasing trip to show me how much I don’t know. At Grand Canyon, we’re usually photographing distant thunderstorms across the canyon. But not only does storm chasing put you in much closer proximity to the electrical storms generating the lightning, these storms, whether rotating supercells or “merely” towering thunderheads, are on a totally different scale.
These insights came on the trip’s very first afternoon, when we hightailed it from our Denver hotel up through the plains of northeastern Colorado and into southeastern Wyoming. The image I share today I captured on the workshop’s second stop. It was my introduction to both the power and proximity of Midwest electrical storms, and with it the realization that unlike Grand Canyon storm chasing, where we generally set up a safe distance and then just wait for the lightning, Midwest storm chasing is actual get-in-the-van!-step-on-it-screech-grab-your-gear-sprint-shoot-retreat!-step-on-it-repeat STORM chasing.
Later this afternoon I got my first look at an actual supercell. And a few days after that, my first (and second, and third, and fourth, and…) tornado. A couple of days later we witnessed a supercell and lightning display that was one of the most breathtaking experiences of my life. And nearly every day of this nearly 2 week trip we saw lightning.
Calling this storm chasing experience life-changing might sound hyperbolic, and maybe even a little cliché, but I can think of few things in my photography life that have left me more awestruck. It certainly rivals other photography firsts, like rafting Grand Canyon, and viewing the northern lights and a total solar eclipse. To think that I’ve been able to earn my living witnessing these sights, and to share it all here, Is a blessing I never want to take for granted.
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Storm Chasing Memories
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Going Out a Winner
Posted on January 17, 2026
Milky Way Reflection, Colorado River, Grand Canyon
Sony α1
Sony 14mm f/1.8 GM
ISO 6400
f/1.8
20 seconds
There was nothing easy about this picture. Milky Way photography in general is a challenge, but trying it at the bottom of Grand Canyon is especially harrowing. In addition to the standard Milky Way photography difficulties, like insufficient light essential for composition and focus, any kind of night photography at the bottom of a mile-deep hole adds another level of dark.
In this extreme darkness, some locations are worse than others, and navigating to this one in particular was difficult enough to put it on the fringe of my safety comfort zone. Not only did getting here require a longer than usual walk on uneven and sometimes trailless (is that a word?) terrain, the last section was along a series of narrow ledges where a single misstep might result in a sudden plunge into the Colorado River. Oh, and as if all that wasn’t enough to test me, on the entire walk out here this night, I couldn’t push down the thought that the name of this particular camp is Rattlesnake.
But I was especially motivated to make this shoot work, because…
I knew before the trip started that this, my tenth Grand Canyon raft trip, would be my last one. Rafting Grand Canyon had been a bucket-list item for as long as I could remember, but when I scheduled my first trip way back in 2014, I had no plan to continue once it was it off my list. But, for many reasons, that initial experience so far exceeded expectations, I vowed to continue doing it until people stopped showing up. Fast forward nine more trips: turns out, I’m the person who will stop showing up…
Let me explain. The trip still fills, but not nearly as quickly as it did those first few years, when I already had a waiting list for the next year before the current year’s trip even pushed off. And with costs rising faster than I’ve been able increase the price (see slowing enrollment reference in the previous sentence), and understanding that I’m on the financial hook for a full trip whether or not it fills, somehow my Grand Canyon raft trip had become the most stress-inducing offering on my schedule. So, while I still love the whole rafting experience as much as ever, when I decided to pare a few workshops from that schedule, it seemed like ten (!) Grand Canyon raft trips was a nice round number to go out on.
But I will miss it. Between the sights, the rapids, the guides, and the fantastic people I got to share it all with, it’s pretty difficult to single out one thing I’ll miss most about rafting Grand Canyon. But hold a gun to my head, and I’d have to say it will be the night sky filled with more stars than I’ve ever seen, and so dark the Milky Way actually casts a shadow.
As desperately as I craved a good Milky Way experience (and when I say Milky Way, I refer specifically to our galactic core) on this farewell trip, I always go in knowing that, for many reasons, Milky Way success is far from a sure thing. Even though it’s always a priority, before this one, I’d had trips that had two nice Milky Way shoots, one nice Milky way shoot, and zero nice Milky Way shoots.
First obstacle is that, despite Grand Canyon’s typically clear skies, clouds do happen—I had two trips with so many clouds we never even saw the Milky Way. But even when the sky is clear every night, we still need a little luck to even see the galactic center because, from most campsites, the Colorado River’s general east/west orientation through the canyon puts views of the southern horizon (where the Milky Way hovers in May) behind the looming south wall. It helps that over the years I’ve been able to identify a handful of campsites that are either on the north/south trending Marble Canyon section of the canyon (where we spend our first two nights), or (more rarely) on a south-facing bend in the river. But they’re few and far between.
Since all Colorado River campsites in Grand Canyon are first-come, first-served, my trips can never count on getting one with a Milky Way view. And the Colorado River is unforgivingly one-way—if your first choice campsite is taken, there’s no way to return to that wide open second choice campsite you passed two miles back. This fact sometimes forces us to settle for whatever campsite is available. And with a schedule to maintain, even coming upon an empty ideally oriented campsite is of no value if we’re floating past it at 11 a.m. because we don’t have enough wiggle room in our schedule to lose a half day of rafting.
With all this in mind, at the start of each trip I powwow with the guides to explain (emphasize) my Milky Way and other photography priorities (for example, if it’s sunny, there are several key locations I only want to photograph in the full shade of early morning or late afternoon). We come up with the framework of a plan that by Day-2 is usually out the window, or at least is significantly renegotiated, as things invariably don’t go exactly as planned. And each plan change factors in downstream Milky Way possibilities.
The first thing I do after arriving at a new camp is check its Milky Way opportunities—specifically, I identify south and whether it’s behind a canyon wall (bad), or between the two walls (good). But even an open southern exposure isn’t enough—I know of at least one campsite with a great view of the southern sky, but it’s so overgrown along the river that all we get for a foreground is a bunch of scruffy shrubs. And my groups have also had several campsites where the only place to park the boats is smack in the middle of the only open view of the southern sky. So all the tumblers need to click into place for the Milky Way to work at the bottom of Grand Canyon.
