Eloquent Images by Gary Hart
Insight, information, and inspiration for the inquisitive nature photographer
2020 Highlights: Quality Over Quantity
Posted on December 27, 2020
Being a photographer is more than just capturing images, it’s also very much the experiences that go with their capture. So looking back on a year most notable for its lowlights, and browsing a portfolio that’s by far the smallest of any year since I’ve called myself a photographer, I’m surprised by the number of 2020 experiences that give me shear joy to relive.
So far so good
January 2020 kicked off what appeared to be shaping up to be a banner year, with wonderful conditions in Death Valley and the Alabama Hills: reflections at Badwater, a Zabriskie Point moonset, and a series of beautiful sunrises and sunsets. The year’s first month wrapped up in Iceland with too many highlights to mention, but none more memorable than back-to-back northern lights shoots on the workshop’s final two nights. February followed with some fantastic moonrises in Yosemite—so far so good.
Hit the brakes
Then came March, and the world shut down. Since the end of February, I’ve had to cancel 11 workshops. Lost to COVID and (in one case) wildfires were the Oregon and New Zealand workshops I share with Don Smith, two Yosemite spring workshops, my Grand Canyon raft trip, two Grand Canyon monsoon workshops, and the Eastern Sierra workshop. I was finally able to squeeze in the Yosemite fall color workshop in October, but have since had to cancel the upcoming Iceland workshop (also a collaboration with Don Smith) in January 2021.
But wait…
After wallowing in the isolation of a severely socially distanced spring, early summer arrived and out of nowhere came Comet NEOWISE. I’ve been comet-obsessed since I was 10 years old, so the opportunity to photograph what is arguably the most breathtaking phenomenon to grace the heavens (rivaled only by the northern/southern lights and a total solar eclipse) above Yosemite and the Grand Canyon, was just the elixir I needed. While my two Yosemite trips were comet-specific (8 hours of driving for about an hour of photography each time), my Grand Canyon trip was a (socially distanced) multi-day affair that also featured lightning and beautiful monsoon skies.
After the Grand Canyon in late July, I didn’t really get to do much photography until my Yosemite fall color workshop in late October—a real treat that enabled me to share with a group Yosemite at its autumn, reflective best. Not only was the photography nice, it was a joy to be back with a group of enthusiastic, fun photographers.
Then, just a week later, I hit the jackpot, spending a day in Yosemite photographing snow falling on peak fall color—not just a highlight of my year, but a highlight of my photography life. And finally, in early December I arranged a last-minute gathering with a few of my favorite photography friends to photograph a Yosemite Half Dome moonrise.
Quality (of experience) over quantity (of images)
Compiling the 2020 Highlights gallery at the bottom of this post, I’ve chosen not to focus on the opportunities lost in 2020, but instead to count the blessings I was granted. From sharing the northern lights with an ecstatic group of photographers/friends, to watching the miracle of Comet NEOWISE suspended above two of the most beautiful locations on Earth, to a magical day photographing Yosemite Valley with fresh snow on fall color, 2020 brought me memories that will stand as some of the most outstanding of my life. I can’t say that I’m not looking forward to 2021 more than I look forward to most new years, but I’m going to let 2020’s losses fade in favor of its indelible highlights.
For example
Click the image for the rest of the story (and check out the entire gallery at the bottom)
Sunset Reflection, Badwater, Death Valley (January)
Heaven Sent, Aurora Above Glacier Lagoon, Iceland (January)
Magenta Moonrise, Half Dome and the Merced River, Yosemite (February)
Moon’s Rest, Cloud’s Rest, Yosemite (February)
Comet Neowise and Venus, Half Dome from Glacier Point, Yosemite (July)
Comet NEOWISE and the Big Dipper, Grandview Point, Grand Canyon (July)
Fall Into Winter, Bridalveil Fall Reflection, Yosemite (November)
A Gallery of My 2020 Highlights
Click an image for a closer look, and to view a slide show.
To the Pain
Posted on December 20, 2020
White Gold, Half Dome Reflection, Yosemite
Sony a7RIV
Sony 24-105 G
Breakthrough 6-stop dark polarizer
4 seconds
F/16
ISO 50
When you stop to consider all the components that have to fit into place to make a successful landscape image, it’s a wonder we don’t all just stay inside and watch TV. First there’s mastery of photography’s creative side, which requires the ability to distill our dynamic, multi-sensory, three-dimensional world into a coherent two-dimensional image. Then there’s the technical side, where we juggle our camera’s aperture, shutter speed, and ISO settings to control the scene’s depth, light, and motion. And as if meshing all these moving parts into something visually appealing weren’t daunting enough, don’t forget to factor in photography’s mental component: knowing where to be and when to be there; the foresight to recognize what might happen next and the patience to wait for for it; and finally, the fortitude to endure hunger, sleep depravation, and whatever elements Mother Nature throws our way.
Yet somehow photography happens. And like most things in life, I’ve always thought photography’s greatest joy comes from doing the hard work and overcoming difficulty. Sometimes spectacular just falls in our lap, but most of my favorite images simply those images I feel like I earned.
Nature photography’s 3 P’s
To remind myself (and others) of the photography’s mental side, many years ago I identified what I call, “The 3 P’s of nature photography.” These sacrifices, large and small, a nature photographer must make to consistently create successful images.
- Preparation is your foundation, the research that gets you in the right place at the right time, plus the vision and mastery of your camera that allows you to wring the most from the moment. It’s controlling exposure and focus, knowing your equipment, and understanding the subject. Preparation is also just having the right equipment for the moment, from the lenses in your bad to weather-appropriate clothing.