If I determine that tonight’s campsite does have a good view of the Milky Way, at some point (usually at dinner) I give group the night’s Milky Way plan: where it will appear, when it will appear, and the best place to photograph it. I also give a basic Milky Way photography primer (focus, composition, and exposure tips), lecture them about the damage flashlights will do to everyone’s shots (especially red lights!), then make myself available for the inevitable, “Which lens…?,” “How do I get my camera to do…?” questions. By bedtime, most people who hope to photograph the Milky Way are ready (-ish). And of course they know where I’ll be set up if they have problems (but they’ll need to come me, because it’s too dark to safely move around to everyone).
All of my Grand Canyon night shoots are no-host: I tell people where I’ll be and roughly when I’ll be there. In May the earliest the Milky Way rises into view is around 1:30, but to avoid disturbing people who value their sleep more than I do, I never set an alarm because that might disturb those nearby who would rather sleep. Fortunately, I have no problem waking myself up at a specific time, give or take 15 minutes.
There are six nights on this trip. The way the trip usually unfolds, our best chances for the Milky Way are the first two nights, and (if we’re very lucky) the fourth night. On our first night of this trip, we ended up at a spot beneath a wall that blocked the lower half of the Milky Way, but the few of us went for it and did okay—but I knew we could do much better.
Not wanting to hang all our hopes on getting the very nice but difficult to secure campsite on night four, I felt very motivated to make the second night work. But as the afternoon wore on and we continued to encounter good campsites that were already taken, we just floated on. And there comes a point where you just have to take whatever is available so we can start the business of setting up camp and making dinner before it gets too dark. Which is why the guides were actually relieved as we floated up to Rattlesnake camp and found it open, Milky Way be damned. The first thing I did when we landed was pull out my phone and check the compass to find south, and as feared, the S-needle pointed right at a towering wall. Oh well…
But after setting up my campsite, I got my (iPhone) compass out and went exploring. My eye was on a bend in the river a few hundred yards downstream, and I wondered if it might bend far enough to the south to provide a view to the southern sky, and whether it was even possible to get down that far.
As I moved downstream, the route along the river got rockier, eventually turning into a series of sandstone ledges with a steep drop straight to the water. Each time it looked like I couldn’t go any farther downstream, I found a I found a route that got me a little farther. I was at least a quarter mile downstream before reaching a spot where I could go no farther without climbing. (A quarter mile doesn’t sound very far, but in total darkness and without a trail, it feels like forever.) Looking downstream, I saw that this vantage point still didn’t face due south as I’d hoped, but it did provide a clear view southwest. Hmmm—not ideal, but… maybe?
Checking (and re-checking) my astronomy app, I guessed (crossed my fingers) that we might have about a 45-minute window from the time the Milky Way rotated out from behind the canyon wall, until the sky started to brighten enough that we’d start losing essential contrast. And the longer I took in the entire view, the more I liked the river scene we’d be able to put with the Milky Way. If it worked.
Walking back, I took special note of the route, identifying distinctive rocks and shrubs I might be able to use as landmarks in the dark. At camp, I told my group what I’d found, and that the window of opportunity is very small (even the slightest miscalculation on my part could make a difference). I also warned the that the route out there, while only slightly treacherous in daylight, would be exponentially more-so in virtually total darkness. I also told them I’d be going for it. I finished by encouraging anyone even considering going out there in the dark to scout it and make a route plan now.
Before crawling into my sleeping bag, I got my camera and lens combo set up on my tripod and stood it next to my cot. The last thing I did before closing my eyes was set my mental alarm clock for 3 a.m.
I woke up a little before 3:00, grabbed my tripod, and made my way out. Because other people might be either shooting or sleeping, I try not to use any kind of flashlight or headlamp when walking around at night, but using only my cell phone screen to illuminate my next step, I didn’t really have much trouble finding the way, one step (as far as I could see) at time until I was there.
I was surprised and pleased to see how many people were already out there—on this trip I have a lot of non-photographers who join photographer friends and loved-ones, but I’d guess close to a third of the group was there already, and a few more joined shortly after I arrived. With no light, I poked around on the sandstone until my eyes to completely adjusted, and eventually edged my way out to the farthest ledge. Then I went to work.
I did my usual vertical (first) and horizontal composition mix, trying different ISO and shutter speed settings to give myself more processing options. I also moved around a little, eventually photographing from three different positions within about a 30-foot radius. From my first frame to my last was only 25 minutes, but by the time I’d finished, I knew I’d had a Milky Way success I so wanted on my final trip.
Hidden Treasures
Posted on January 8, 2026
Clinging Tree, Upper Yosemite Fall, Yosemite
Sony a7R V
Sony 100-400 GM and 1.4X teleconverter (560mm)
ISO 800
f/11
1/1600 second
I’m aware that most of the images I share feature familiar subjects and eye-grabbing vistas that (justifiably) attract thousands of daily visitors and inspire millions of photographs—Nature’s celebrities. But that’s not a complete reflection of my personal photographic instincts. There are several reasons the subjects I share skew toward more acclaimed beauty: for example, the relatively close proximity of that beauty to my home in Northern California; and the obvious fact that I make my living leading photography workshops that I need to fill.
Though celebrated subjects are coveted by the vast majority of nature photographers, today I’d like to issue a shout-out to “ordinary” beauty that doesn’t jump out and grab the eye of everyone present (and doesn’t necessarily inspire people to sign up for workshops). I’m talking specifically about Nature’s hidden treasures that require the photographer to look closer and work harder to uncover. These little scenes may not garner the acclaim of their more spectacular counterparts, but I’ve come to realize that I’m never more content than I am when I photograph them.
Given Yosemite’s proximity, and the fact that I lead 4 to 6 Yosemite photo workshops each year, I probably spend more of my photography time there than anyplace else. But as the years click past, I find that I take my camera out in Yosemite far less than I once did—not because I find it less beautiful, or that I’ve tired of photographing it, but simply because it’s become harder and harder to find the unique scenes I covet. And of course when leading a workshop, my priority is never my own photography. I have to honor the fact that most of my workshop students want to photograph the beautiful Yosemite they’ve seen in pictures, not a leaf, or flower, or tree they could probably find at home.
That said, one of the points I emphasize to my students is trying to make the iconic shots that drew them their starting point, not their goal. So we spend a lot of time, both in the field and in the daily image reviews, on how to see and use the less obvious elements in a scene, with the goal of creating images that are uniquely their own. It’s a mindset that once established, starts becoming automatic.
To jumpstart that mindset, I have certain subtle features I point out at many of the locations I take my groups to—hidden treasures I’ve uncovered over the years that are potentially powerful but easily missed. One of my favorites is this little tree in front of Upper Yosemite Fall, only visible from a certain location on the trail to the bridge beneath Lower Yosemite Fall. It’s been on my radar for decades, though I rarely photograph it anymore. In fact, I hardly ever take my camera on my groups’ walks to Lower Yosemite Fall anymore. But in April of last year, with the fall booming and thin clouds diffusing the morning sunlight, I grabbed my camera bag with the sole purpose of shooting this tree again.
For me this is a telephoto shot, the longer the better. So on the walk back down from the bridge (where we photographed a rainbow at the base of Lower Yosemite Fall), I pulled out my 100-400 lens, added my 1.4X teleconverter, and went right to work. To avoid losing the tree against the dark, wet granite, the key here is waiting until the wind blows the water behind the tree. There was so much water on this spring morning that I rarely had to wait long.
I’m sure I clicked more than 50 frames, repositioning the tree from time to time in both horizontal and vertical orientation. Each time I recomposed, I shot at least a half dozen frames just to get different background water patterns—it’s amazing how much it changes from one second to the next. Pretty soon others in the group joined me, and it was fun watching them get excited about this anonymous little tree that’s so easily overlooked.
Of course the moral of this story is that there are hidden treasures like this everywhere, just waiting to be discovered—and hunting for them is half the fun.
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Hidden Treasures
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A Moving Experience
Posted on December 18, 2025
Fire on High, Kilauea Eruption 33, Hawaii
Sony α1
Sony 16-35 GM II
1/50 seconds
F/8
ISO 200
I’ve been photographing Kilauea’s eruptions, in many forms, for 15 years, but never anything close to the spectacular display my workshop group and I witnessed in September. It wouldn’t be hyperbole to say that this was one of the most memorable experiences of my life. (I’ve said that about Kilauea eruptions before, but each time I say it, Kilauea seems to say, “Oh yeah? Hold my Mai Tai.”)
As a photographer who obsesses about controlling every pixel in my frame, and who (semi-) jokingly asserts that I don’t photograph anything that moves, there was a lot going on atop Kilauea this morning. Anybody up there with a camera could have snapped a few frames and captured something worthy of sharing, but whether it’s a vivid sunset, dancing aurora, or fountaining lava, serious photographers need to separate themselves from the “anybodys” and pay attention to the little things easily overlooked in the thrill of the moment. This morning on Kilauea, with an obvious focal point and empty foreground, the biggest (and most easily overlooked) challenge was the constant motion in the scene.
Let’s review: Photography is the futile attempt to convey a dynamic world using a static medium. Though that’s literally impossible, what is possible is conveying the illusion of motion—that is, capturing the scene in a way that enables viewers to infer its motion. Finding the shutter speed that freezes a moving subject in place or renders it with some degree of motion blur, while getting the light perfect, is a basic photography skill that simply requires mastery of the three exposure variables.
Motion in a landscape image can take many forms, some easier to address than others. Though waterfalls and whitewater rapids may move fast, at least they stay in one place while the water moves within. But other natural subjects move more unpredictably. Lightning, for example, comes and goes so suddenly, I never even consider using my own reflex/reaction skills to freeze its transient existence—I simply connect my Lightning Trigger, aim my camera, and wait for my trigger and camera to do the work. Ocean waves, while less organized than whitewater, are at least predictable enough to anticipate and time—that said, I generally prefer to simply shoot a series of wave images with varied timing and motion effects, then pick my favorite later.
Somewhere between lightning and waves on the predictable/random continuum are atmospheric phenomena like the northern lights, and regular old clouds. Though they’re in constant (seemingly) random motion, that motion is usually more my speed—slow enough to anticipate and adjust my composition and exposure without feeling too rushed.
But it’s not just about how you render the motion—another complicating factor is paying attention to subjects that don’t stay put: a composition that was perfect seconds ago could be completely out of whack right now. Which happens to be the biggest challenge this memorable morning in Hawaii.
Now might be a good time to mention that part of my desire to control my entire frame makes me especially obsessive about both the borders of my images, as well as the relationships of the elements in my frame that draw the eye. That means trying to avoid cutting strong elements on the edges of my frame, creating a sense of connection and balance between strong visual elements, and avoiding (or minimizing) visual elements that compete with my subject or subjects. So when my subjects are in motion, as they were on Kilauea this morning, I need to monitor and adjust continuously.
Arriving with my workshop group several hours before sunrise, the total darkness meant I only had to contend with 800-foot explosive lava fountains and the lava rivers surrounded by a sea of black. The lava fountains, while exploding violently and pretty much non-stop, were far enough away that they seemed to be moving in slow motion. The lava rivers, though constantly ebbing, flowing, and changing course, moved slowly enough to be relatively manageable too.
Fountain of Fire, Kilauea Eruption, Hawaii
My goal was to freeze the lava’s motion in place, and soon I settled on a shutter speed I was confident would do that even at my longest focal length. With the unchanging light (dark) and a shutter speed I knew was fine, it wasn’t long before I found a rhythm, complementing compositions centered on the “stationary” lava fountain (the lava was moving, but the fountain stayed in one place) with the current position of the flowing lava rivers, then timing my shutter click for when the latest fountain peaked or spread most dramatically. I worked this way for a couple of hours, mostly using my 100-400 and 1.4X teleconverter, zooming in and out and switching between horizontal and vertical compositions.
Things changed when sunrise started painting the sky pink and revealing a previously unseen plume of billowing smoke, vapor, and tephra. Suddenly, my priorities switched to wide angle to capture all the additional beauty brought by the increasing light. And just as suddenly, I had to adjust the compositional imperatives underlying my prior rhythm, now factoring into the mix the wind-whipped smoky plume tower that expanded and shifted by the second, the pink clouds, and even new detail on the caldera floor. And with the rapidly brightening sky, an exposure that worked 30 seconds ago, now blew out the sunlit highlights. Not only that, I knew the plume’s gorgeous warm light was peaking and would only last for another minute or two, further ratcheting up my urgency.
Switching to my 16-35 lens, I framed up a completely new composition and adjusted to a new combination of motion considerations. In this case, including the lava and rising plume were no-brainers, but the goal should be more than simply taking a picture that includes both—everything needs to work together to create something that stands out from the thousands of other images captured at the caldera that morning.