- Persistence is patience with a dash of stubbornness. It’s what keeps you going back when the first, second, or hundredth attempt has been thwarted by unexpected light, weather, or a host of other frustrations, and keeps you out there long after any sane person would have given up. And just as important, persistence is a willingness to wait as long as necessary for the moment to be right, and not just settling for “good enough.”
- Pain is suffering for your craft. I’m not suggesting that you risk your life for the sake of a coveted capture, but you do need to be able to ignore the tug of a warm fire, full stomach, sound sleep, and dry clothes, because the unfortunate truth is that the best photographs almost always seem to happen when most of the world would rather be inside.
An assignment
The truth is, you almost certainly already do it. Pick some of your favorite captures, pop them onto the screen, and try to put yourself back at that time and place. Ask yourself which of the 3 P’s you employed, and be generous with yourself and not too quick to write an image off to blind luck.
Practicing what I preach, here’s my stab at the assignment for this image:
- Preparation: Some would argue that I was lucky to be in Yosemite last month just as several inches of snow fell on peak fall color. And while my good fortune that day isn’t lost on me, the fact that I was there was no accident. I monitored the weather forecast for snow in Yosemite Valley, adjusted my schedule, and packed the right clothes for the conditions. Of course I also had an intimate familiarity of my subject, from the locations themselves to the best time to be there for the current conditions.
- Persistence: I can’t tell you the number trips I’ve taken to Yosemite and elsewhere that didn’t amount to anything. In 2013 I scheduled an entire workshop around the arrival of Comet ISON, only to have the comet disintegrate just a couple of days before the workshop. Many times I’ve made the long drive to Yosemite to photograph snow that turned out to be rain. But no matter how many times Mother Nature throws me a curve, I keep coming back and sometimes it pays off. Like this time.
- Pain: It’s not like I trekked solo across the arctic, or summited Everest without oxygen, for this image. Though this day was cold and wet, and getting to Yosemite required an 8-hour roundtrip drive in less than ideal conditions, I didn’t do anything most other people couldn’t do—I just pried myself from the recliner and hit the road. The drive was sometimes boring (I’ve done it hundreds of times), sometimes stressful (turns out my Outback needed new tires—uhhh, reference Preparation section above), and standing in the snowy cold was less comfortable than lounging inside by a fire. It’s insidious the way these small inconveniences and discomforts try to lure us into staying home, but the payoff happens enough to justify the sacrifice.
A few words about this image
Autumn Snowfall, Half Dome Reflection, Yosemite
Sentinel Bridge is such an iconic view of Half Dome that it would be photographic malpractice not to share it with a workshop group, but when I’m in Yosemite by myself I rarely stop here because it lacks compositional variety (it’s hard to find something I don’t already have). But because the conditions on this day were spectacularly unique, I actually stopped here twice. This image was from my first stop, when a light snow still fell and storm clouds ruled the scene.
Half Dome had been swallowed by clouds for a while, but crossing the bridge I saw that it had just emerged so I whipped into the adjacent parking lot. Rather than mess with my entire kit, I just grabbed my tripod, Sony a7RIV, and Sony 24-105 f/4 G lens and jogged up to the rail (maybe 100 feet from the car).
I always do my best to position myself so the trees frame Half Dome without obscuring any of its face, not always easy at this extremely popular spot. I was lucky this time that there were only a couple of other photographers set up so I didn’t have any trouble finding a spot that worked. With the scene so perfect, I didn’t want to get too fancy and risk losing Half Dome to the clouds. I quickly identified the elements I wanted to feature—Half Dome, the upstream trees, and of course the gorgeous reflection—and went to work.
I often start with a vertical composition on Sentinel Bridge, but surveying the scene, when my eyes were drawn to the serpentine ribbon of autumn leaves clinging to the south riverbank I opted to start with a horizontal frame. That left me with a decision about what to about the trees on both sides of the river—how many to include, and whether to cut them off at the top. I finally decided that not cutting them off would give me more sky than I wanted.
With the frame’s top/bottom established, I panned left and right until I was satisfied: enough of the floating leaves—check; Half Dome properly centered (Half Dome has so much visual weight, putting it too far left or right can throw off the balance)—check; the diagonal trunk and snow-capped rock far enough from the left edge that they create compositional balancing elements for that side of the frame—check.
With a few gentle ripples ruffling the reflection, I added my Breakthrough 6-stop dark polarizer, stopped down to f/16, and dialed my ISO to 50. This gave me a 4-second exposure that smoothed the water just enough to allow the reflection to stand out nicely. Once I was satisfied that this composition was a success, I went on to shoot the scene in a variety of other ways as well: wider, tighter, and vertical. (You can see the vertical version in the gallery below.)
Returning to Sentinel Bridge a few hours later, the sun had broken through to light up Half Dome and the tops of the trees, creating a completely different, but no less beautiful, scene (that I haven’t had a chance to process yet).
Many of you no doubt recognize the reference in this post’s title; for those who don’t (inconceivable!), treat yourself to this scene from the best movie ever.
Preparation, Persistence, and Pain
Click an image for a closer look, and to view a slide show.
You Can’t Have It Both Ways
Posted on December 13, 2020
Falling Snow, Cathedral Rocks, Yosemite
Sony a7RIV
Sony 12-24 f/2.8 GM
1/200 second
F/8
ISO 1600
Years of leading photo workshops and reviewing the work of others has convinced me that to capture great images and maintain domestic bliss, you need to decide before a trip whether you’ll be a photographer or tourist—it’s pretty hard to have it both ways. (I say this completely without judgement—there are times when I opt for tourist mode myself, packing only the camera in my iPhone.) I see many well-executed images taken at the wrong times—harsh shadows, blue sky, and poorly located light are all signs that the photographer was sightseeing with his or her camera. Not that there’s anything wrong with that—if your priority was simply to record the scene and you’re happy with the result, the image was a success.