Managing all of a scene’s moving parts is what good photographers are supposed to do. That said, I notice—both in my workshops and online—that many photographers seem so focused on their scene’s one or two most prominent features that they lose track of still important secondary and tertiary elements. And when one or more of those less essential elements is moving, for example waves or clouds, their new position is easily overlooked, leading to random and often less than ideal results.
In this case, while keeping an eye on the active lava as I’d done all morning, I suddenly also needed to keep track of an expanding smoke plume that was in constant motion, illuminated by ever-changing sunlight. While not especially difficult if you’re paying attention, this doesn’t just happen automatically (and I have the pictures to prove it).
Keeping my borders as clean as possible became a prime concern, so I kept a constant eye on the shifting smoke plume to avoid cutting it off. On the left and top I just needed to keep the plume off the borders of my frame; since the wind had stretched the smoke far beyond any reasonable frame on the right side, I also needed to find the best place to cut that side with the right border. And as with my rapidly changing exposure, a composition that worked one second might need to be completely adjusted the next.
I tried to go just wide enough on the right to include all of the main (and most dramatic!) vertical section of the sunlit plume, and on the right went just a little wider than that to include that one small splash light—any farther right would have shrunk my subjects while adding nothing more than a homogenous horizontal band of brownish-gray smoke.
The result of all these machinations is this wide vertical frame that includes the fountaining and flowing lava that was the star of the show that morning, plus all of the sunlit portion of the beautiful smoke plume. Accomplishing this was not rocket science, and I’m not pretending to be special for achieving it. But I do think photographers often fall down when they get so caught up in the majesty of the moment that they fail to take that one extra step to account for the scene’s motion, and the importance of those subtle changes from one frame to the next.
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World in Motion
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A Diamond in the Surf
Posted on December 11, 2025
Flow, Diamond Beach, Iceland
Sony a7R V
Sony 24-105 G
2 1/2 seconds
F/16
ISO 400
With a break in my workshop schedule (and to prepare for my upcoming 2025 Highlights post), I’m working hard to catch up on this year’s unprocessed images. Moving more or less chronologically, I’m really having a blast—such a blast that balancing this processing with family Holiday priorities and the endless demands of running a business, my weekly blog schedule has slipped a bit. But be patient, because I’m pretty excited about some of the images I have queued up to share, and am hoping I can crank out the blog posts to do them justice….
In addition to finding new images to get excited about, I never tire of revisiting locations (in general) and specific shoots (in particular) through my raw images. For example, returning to Iceland and remembering the sights and people Don Smith and I shared it all with really has me itching for our return in March. This year’s highlight was probably our exceptional and unexpected(!) Iceland northern lights experience on the workshop’s second night, a display that fostered a group-wide buzz that persisted throughout the workshop. So of course as soon as I returned home, I went straight to work processing those aurora images, then moved on to a handful of other new Iceland locations that had excited me, before my Yosemite winter workshop force me to focus on other priorities. After all that, Diamond Beach was just one of many Iceland locations that remained unprocessed, shrinking in my memory to the point where my first thought upon revisiting them was, Oh yeah…
Diamond beach is a long stretch of black sand spanning Glacier Lagoon’s narrow outlet to the Atlantic. As spectacular as all that black sand is, given the island’s volcanic origins, it’s simply standard equipment the Iceland coast. But garnish that black sand with large chunks of translucent blue ice, then stir it all up every few seconds with vigorous surf, and you have the recipe for a special visual treat.
The Diamond Beach ice you photograph today could very well be the Glacier Lagoon ice you photographed yesterday. Its origins are Jokulsarlon Glacier, which drains into Glacier Lagoon year-round. When conditions are right, in addition to continuous runoff, much larger ice chunks calve from the glacier and bob across the lagoon, slowly melting as they go. Eventually these icebergs have shrunk enough to fit into the channel that splits Diamond Beach as it drains into the ocean (each time we visit, we eyeball the beach from the highway and decide whether we want to be east or west of the channel). Once the ice makes it out to the sea, tides and active surf push it up onto the beach.
The prime goal at Diamond Beach is capturing motion blur in waving wash around the ice. I can tell you from experience that this is much easier said than done (and I have the images to prove it), because many variables need to align for success.
For starters, the light needs to be right. Ideal is the soft light beneath clouds or twilight, anabling the multi-second exposures these sweeping wave shots require (a neutral density filter can enable these shots in sunlight, but I’m not crazy about mixing harsh light with soft water). By arriving at Diamond Beach well before sunrise, even when the sky is clear we enjoy a half hour or more of gentle light before the sun arrives. (Another great thing about sunrise at Diamond Beach is that there aren’t a ton of tourists yet—it’s definitely far from empty, but once the tourists start swarming, photography becomes much more difficult.) When the sun comes out, I usually forgo the blurred water in favor of sunstar images that feature beautifully backlit ice. And if we’re lucky enough to get overcast, we can spend the entire morning making the intimate ice and flowing surf images everyone covets.
But even when the light is perfect, Diamond Beach can be a challenge. At the risk of stating the obvious, without ice, it’s just another beach (Diamond Beach without “diamonds” is just Beach), and the amount of ice varies a lot from year-to-year. Sometimes there’s hardly an ice cube to be seen. Other times, high tide and big waves have pushed all the ice to a high-and-dry, elevated flat platform just above the beach. One year we (the trip leaders) had to lug a few chunks from up there down to the surf just so our group had a chance to photograph ice with waves.
And ample ice on the beach by itself still isn’t enough when the tide’s and the waves don’t reach the ice. This is why I used to hope for high tide at Diamond Beach, the higher the better—that is, until one January morning when we arrived at high tide and found the surf so big and violent that we didn’t dare venture anywhere near the water. Instead, not wishing to be swept into the frigid North Atlantic, the group set up at an elevated “safe” vantage point and used moderate telephoto lenses (like a 24-105 or 70-200), only to be forced to completely reset our understanding of the term “rogue wave.”
And just when I believed I’d run out of obstacles to hinder the shot at Diamond Beach, our bus hit a reindeer on the way to our sunrise shoot, forcing us to turn around and limp back to the hotel (though we did make it for sunset that evening). So yeah, lots of stars need to align for Diamond Beach success.