But getting the pictures coveted by serious photographers usually requires being outside at the most inconvenient times. That’s sacrifice a serious photographer will make without hesitation, but the rest of the family? Not so much. Countless intimate getaways and family vacations have been ruined by the photographer who thinks it’ll be no problem tiptoeing out for sunrise (“I’ll be so quiet, you won’t even know I left”), or waiting “just a few minutes longer” after sunset for the Milky Way (“The drive-thru will still be open when we get back”).
When I’m wearing my photographer hat, my decisions put me outside when the conditions are most conducive to finding the images I want, without considering comfort or convenience. Sunrise, sunset, overcast skies, wild weather, darkness are all great for photography, but face it—few people without a camera are thrilled to be outdoors when they’re sleepy, hungry, cold, wet, or ignored.
Many of us, myself included, are blessed with wives/husbands/partners who say quite genuinely, “No problem, take as long as you want—I’ll just read (or wait in the room, or go shopping, or whatever).” And though we know they mean it, based on my own experience and reports from others, even blessed by a sincere sanction from our significant other, we’re still distracted by the knowledge that he or she is waiting, biding time, (and possibly suffering) while we pursue our solitary passion. When someone is waiting for me, I just can’t help rushing my compositions, making decisions designed to get me back fast instead of satisfied, and just generally shortcutting everything I do. Invariably, disappointment ensues.
And when the goal is a pleasant trip with family, if I try to squeeze in photography, I can’t relax and my photography suffers. That’s why, when I’m a tourist, my goal is to simply chill and and enjoy the sights with the people I love. When I leave my camera home, my lights-out and rise times are based on everyone’s comfort and enjoyment, the pace is never rushed, and my forays into nature are timed for convenience and the most pleasant weather for being outside. And guess what: I return with my body and mind fresh and my loved ones happy.
Of course doing nature photography for a living makes it easier for me separate photography and family trips. I get lots of me-time to dedicate to photography, but some people are so busy that their only opportunity to take pictures is when they’re on vacation. In this case, perhaps a compromise can be negotiated. After researching your route and destinations, pick a (reasonable) handful of must-photograph spots. Then, before the trip, get buy-ins on your photography objectives from all concerned, and be as specific as possible: “I’d like to shoot sunrise on our second morning at the Grand Canyon,” “I’d really like to do a moonrise shoot in Yosemite on Wednesday evening,” and so on. The rest of the trip? Bring no more than a point-and-shoot or your cell phone, stash your serious camera gear out of sight, and don’t let anyone catch so much as a longing glimpse in its direction for the rest of the trip. Then relax and enjoy.
About this image
On this November morning, I didn’t have to drive too far into Yosemite Valley to know that the snow falling on fall color was the stuff of my photographic dreams. My first stop was El Capitan Bridge, a don’t-miss spot for El Capitan reflections in the Merced River. As the closest easily accessible top-to-bottom view of the massive granite monolith, El Capitan Bridge was made to order for my new Sony 12-24 f/2.8 GM lens, and I couldn’t wait to try it out. But the storm that had already dropped a couple of inches of snow was still active, wrapping El Capitan in clouds.
After little success photographing El Capitan’s barely discernable outline from the upstream side of the bridge, I crossed the road and set up on the bridge facing downstream. The tops of Cathedral Rocks were smothered by clouds, but the granite base was clearly visible above the river, framed by golden oaks. In the foreground, rafts of pine needles and autumn leaves floated by so slowly that their motion was barely perceptible.
I composed the scene the scene in the viewfinder of my Sony a7RIV, starting at 12mm and slowly tightening the composition to 16mm. As I worked the scene, the snowfall intensified and I methodically increased my ISO, from 100 to 1600, in one-stop increments, with a corresponding shutter speed increase to capture a range of motion-blur in the falling flakes, from long streaks to short dashes.
This is a perfect example weather only a photographer would be crazy enough to be outside in. Not only was it cold and wet, you couldn’t even see the tops most of Yosemite’s most photographed icons. But I’ve learned that there’s no better time to photograph in Yosemite than during and just after a snowfall, a truth I verified many times this day.
Yosemite Weather
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Image Building
Posted on November 29, 2020
Autumn Snow, El Capitan and Three Brothers Reflection, Yosemite
Sony a7RIV
Sony 12-24 f/2.8 GM
1/100 second
F/10
ISO 100
I warned you that you’ll be seeing images from this month’s Yosemite snow day a while. …
As I may have mentioned, the conditions this day were so off-the-charts-spectacular that I probably could have closed my eyes and still had a good chance for a useable image with any click. But I knew I had an opportunity capture something truly special, so I forced myself to slow down and work with purpose at every stop.
Lots of variables go into creating a successful landscape image. Many people struggle with the scene variables—light, depth, and motion—that are managed by their camera’s exposure settings: shutter speed, f-stop, ISO. Others struggle more with the composition variables: recognizing, isolating, and framing a subject. And then there’s the overlap between these two sides of image creation that requires simultaneous, synergistic mastery. So I thought I’d use this image to demonstrate my image creation process.
What was I thinking?
Glassy reflections and the ability to include the Three Brothers makes this location beside the Merced River one of my favorite El Capitan views. But, as much as I love this spot, for years it also frustrated me because my widest lens was only 16mm, forcing me to choose between El Capitan and Three Brothers, or their reflection, but never both. My frustration vanished a few years ago when I added the Sony 12-24 f/4 G lens to my arsenal.
But now I was armed with the brand new Sony 12-24 f/2.8 GM lens. Though I’d used it some in my Yosemite Fall Color photo workshop a week earlier, my own photography isn’t a priority during a workshop, so this would be my first chance to give my new lens the undivided attention it deserved. And what better spot to do that?
Exposure
I approach every scene starting with my camera at its best ISO (100) and the lens’s “ideal” f-stop (generally f/8 – f/11, where lenses tend to be sharpest, the depth of field is good, with minimal diffraction). Given that motion wasn’t a factor in this scene (I was on a tripod, the wind was calm, and the river’s slow motion didn’t concern me), I stuck with ISO 100. And while the snow and floating leaves were an essential part of my immediate foreground, the 12mm focal length this scene required provided more than enough depth of field at f/10, no matter where in my frame I focused. (At 12mm and f/10, the hyperfocal distance is less than two feet.) In this case I just focused on the leaves and didn’t think about DOF again.
With my ISO and f/stop established, I simply put my eye to the viewfinder of my Sony a7RIV and dialed my shutter speed until the histogram looked right. Since this was a fairly high dynamic range scene (big difference between the darkest shadows and brightest highlights), I knew the exposure wouldn’t look great on my LCD image preview—my highlights would be a little too bright, my shadows a little too dark, but since the histogram looked good, I knew I’d be able to fix the highlights and shadows with a couple of easy Lightroom adjustments.
Composition
Some scenes you can walk up to and plant your tripod pretty much anywhere without much thought. But the variety of foreground and middle-ground elements here made the simple decision of where to set up my tripod very important. Normally I use the tall trees cut off near the center of this image as framing elements, and to block empty sky just left of El Capitan. But with clouds in what is all too often blank blue sky, and unable to find a foreground that worked from that position, I moved downstream and found a ribbon of autumn leaves hugging the riverbank that would make a great foreground.
I was pretty pleased so far, but I still had be careful to position myself so the floating leaves framed the reflection rather than blocked it. Try as I might, I wasn’t able to avoid blocking some of the Three Brothers reflection, but overall I was satisfied to include the leaves and all of the El Capitan reflection without blocking the nose of El Capitan.
Next I started working on the left/right aspect of the scene. The things that get left out of an image can be as important as what’s included. This is especially true on an image’s perimeter frequently, where distractions are easy overlooked by photographers too focused on their primary subject. This framing can managed by some combination of position, focal length, and aim (where my camera is pointed). In this scene I’d already worked out my position, focal length was non-negotiable because I had to be at 12mm (my lens couldn’t go any wider than 12mm, and composing longer than 12mm would have cut off the top and/or bottom of El Capitan). That left only framing option the direction my camera is aimed. Not wanting to cut of any of the riverbank, I shifted my view right until the bank formed a continuous line from the bottom of my frame until it disappeared into the mass of autumn tinted shrubbery on the middle-right.
When I thought I had things just right, I clicked a frame, stood back, and reviewed my composition on my LCD, made a small tweak to add a little more on the right and subtract a little from the left, then waited with my eyes on the rapidly shifting clouds and light. Each time I liked what I saw, I’d click another frame until I was satisfied I had something worth keeping.
The Many Faces of El Capitan
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Snow Falling on Autumn
Posted on November 22, 2020
Autumn Snow, Half Dome Reflection, Yosemite
Sony a7RIV
Sony 12-24 f/2.8 GM
1/100 second
F/16
ISO 200
Between peak fall color dancing on reflections everywhere, and a sky that oscillated all day between heavy snowfall and dramatic clearing, this November day was just one of those days when it was best to keep moving. In these conditions that’s easier said than done because whatever I’m photographing is so beautiful, it’s hard to leave. The result is a memory card full of spectacular, but similar, images. So, after a lifetime of photographing Yosemite in spectacular conditions, I’ve learned not to forget that it’s just as beautiful somewhere else.
By the time I made it out to this Half Dome view just a couple of Merced River bends upstream from Sentinel Bridge, I’d circled the valley so many times I was almost dizzy. My usual lens here is my Sony 24-105 f/4 G because I don’t usually think the surrounding scenery justifies shrinking Half Dome and its reflection with a wide lens. But with snow draping towering evergreens and golden cottonwoods, and a mosaic of autumn leaves lining the riverbank, this was no ordinary day.
Though I’d just gotten the Sony 12-24 f/2.8 GM in August, this was only the second time I’d gotten to use it (thank-you-very-much coronavirus), so I figured what the heck and twisted it onto my Sony a7RIV. Then I moved up and down the riverbank looking for the best foreground to put with the rest of this glorious scene. I eventually settled on this spot, drawn by the way the colorful leaves arced and seemed to frame Half Dome’s reflection.
To shrink the empty area between the leaves and reflection, I splayed my tripod legs and dropped it as low as possible, then plopped down in the snow to compose (grateful for my camera’s articulating LCD). The closest leaves were just a couple of feet away, but I really, really wanted the scene to be completely sharp throughout my frame. I was pretty sure that at 12mm and f/11 I had enough depth of field to safely focus anywhere, but why take a chance? I opened my hyperfocal app and confirmed that my hyperfocal distance was just one foot. Nevertheless, since the databases these apps use don’t take into account the extreme resolving power of a GM lens on 61 megapixel sensor, I bumped to f/16 (diffraction be damned) and went to work.