But honestly, I’ve been shooting here long enough to know that there’s no substitute for just plain experience. Simply getting shots of ice and blurred water isn’t that hard, but finding the right ice subject, framing it perfectly, choosing the ideal shutter speed for the desired motion effect, timing the shutter-click for the best flow pattern around the ice, and avoiding wave-induced motion blur in the ice, is all a lot of balls to keep in the air simultaneously. Oh yeah—try keeping all those photography balls airborne while keeping one eye on aggressive and relentless surf that can soak you and your gear with little warning. Fortunately, as with most things, this all gets easier with each attempt.
This year, after more than a dozen Diamond Beach visits, reviewing my images, I remembered feelings of finally being in control and working proactively (instead of reacting and trying to adjust to continual failures) out there returned.
Because Diamond Beach stretches quite some distance, a workshop group becomes quite spread out almost immediately. So on the drive to the beach before each visit, Don and I share our own experience-based insights and answer questions while we’re all still together. While there’s no substitute for firsthand experience, this little jump-start does seem to increase the group’s success rate. This year’s mini training session continued as everyone bundled up and prepared for their assault on the beach, but pretty soon the bus was empty and I started getting myself ready (a rather time consuming process in Iceland in winter). I intentionally took my time so I could be the last one out there, slowly advancing along the beach and checking on everyone as I went. (Don and I don’t stick together out there, but I know he does the same thing.)
At the beach it was instantly clear that we had plenty of ice, the tide was high enough, and the surf just about right. For the first hour or so, between students I stopped to fire off a frame or two a handful of times, but my prime focus was making sure everyone was doing okay. Once satisfied that people we comfortable with what they were doing and content with what they’d found, I got a little more serious about finding subjects of my own. Even though I’d taken very few pictures to that point, the overcast sky gave me confidence that I had plenty of quality time remaining.
With ideal conditions like this, I look for ice that’s planted firmly in the sand, but close enough to the water for waves to reach it from time to time. Too far inland and there’s no water around the ice to blur; too far into the surf and the ice doesn’t stay put through an exposure.
In size terms we can all relate to, most of the ice we photograph tends to range from small microwave oven to full-size refrigerator—much smaller that and they move around too much; much larger and they can’t make it in close enough.
The mini-iceberg I share today was a little smaller than a small coffee table—not huge, but enough mass to resist shifting or rocking with the slightest wave pressure. After identifying it as a potential subject, I circled (not completely—I’d never put my back to the ocean) until I found the perspective I liked best, set up my tripod 20 or so feet away, trained my 24-105 lens on it, then framed up a composition. I found the exposure-setting combination that gave me a good histogram with ample depth of field at a shutter speed around 2 seconds (sometimes a little long, sometimes a little shorter). Then I stood and waited for the waves to arrive.
In the simplest possible terms, there are two opportunities when photographing waves sweeping around fixed ice: washing in, and washing back out. I usually prefer waiting until a wave is on its way out—not only does this provide a better (in my opinion) motion effect, the water has a little less force, making it less likely to introduce any motion blur in my subject. And after years of trying this, I’ve decided that exposures in the 1 – 3 second range seem to work best.
But anything with moving water is never a one-and-done thing. After each click I check the image on my LCD to identify motion effect and its timing, then do my best to avoid the effects I don’t like, and duplicate the effects I do like. I almost always, as I did with this subject, take at least a dozen shots (unless waves sweep my subject away, always a possibility). Every single frame is different, but it’s better to have too many choices than not enough. On the other hand (and this is a particular problem for me), unless I’m waiting for specific event (like a wave of a certain size or direction), I have to remind myself not to lock in on one subject so long that I miss out on opportunities elsewhere.
The image I chose to process and share today is of a wave on its way back out. And though almost a year later I have no specific memory of its capture, I can tell by the time of its capture (after sunrise) and my exposure settings that I used my Breakthrough 6-stop dark polarizer to enable the longer shutter speed necessary for wave effect I sought—in this case, 2 1/2 seconds.
As this image makes abundantly clear, perhaps the most striking feature of glacial ice is its not-so-subtle blue. Contrary to popular opinion, this blueness is not reflected color from the sky (the sky this morning was cloud-gray), it’s a quality of the ice’s glacial origins. If you paid attention during high school (or earlier?) science class, you know glaciers form from snow accumulated over hundreds or thousands of years. While air trapped in fallen snow makes it opaque, subjecting this snow to centuries of pressure from the accumulated weight above compresses it and forces out virtually all the air, leaving nothing but translucent ice crystals. This glacial ice is so dense, it absorbs all but the shortest wavelengths of visible light that enter. The only wavelengths not absorbed are the blue ones, which instead are scattered back to our eyes: blue ice. (Of course as you can see in some pictures in my Diamond Beach gallery below, ice infused with direct sunlight will take on the sun’s yellow/gold hue).
Diamonds in the Surf
Let’s Get Vertical (Again)
Posted on November 16, 2025
New Day, Tunnel View, Yosemite
iPhone 17 Pro
(This seed of today’s blog is a post from many years ago—but the image and its story are brand new.)
What’s your orientation?
I’ve always questioned the reasoning behind labeling horizontally oriented images, “landscape,” and vertically oriented images, “portrait.” Despite my profession as a landscape (-only) photographer, nearly half of my images use “portrait” orientation. So it concerns me that this arbitrary naming bias might subconsciously encourage photographers to default to a horizontal orientation for their landscape images, even when a vertical orientation might be best.
The orientation of an image imparts implicit visual motion that’s independent of the eyes’ movement between an image’s visual elements. Photographers who understand that viewers’ eyes tend to move along the frame’s long side have an extra tool for guiding those eyes, and even to convey a mood.
For example, when orienting an image of a sunset on the coast, it’s easy to default without thinking to the same horizontal orientation that the distant horizon follows. And a waterfall image that’s oriented vertically certainly encourages the viewers’ eyes to move in the same direction as the water’s motion, so orienting the frame to match certainly seems reasonable. But, despite the natural instinct to match the frame’s orientation to the scene’s dominant flow, there is no absolute best way to orient an ocean, waterfall, or any other scene—there’s always a choice, and that choice matters. While matching the image’s orientation to the scene’s natural movement in this manner can instill a calmness to the image, a vertical ocean sunset, or horizontal waterfall, can create visual tension that can also be quite compelling.