At first I was annoyed by the constant drips from overhead branches that kept disturbing my reflection, but quickly discovered that by timing my clicks, I could use the concentric waves as an accent, without losing the reflection. The single leaf that floated in just below (above?) Half Dome’s reflection was a bonus.
I just updated the Reflections article in my Photo Tips section, but am sharing it below as well
(and check out the Reflections Around the World gallery at the bottom)
Reflections
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- Spring Reflection, El Capitan and Three Brothers, Yosemite
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- Starry Night, Lake Wanaka, New Zealand
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- Aurora Reflection, Glacier Lagoon, Iceland
Reflection
Dictionary.com: The return of light, heat, sound, etc., after striking a surface.
Okay, so that’s pretty basic. How about this one?
Wikipedia: The change in direction of a wavefront at an interface between two different media so that the wavefront returns into the medium from which it originated
Whoa, I hope that’s not on the test.
Who doesn’t love the soothing tranquility of a crisp reflection? And like a metaphor in writing, a reflection is an indirect representation that can be more powerful than its literal double thanks to its ability to engage the brain in different ways than we’re accustomed. Rather than processing the scene directly, we first must mentally reassemble the reflection’s reverse world, and in the process perhaps see the scene a little differently.
Reflections are a powerful photographic tool as well. Water’s universal familiarity makes it an ideal subject for photographers frustrated by their camera’s static representation of our dynamic world. Just as we freeze or blur a waterfall to express turbulent motion, we can include a reflection to convey serenity.
Water reflections come in many forms, from a mirror-sharp inverted mountain shimmering atop a still pool, to an abstract shuffle of color and texture on an undulating lake. Without getting too far into the physics of light, it’s important to understand that every object we see and photograph (that doesn’t generate its own light) comes to us courtesy of reflected light. For example, when sunlight strikes Half Dome in Yosemite, some of the sun’s photons bounce straight back into our eyes, and there it is.
But other photons head off in different directions—some are captured by other sets of eyes, while others land on the surface of the Merced River. Some of these photons penetrate the water to reveal the submerged riverbed, while others carom off at the same angle at which they struck the water, like a pool ball striking the cushion, or a hockey puck off the boards. The ricocheting photons that travel from Half Dome and bounce off the river, reach our eyes as a reflection. In other words, what we call a reflection is in fact re-reflected light (reflected first from El Capitan, then by the river).
Mirror reflection recipe
Autumn Reflection, El Capitan and Three Brothers, Yosemite
The ingredients for a crisp, mirror reflection is pretty simple: still water, a sunlit subject that’s much brighter than the water’s surface (the greater the contrast the better), and a view angle that matches the angle from the water’s surface to the reflection subject. (The best reflections are usually found on shaded water because there are fewer photons to compete with the photons bouncing from the reflected subject.)
In the image on the left, with El Capitan in direct sunlight but the slow moving Merced River still shaded, my biggest challenge was finding floating fall leaves to include with my reflection. Once I found this spot, my only option was to use my Sony 12-24 f/2.8 GM lens (on my Sony a7RIV body), which gave me a field of view just wide enough to fit El Capitan, Three Brothers, the reflection, and the floating leaves into my frame.
Sunset Palette, Half Dome from Sentinel Dome, Yosemite
Playing the angles
Understanding that reflected photons leave the water’s surface at the same angle at which they arrive—imagine the way a tennis ball bounces (if it weren’t affected by spin, wind resistance, or gravity)—helps us get in position for the reflection we want.
A few years ago I found myself atop Sentinel Dome right after an intense rain shower had turned indentations in the granite into small, glistening pools. Rather than simply settle for the vivid sunset coloring the clouds above, I decided to include the sunset reflected in the pools as well. At eye-level the pools reflected blue sky, so I dropped my tripod as low as it would go, almost to granite level, positioning my lens at the same angle to the pools that the red light leaving the clouds struck the water.
When the water’s in motion
Red Sunset, Lake Wanaka, New Zealand
As spectacular as a crisp, mirror reflection in still water is, it’s easy to overlook the visual potential of a reflection that’s not crisp, or to forget your camera’s ability to render a soft or abstract reflection much better than your eyes view it. While a crisp reflection often dominates the primary subject in an image, a splash of reflected color or shape can provide a striking accent to a dominant primary subject. And a reflection that’s lost to the continuously varying angles of rippled or choppy water, magically appears when a long exposure smoothes the water’s surface.
In this image from Lake Wanaka on the South Island of New Zealand, all the ingredients were in place for a special sunset reflection until a light breeze disturbed the lake’s surface with gentle undulations. By attaching a Breakthrough 6-stop neutral density filter to my Sony 24-105 f/4 G lens (Sony a7RIII camera), I was able to achieve a 30-second exposure that complete smoothed the lake’s surface. While not a perfect mirror, the resulting reflection has a very pleasing soft, gauzy look. The long exposure smoothed the distant clouds as well.
Where to focus
Autumn Reflection, El Capitan, Yosemite
An often misunderstood aspect of reflection photography is where to focus. Though it seems counterintuitive, the focus point of a reflection is the reflection subject, not the reflection surface. This isn’t such a big deal in a scene like the Half Dome reflection at the top of the post, where the focus point of everything of visual significance is infinity, but it’s a very big deal when you want both your reflection and rocks or leaves on the nearby water surface sharp.
The El Capitan reflection on the right is very different from the Half Dome reflection above, where the extreme depth of field ensured sharpness whether I’d focused on anything in the scene or on the reflection. But here the leaves that were my scene’s primary emphasis were just a couple of feet from my camera, while El Capitan was several thousand feet distant. Even though the leaves floated atop the El Capitan reflection, focusing on El Capitan would have softened the leaves. To increase my depth of field, I stopped down to f/18 and focused several feet into the foreground leaves, then magnified the image on my LCD to verify that all of the leaves were sharp. Though El Capitan is slightly soft, a soft reflection is far more forgivable than a soft foreground.
Think ahead
It seems that reflections often feel like a fortuitous gift that we just stumbled upon. But given that reflections are entirely beholden to the laws of physics, they’re far more predictable than many of the natural elements we photograph. Taking a little time to understand the nature of reflections, and how they’re revealed by a camera, enables photographers to anticipate their appearance.
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Reflections Around the World
Click an image for a closer look, and to view a slide show.
Don’t Knock Opportunity
Posted on November 15, 2020
Fall Into Winter, Bridalveil Fall Reflection, Yosemite
Sony a7RIV
Sony 16-35 f/2.8 GM
1/13 second
F/16
ISO 100
A lot of factors go into creating a nice image. Much of the emphasis is on composition, and the craft of metering and focusing a scene, but this week I’ve been thinking about an often overlooked (or taken for granted) component: Opportunity.
This has been on my mind because a week ago I got the rare opportunity to be in Yosemite for the convergence of my two favorite conditions for photography there: peak fall color and fresh snow. Toss in multiple clearing storms and ubiquitous reflections, I have a hard time imagining anything topping that day (okay, maybe if there’d been a full moon…).
Every photographer who has shared a beautiful image has probably had to endure some version of, “Wow, you were sure lucky that happened.” And indeed, I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve received a gift from nature—most recently, last Sunday in Yosemite. But as I think about the blessings of this day, I’m reminded of Louis Pasteur’s oft repeated observation that chance favors the prepared mind. In other words, opportunity is great, but it’s not completely random, and you have to be ready for it.
A favorite quote of Ansel Adams and the generation of photographers who succeeded him, Pasteur’s (translated) words have been repeated and paraphrased to the point that they verge on cliché. But like most clichés, Pasteur’s words achieved this status for a reason. (In this case I can substitute “opportunity” for “chance” without really changing the meaning.)
Granted, I did indeed feel extremely lucky that the weather gods decided to drop snow on Yosemite Valley, a location that doesn’t get tons of snow anyway, just as the valley’s fall color peaked. But to simplify that opportunity down to a lucky convergence that I just happened to be present for, completely discounts the fact that my being in Yosemite that particular day was no accident. I’d been monitoring the Yosemite Valley forecast all week, cleared my schedule when it looked like snow might fall, then made the nearly 4-hour drive with no guarantees.
This does not make me a genius—I wasn’t the only photographer there, far from it. And I wasn’t granted inside information, or motivated by divine intervention—I just checked the weather forecast and acted. And while it was chilly (around 30 degrees), and wet, I didn’t really endure what I’d call extreme hardship (unless you consider spending 24 hours with my brother extreme hardship). 😬
So the first part of the preparation->opportunity equation is simply the ability to recognize the potential for good photography, combined with the willingness to act (and maybe to endure a little inconvenience and discomfort). The second part of the equation is the ability to take maximize the opportunities that manifest, whether they be the product of your proactive initiative (like monitoring the forecast and getting yourself on location), or simply a fortuitous (unexpected) happenstance (right place, right time).
At the very least, taking full advantage of photographic good fortune requires the basic ability to manage exposure and focus variables to control photography’s creative triad: motion, depth, and light. (Seriously, you cannot tap a scene’s potential without these skills, I promise.) But bolstered by this foundation, the next step is a little more subtle because it’s so easy to be overwhelmed by the beauty before you, and to just start clicking because the conditions pretty much guarantee a nice image, regardless of the effort.
True story: A few years ago I was guiding a workshop group at a location with a beautiful view of El Capitan. When the beauty is off the charts like this, rather than insert myself, I often just stand back and observe. And while doing this, I watched one member of the group approach the riverbank and survey the scene—so far, so good. But… Suddenly she popped the camera off her tripod, switched it into continuous mode, pointed downstream, and pressed the shutter and slowly swept the camera in a 180 degree arc—in 5 seconds she’d probably captured at least 50 images. Stunned, it was over before I could intervene. When I regained my composure, I asked her what in the world she was doing. She just smiled and said, “It’s Yosemite, there’s bound to be something good in there.” I couldn’t argue. (This was actually a lighthearted moment that we all had fun with for the rest of the workshop.)
Which brings me to this image from last Sunday. When I pulled up to Valley View, the snow had just stopped (temporarily), glazing every exposed surface pristine white. If any scene qualified for my workshop student’s machine gun, spray and pray, approach, this was it.
The main event at Valley View is El Capitan, but my eye was drawn to the amber trees across the Merced River, their glassy reflection, and the endless assortment of yellow leaves drifting through the scene. I also liked the way Bridalveil Fall, though definitely not gushing, etched a white stripe on the granite beneath Cathedral Rocks. Rather than settle for the easy scene, I made my way about 50 feet upstream from the parking lot to a spot where El Capitan is mostly blocked by trees, but Bridalveil Fall, Cathedral Rocks, the colorful trees, and the reflection, are front and center.
Framing this scene, I dropped as low as possible to emphasize the reflection and eliminate some spindly branches dangling overhead (and said a prayer of thanks for the articulating LCD on my Sony a7RIV). After one frame, I decided the bright gray clouds reflecting on the nearest water to be distracting, so with my eye on my LCD, I dialed my polarizer until the the reflection was off the immediate foreground without erasing the reflection of the scene across the river. This darkened the bland part of the river and helped the rest of the reflection stand out.