Since I don’t need to convince most landscape photographers to take more horizontal pictures, I’m going to concentrate on the benefits of a vertical frame. One thing I especially like about orienting my landscape scenes vertically is the way it moves my viewer’s eyes through the scene from front to back, enhancing the illusion of depth that’s so important in a two-dimensional photo. And because of a vertical frame’s relative narrowness, a foreground element (that might get lost in a wider horizontal frame) instantly becomes the focal starting point that starts my viewer’s visual journey through the frame to whatever striking background I want to feature.
More than just guiding the eye through the frame, vertical orientation narrows the frame, enabling me to eliminate distractions or less compelling objects left and right of the scene’s prime subject(s). This makes vertical my preferred orientation when I want to emphasize an especially striking foreground from above (like Tunnel View), or a sky brimming with colorful clouds or a host of stars.
While a horizontally oriented scene is often the best way to convey the sweeping majesty of a broad landscape, I sometimes enjoy guiding my viewers’ eyes with vertical compositions of traditionally horizontal scenes. Tunnel View in Yosemite, where I think many photographers tend to compose too wide, is a great example. The scene to the left of El Capitan and the right of Cathedral Rocks just can’t compete with the El Capitan, Half Dome, Bridalveil Fall triumvirate, yet the world is full of Tunnel View images that shrink this trio to include (relatively) nondescript granite.
That’s why, when the foreground and sky aren’t particularly interesting, I often go for fairly tight horizontal compositions at Tunnel View. And while Tunnel View is among the most spectacular views on Earth, the foreground beneath the vista is usually quite bland, and overhead California’s chronic blue skies are frustratingly boring. So I’m afraid many of my Tunnel View images are horizontal, and rarely stray far left of El Capitan, or right of Cathedral Rocks.
Fortunately, there are exceptions. One of my favorite exceptions is those rare times when fresh snow smothers the evergreen valley floor. Another favorite is dramatic clouds, whether in the valley below or sky above. Faced with visual treats like this, vertical frames are wide enough to feature the foreground and/or sky without diluting the Tunnel View drama by including extraneous granite.
More specifically…
In Yosemite, one thing I never count on when there’s no weather in the forecast is a nice sunrise. That’s because Yosemite’s (default) blank skies, coupled with Tunnel View’s east-facing view, forces sunrise shooters to photograph fully shaded subjects (El Capitan, Half Dome, Cathedral Rocks, and Bridalveil Fall) against the brightest part of the sky. That’ why, without clouds, Tunnel View is much better late afternoon to sunset. For me, on a typical (empty sky) Yosemite morning, the real show is the first light on El Capitan, which arrives about 15 to 20 minutes after sunrise. On mornings with no clouds forecast, I usually start my groups with an El Capitan reflection of that first light—not only is this a reliably beautiful sight, everyone gets to sleep an hour longer (since going for the actual sunrise means being on location at least 30 minutes before sunrise instead of 20 minutes after).
But for whatever reason, and despite a promise of clear skies all morning (until a storm was forecast to start moving in that afternoon), I decided to hedge my bets on the final sunrise shoot of this month’s Yosemite Autumn Moon photo workshop. Normally we spend this final morning at Bridalveil Creek, arriving as soon as it’s light enough to start shooting in the dense shade there. Instead, I got everyone out about 30 minutes earlier and headed straight to Tunnel View. While this wouldn’t be early enough to shoot sunrise from start to finish, it would get us there in time for the best color in the remote chance the clouds arrived earlier than forecast. And that’s exactly what happened.
We were pulling in just as the cirrus precursors to the evening rain started lighting up. Since my group had already been up here twice, everyone was out of the cars and grabbing their gear before my seatbelt was off. Half the group beelined to the standard view with my brother (who was assisting me in this workshop), while the rest joined me on a granite ledge above the TV parking lot (a similar view, but with fewer people—also a little more physically challenging, and not the favorite spot of anyone bothered by heights).
As beautiful as the sky was, since I rarely photograph at Tunnel View anymore, my camera stayed in the car and I was content to just enjoy the show. Or so I believed. But as I stood there watching the color keep getting better and better, I started to second guess my decision to forego my camera. I knew I could be down to my car any back in less than 5 minutes, but the color was changing so rapidly, I also knew that would mean missing the best stuff. So I whipped out my iPhone 17 Pro, put it into RAW mode, and quickly framed up the scene.
With the great sky and bland foreground, I didn’t consider anything but vertical compositions. At first I went wide enough to include Bridalveil Fall, and though it was flowing nicely for autumn, it really wasn’t impressive enough to justify going that wide. So I quickly tightened my framing to include only El Capitan and Half Dome, putting in only the minimum amount of foreground so I could maximize the spectacular sky. I’d love to tell you what focal length, f-stop, and shutter speed I used, but my iPhone made all those decisions for me, and clearly did a pretty great job. What a time to be alive!
A few thoughts on iPhone image quality
Okay, seriously, as great as the iPhone (or any other current smartphone) camera is, let me remind you that smartphone image quality is nowhere near the quality of today’s full frame sensors and lenses. And I actually got a firsthand reminder of this fact while processing this image. Though I was truly blown away by the detail my iPhone captured, on the day I processed today’s image, I also prepared three large prints that had been ordered by an interior designer for the home of one of her customers. Though two of these images were captured more than 15 years ago with my Canon 1DS III (21 megapixels); the other was about 10 years old, from my Sony a7R II (42 megapixels), I was pretty confident the quality and detail this job required was all there.
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- Stillness, South Tufa, Mono Lake
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- First Light, Yosemite Valley
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- Yosemite Sky, Tunnel View, Yosemite (2016)
And because maximizing this quality was the highest priority for her customer, she opted for custom prints rather than just going through my standard (much cheaper) SmugMug prints website (www.garyhartprints.com), where the images are pre-uploaded, medium resolution jpegs waiting for anyone to order (full disclosure: I’ve never had a single complaint about one of these prints). To prepare the images for printing, I returned to the original files and did extensive prep (using the latest processing technology) to ensure that the noise reduction, up-res, and sharpening got the most out of every single pixel.
I am absolutely certain I could print an iPhone image as large as these custom orders were (24×36) without apologizing. But getting up-close and personal with these three full-frame sensor prints at the same time I was processing an iPhone image, the detail captured left little doubt that, for anything much larger or more demanding than computer/web display, smartphone capture has a long way to go to catch “real” cameras. (But I’m still pretty thrilled to know that I can get useable quality any time Nature catches me without my real camera.)
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Let’s Get Vertical
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Super? Moon
Posted on November 8, 2025
November Moon, Half Dome from Tunnel View, Yosemite
Sony a7R V
Sony 200-600 G
Sony 1.4x teleconverter
ISO 200
f/9
1/80 second
This week’s full moon was a “supermoon”—or, as the media frequently proclaimed, “The biggest moon of 2025!” And while that is technically true, the size difference between a super and average moon is barely perceptible.
So, as a public service, I’ve dusted off and updated a prior article explaining the supermoon phenomenon (any hyperbole)—and what better time to share it than just days after photographing the November supermoon?
What’s the big deal?
So what exactly is so “super” about a “supermoon?” Answer: Not much. Or, maybe a better way to answer the question would be: When presented with a random series of full moon images, would you in fact be able to identify the supermoon? Doubtful. So why the media frenzy? And why do we see so many huge moon images every time there’s a supermoon? So many questions….
Celestial choreography: Supermoon explained
To understand what a supermoon is, you first have to understand that all orbiting celestial bodies travel in an ellipse, not a circle. That’s because, for two (or more) objects to have the gravitational relationship an orbit requires, each must have mass. And if they have mass, each has a gravitational influence on the other. Without getting too deep into the gravitational weeds, let’s just say that the mutual influence the earth and moon have on each other causes the moon’s orbit to deviate ever so slightly from the circle it seems to be (without precise measurement): an ellipse. And because its orbit isn’t round, as the moon circles Earth, its distance varies with the position in its orbit.
An orbiting object’s closest approach to the center of its ellipse (and the object it orbits) is at perigee; its greatest distance from the ellipse’s center is apogee. And the time it takes an object to complete one revolution of its orbit is its period. For example, earth’s orbital period around the sun is one year (365.25-ish days), while the period of our moon’s orbit is slightly more than 27 days.
But if the moon reaches perigee every 27 days, why don’t we have a supermoon every month? That’s because we’ve also added “syzygy” to the supermoon definition. In addition to being a great Scrabble word, syzygy (though it would cost you 2 blank tiles) is the alignment of celestial bodies—in this case it’s the alignment of the sun, moon, and earth (not necessarily in that order). Not only does a supermoon need to be at perigee, it must also be syzygy.
Syzygy happens twice each month, once when the moon is new (moon between the sun and Earth), and again when it’s full (Earth between the sun and moon). While technically a supermoon can also be a new moon, the full moon that gets all the press because a new moon is lost in the sun’s brightness and never visible, so no one cares. Since Earth circles the sun while the moon revolves around Earth, to achieve syzygy, with each orbit the moon has to travel a couple extra days to catch up. That’s why the moon reaches perigee evey 27 days, but syzygy comes every 29.5 days—the moon’s distance from earth is different with each syzygy because it comes at different points in the orbit.
The view from earth: Supermoon observed
While lunar perigee, apogee, and period are precise terms that can be measured to the microsecond, a supermoon is a non-scientific, media-fueled phenomenon loosely defined as a moon that happens to be at or near perigee when it’s full. To you, the viewer, a full moon at perigee (the largest possible supermoon) will appear about 14% larger and 30% brighter than a full moon at the average distance. The rather arbitrary consensus definition of the distance that qualifies a moon as a supermoon is a full moon that is within 90 percent of its closest approach to earth.
I really doubt that the average viewer could look up at even the largest possible supermoon and be certain that it’s larger than an average moon. And all those mega-moon photos that confuse people into expecting a spectacular sight when there’s a supermoon? They’re either composites—a picture of a large moon inserted into a different scene—or long telephoto images. (I don’t do composites, but they’re a creative choice that I’m fine with others doing as long as they’re clearly identified as composites.)
For an image that’s not a composite, the moon’s size in the frame is almost entirely a function of the focal length used. I have no idea whether most of the moons in the full moon gallery below were super, average, or small.
Can you identify the supermoon?
Well, if you said the big moon is a supermoon, you’d be right. But it’s kind of a trick question, because these are both images of Tuesday’s supermoon. The size difference is entirely a function of the focal length I used: around 100 mm for the small moon, more than 800 mm for the large one. What these images also make clear is that what I gain in moon size, I lose in field of view—you can’t have both. So when you see a wide angle scene with a huge moon, don’t think supermoon, think composite: a big moon dropped into a wide scene. Or worse still: AI. (Yuck.)
Every full moon is super
As far as I’m concerned, a rising or setting full moon is one of the most beautiful things in nature. But because a full moon rises around sunset and sets around sunrise, when most people are eating dinner or sleeping, seeing it is often an accident—maybe the moon catches your eye as you walk out of the store, or you spot it in near the horizon when your car rounds a bend. But viewing a moonrise or moonset doesn’t need to be an accident. There’s loads of information available online that will tell you which night to look for a full moon, and the general time and direction to look. And for people like me, who try to photograph moonrises and moonsets around an alignment with a terrestrial feature, there is also slightly more technical info that enables more precise planning.
About this image
Which brings me to this week’s image (images), captured Tuesday evening from my very favorite location to view a moonrise: Tunnel View in Yosemite. Why is Tunnel View my favorite moonrise location? Because I can’t think of a better combination beautiful subjects and distant view (nearly 9 miles to Half Dome), that allows me to photography the moon large with with a long telephoto lens and include a striking foreground subject. And if I just want to use the moon to accent a broader scene, the wide angle view at Tunnel View is not too shabby either.
As with most of my moonrise images, this one had been on my radar for over a year. And like many of my moonrise opportunities, I scheduled a workshop so I could share it with other enthusiastic nature photographers. But, since I don’t care about supermoons, I had no idea this November full moon would be a supermoon—and as I grew tired of hearing in the preceding weeks, the largest full moon of 2025! (Yawn.)
The way this month’s full moon set up, I was able to get my group a couple of practice moonrises from other Yosemite locations leading up the Tuesday moonrise—one with a reflection of Half Dome, and another from Glacier Point. Not only did they lear exposure and processing techniques that allow the capture of lunar and landscape detail with a single click, they got beautiful (albeit wider, with a small moon) moon images. I also demonstrated in a training session how I plot the moonrise (without using celestial plotting apps like Photographer’s Ephemeris and Photo Pills).