I also realized the darker foreground could use some sprucing up. While I could say that I was lucky that a pair of leaves drifted by just beneath the Cathedral Rocks reflection, their inclusion (and position) in this image was no accident. The river was dotted with fairly continuous stream of drifting leaves, so with my composition in place, I simply waited for them to drift into my scening. I took several frames with different leaves in different positions, but liked this one because this pair so nicely framed Bridalveil Fall.
The moral of this story
I think too many photographers are limited by their own mindset. Make your own opportunities and prepare to take full advantage of them when they happen. Learn the basics of exposure and focus technique (it’s not hard). You have enough access to weather forecasts, celestial (sun, moon, stars) data, and nearby beauty (no matter where you live) to anticipate a special event and plot a trip. And once you’re there, take in your surroundings (ideally, before the action starts), avoid the obvious, and challenge yourself to not settle for the first beautiful scene to grace your viewfinder. And no matter how beautiful that image looks on your LCD, ask yourself how it could be better.
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Yosemite Reflections
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Yosemite Autumn Reflection
Posted on November 8, 2020
Autumn Reflection, El Capitan and Three Brothers, Yosemite
Sony a7RIV
Sony 12-24 f/2.8 GM
1/60 seconds
F/10
ISO 100
There’s something to love about each season in Yosemite. In winter it’s snow—never a sure thing, but when it happens, it feels like hitting the jackpot. Come spring the waterfalls have filled, the valley is green, and the dogwood are popping. And while the crowds keep me away from Yosemite Valley in summer, this is the season to explore the exposed granite and pristine water of Yosemite’s high country.
And then comes autumn, when Vernal and Nevada Falls are a shadow of their spring selves, and Bridalveil Fall is a mere trickle. Even booming Yosemite Falls, the valley’s spring centerpiece and instrument of it’s continuous soundtrack, has vanished by September, its existence reduced to a dark outline on the light granite, like the negative of a crime scene chalkline.
Enter autumn (which in California doesn’t really start until the end of October). The vacation crowds have returned to work and school, Yosemite mornings are infused with a biting chill, and the perpetual blue skies of summer are brushed with clouds that hint of the coming winter. Almost overnight the oak, cottonwood, maple, and dogwood trees have fired up, warming Yosemite Valley with vivid yellows and reds.
Perhaps my favorite part of autumn in Yosemite is the now relaxed Merced River. Starved of the same snowmelt the feeds its iconic waterfalls, the Merced River forms a glassy ribbon that twists through the center of Yosemite Valley like the center line on a mountain highway. Framing the river, yellow cottonwoods and their deciduous cousin reflect their hues, creating spectacular complements to Yosemite’s icons.
Last week’s Yosemite Fall Color and Reflections workshop group got to enjoy the Merced River at its reflective best. Following a particularly dry winter and summer without a drop of rain, the river was so low that in places it would have been possible to walk across without getting your knees wet. On our penultimate morning I guided the group to one of my favorite riverside views to photograph the first light on El Capitan and the Three Brothers.
This is one of those spots that’s so close to El Capitan that there’s no such thing as a lens that’s too wide here. After years of trying to fit in using the 16-35 glass, a few years ago I got the Sony 12-24 f/4 G and a whole new world opened. But a couple a months ago I got I’ve the Sony 12-24 f/2.8 GM lens, but haven’t been able to use it (thank-you-very-much COVID). That was about to change. I twisted on to my Sony a7RIV, attached the combo to my tripod, and started moving up and down the riverbank, working with my well-scattered workshop group and sneaking in a frame or two between students.
I was looking for scenes that would allow me to juxtapose floating leaves, El Capitan and the Three Brothers, and of course the magnificent reflection. After about an hour of finding stuff that was close but not quite right, I found this scene just a few minutes before it was time to head to our next location (because the light waits for no one). Including everything wouldn’t have been possible with my 16-35 lens, but the 12-24 was exactly what the doctor ordered. I quickly framed it up at 12mm, making sure to include colorful leaves floating at my feet, and to avoid cutting off El Capitan and its reflection. At 12mm depth of field wasn’t a concern, so I just set my aperture to f/10 and focused on one of the foreground leaves (with so much DOF, I would have been fine focusing on anything in my frame).
Between the sunlit granite and densely shaded trees, dynamic range was extreme, but I monitored the histogram in my viewfinder as I increased my shutter speed, stopping just as the it nudged the graph’s right edge. This resulted in a scene that looked quite dark in the shadows, but a glance at the left side of this histogram told me what I later confirmed in Lightroom—I had all the shadow detail I needed.
BTW, I love my Sony 12-24 f/4 G, but the Sony 12-24 GM is ridiculously good—incredible detail (at 61 MP!) without distortion. I’m a convert. (Can’t wait to try it for astro.)
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Yosemite in Autumn
Starstruck
Posted on November 1, 2020
Autumn Morning, Half Dome and Sunstar from Sentinel Bridge, Yosemite
Sony a7RIV
Sony 24-105 G
1/15 seconds
F/20
ISO 100
I just wrapped up my Yosemite Fall Color and Reflections photo workshop, my first workshop since February. And as you can see from this image taken on our final morning, this year’s workshop absolutely lived up to its name. We enjoyed lots of fall color, and reflections at virtually every twist and turn of the Merced River. We also got to photograph a nearly full moon rising above Yosemite Valley at sunset, and saw more bears than I’ve seen in years (maybe even since my childhood).