There’s often drama surrounding an impending moonrise as I stress about forecasts that promise clouds, or a sky filled with more clouds than forecast. This year, despite the threat of rain the following day, the Tuesday evening forecast was clear skies. And true to expectations, the entire afternoon was cloud free.
I got my group up to Tunnel View about a half hour before the moon’s expected arrival, so we all had plenty of time to get set up and settled in. About half of the group joined me on a granite slab above the Tunnel View parking lot, with the rest of the group setting up with my brother Jay and the hoards of other photographers at the wall in front of the parking lot (the standard Tunnel View vista).
I had two tripods set up: one with my (big and sturdy) RRS TVC-24L, with my Sony a7R V and 1.4X teleconverter; one with my Sony a1 and 100-400. My plan was to switch between the two bodies, and to switch out the 200-600 for my 24-105 once the moon separated from the landscape. In other words, I’d be using the a1 with the 100-400 for the entire shoot, and the a7R V with the 200-600 (first) and 24-105 (after a few minutes).
As we waited, I reminded my group that the moon would appear just a little left of Half Dome at around 4:45 (about 15 minutes before sunset), plus/minus 5 minutes. I also told my group that, depending on their camera and metering skills, we’d be able to continue photographing up to 15 minutes after sunset before the foreground became too dark to capture both lunar and landscape detail with one click. The moon arrived right on schedule, right around 4:44 and we were in business….
So maybe the best thing to come of the recent supermoon hype is that it’s gotten people, cameras or not, to appreciate the beauty of a full moon. If you like what you see, mark your calendar for every full moon and make it a regular part of your life—you won’t be sorry.
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Tunnel View Moonrise Collection (Super and Otherwise)
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Open Mind and Open Eyes
Posted on November 1, 2025
Splash of Rainbow, South Tufa, Mono Lake
Sony α1
Sony 16-35 GM II
6 seconds
F/11
ISO 100
As landscape photographers, it’s easy to arrive at a photo location with a preconceived idea of what we’re going to shoot. That’s often because there’s a single perspective that gets all the attention, dominating the images of the location shared online and skewing the perception of what its images should look like.
Stillness, South Tufa, Mono Lake
At Mono Lake, despite its sprawling layout with lake views that span 270 degrees, photographers (myself included) tend to gravitate the east-facing beach with a solitary tufa tower that resembles a battleship floating just a couple hundred feet offshore. I can’t deny that it’s a striking feature worthy of photographing, but certainly not to the exclusion of other opportunities at South Tufa.
Fortunately, since this spot is at the most distant corner of South Tufa, getting out there requires walking past most of the other views on the route. So each time I take a workshop group for its first visit to South Tufa, as I guide them out to this distant beach, I make a point of emphasizing all the possibilities along the way, encouraging them to stick with me all the way out to the battleship view, but to file away other scenes they might want to return to as they go.
But photography at South Tufa isn’t just about the views—equally important is the light. So another point I try to emphasize on that initial walk is understanding—given that there are photo-worthy views that include both lake and tufa facing east, north, and west—how much the scene will change with the direction of the sunlight. Since our first visit is usually a sunset shoot, I remind everyone how different the light will be when we return for sunrise the next morning. I point out where the sun will rise and encourage them to visualize the different light we’ll see that will opportunities in multiple directions, and to identify potential compositions that might work in that light.
Since we’d been there the prior evening, as soon as this year’s group arrived dark and early on this autumn morning, everyone scattered quickly. I brought up the rear, checking in with everyone on my walk out to the battleship tufa beach. As much as I like the scene at this east-facing beach, one challenge is that it’s in the midst of what might be best describes as a tufa garden—a collection of stubby shrubs and 10-15 foot high tufa towers—that makes it very difficult to see what’s happening in the other directions. But with a nice mix of clouds and sky this morning, I knew the potential existed for a nice sunrise and made a point of keeping my head on a swivel to avoid missing something in the other directions.
About 15 minutes before sunrise I noticed the clouds in the west start catching light, and shortly thereafter the Sierra peaks in the same direction lit up. I let the near me know that this might be a good time to wander over to the other side of the tufa garden and headed in that direction. The walk to the other side is probably less than 100 feet, but by the time I got there the light on the base of the clouds had intensified significantly. And much to my amazement—given that there was no sign of rain here, nor any rain at all forecast for the area that morning—realized that a splash of rainbow was perched atop the hills across the lake.
Not knowing how long the rainbow would last, I ran around hailing as many in my group as possible, and we all went straight to work trying to make a photo before it went away. I’m a strong proponent of finding compositions where all the elements work together, which is no small feat at South Tufa, given all the randomly situated tufa towers and rocks jutting from the water. Fortunately, as I moved around trying to organize all the visual elements in my scene, not only did the rainbow seem to be waiting for me to finish, it actually intensified as I did it.
It probably didn’t take more than a minute or two, but it felt like forever before I found a composition that satisfied me. As you can see, this rainbow was never destined to be the main subject—at its best it was simply a colorful accent to an already beautiful scene. But what an accent it was.
In addition to the distant rainbow and sunlit clouds, the other important elements I needed to organize were primarily in my foreground: the tufa peninsula jutting in from the left; the small tufa island at my feet, the submerged tufa stones; and (especially) the reflection.
To make all this work together, I started by centering the little island in my frame, and balancing the rainbow with the tallest spire of the peninsula. With the scene left/right balanced, I decided I need to get my boots muddy and set my tripod in shallow water to turn the foreground tufa into an actual island. Since the best clouds were fairly low, I only included enough sky to include them (by putting the top of my frame where I did, viewers can infer that the clouds stretch much farther than they did), and was careful not to put the little blip of tufa on the far right too close to the edge.
Now for the reflection. I didn’t really care for the empty water between the reflection and the little island, so I slowly dropped my tripod, keeping an eye on my LCD and stopping when the reflection filled almost all of that watery void. I put on my Breakthrough 6-stop dark polarizer to smooth the water, and it to reveal the interesting detail on the lakebed without erasing the colorful part of the reflection. Finally, I focused on the small rocks just beyond my foreground island, and clicked.
This is not a scene I’d have normally gravitated to, but I was drawn by the light (and stayed for the rainbow). Had I not seen the rainbow, I’m not even sure I’d have taken the time to build the composition I ended up with, but this is just one more reminder that if you open your mind and your eyes, things just have a way of working out.
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Mono Views
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Eloquent Images by Gary Hart 