All the great photography more than compensated for COVID-related and other difficulties that tried to mess with our mojo. We started with the threat of a fire-danger-induced PG&E power outage and a missing (essential) computer cable. The power shutoff never manifested (phew), but I have no one to blame but myself for the missing HDMI cable that allows me to connect my computer to a TV or projector, and that always lives in my computer bag, I swear (I’ll use the 8-month hiatus as an excuse). Apparently HDMI technology hasn’t made it to Yosemite yet, but a 90-minute round-trip drive to a hardware store Mariposa set things right and we were off and running. Everyone was onboard with the COVID protocol that included masks for group gatherings, outdoor meetings (which worked surprisingly well once I ditched my not-quite-bright-enough projector and moved the TV outside), and suspension of ride-sharing. The no ride-sharing thing is what concerned me most, but a few people volunteered to partner up (completely optional—anyone who wanted to drive alone, could), and we ended up with “only” six cars in our caravan. By pulling over regularly to reassemble, and proactively coordinating our parking strategy, not a single car got separated or missed a shoot.
One of the workshop’s highlights came on our final morning, when we photographed Half Dome from Sentinel Bridge. Because Half Dome’s face stays shaded until late in the day, Sentinel Bridge is normally a late afternoon to sunset location, but in autumn the first sunlight to reach the valley floor pours down the river to illuminate cottonwoods lining the far riverbank. I’d taken very few pictures during this workshop (I’ve been to Yosemite once or twice before), but when I saw the opportunity to add a sunstar to this already beautiful scene, I raced back to my car and grabbed my tripod, Sony a7RIV, and Sony 24-105.
Sunstars have become ubiquitous to the point of cliché, but they can be cool when done right. And sometimes they create a lemonade-from-lemons opportunity to add visual interest to a blank sky, high-contrast scene that has little else going for it. In this case the backlit trees made the Half Dome reflection scene pretty nice anyway, but I thought the sunstar gave it a little punch that took it to the next level. And getting a second sunstar from the reflection was a bonus.
Sunstars happen when light spreads out as it passes through the intersection of the lens’s aperture blades, with the number of blades determining the number of points in the star effect. The lens opening (a.k.a., the aperture, which we measure in f-stops), that is made larger or smaller to allow more or less light to reach the sensor, is not a perfect circle that expands and shrinks uniformly. Rather, it’s a circular(-ish), symetrical polygon of overlapping blades that expands or contracts depending on the f-stop setting. While never a perfect circle, the larger the aperture is, the closer to round the opening becomes, and the less the light is spread out by the blades and the less pronounced the sunstar will be. Conversely, the smaller the aperture, the more the blades are closed down, and the more extreme the angles at the intersection of each overlapping blade. Therefore, the general rule for photographing a sunstar is to stop down to a small aperture (high f-stop number). I resist closing all the way down because that can create other problems, like diffraction and soft edges, and find f/16-f/20 to be absolutely fine.
As appealing as a sunstar can be, adding one also creates problems that include lens flare and extreme dynamic range, not to mention a brilliant sunstar can be a distracting eye magnet that risks overpowering the rest of the scene. The good news is, despite the difficulties, creating a sunstar is relatively straightforward, and most of the potential problems can be minimized if you’re careful. Here’s a quick recipe:
- Start with a brilliant, fine point of light: The sun is the most logical, and easiest, candidate, but you can do it with the moon, stars, and pretty much any bright artificial light (lighthouse, headlights, and so on). The smaller the light source, the smaller and more precise the star effect will be, and the less lens flare and blown highlights you’ll have—but also the smaller the sunstar will be. If you use the sun, rather than include the entire sun ( which will work, albeit often to the point of overpowering the scene), it’s usually best to only expose only a small sliver of sun. The most common way to achieve this is to wait until the sun is just barely above the horizon, but you can also also use any terrestrial object: a rock, a tree, a building, and so on. If you use a relatively nearby object rather than the horizon, just position yourself directly on the shadow line—often you can move as the sun moves, staying on the shadow line to extend the sunstar time-window and control the size of the sunstar.
- The smaller your aperture, the better your sunstar will look: I generally use f16 or smaller (larger f-number).
- Remove any filters: I usually have a polarizer on each of my lenses, but I take mine off when photographing a sunstar. A polarizer doesn’t make a difference when you’re pointing into the sun, and the extra glass just adds to the lens flare potential by creating more reflections.
- Watch the highlights: When the sun is actually in your frame, you have highlights that are much brighter than the much of the scene, requiring care to avoid hopelessly white highlights or black shadows. If you have a distinctive foreground shape against the sky, you could turn it into a silhouette, but usually I want more than that in my image. In my Canon days (10D through 5DIII), I used a graduated neutral density filter to subdue the brilliant sun; since switching to Sony, I just monitor my histogram and push the highlights as far to the right as possible without clipping anything more than the center of the sun itself. The result is an image that, except for the sun, looks very dark to almost black on my LCD. But I take comfort in the histogram, which, while bunched up on the left (with a thin spike on the right edge), confirms that most of the shadows are intact. The very first thing I do after importing the image into Lightroom is drag the Highlights slider all the way to the left, and the Shadows slider all the way to the right, and voilà, there’s my scene.
- Different lenses will yield different results: Experiment with your lenses to see which one gives the most pleasing sunstar effect. Generally wider focal lengths render the best sunstars, as do the higher quality lenses.
- Practice: You can practice sunstars any time the sun’s out. Just go outside with your camera, dial in a small aperture, and hide the sun behind whatever object is convenient (a tree, your house, etc.).
Armed with this knowledge, I planted myself in an opening along the Sentinel Bridge rail, dialed my lens to f/20, framed up my composition, and waited for the sun to peek from behind a tree. Sunstars with a mirrorless camera are easy because you can see exactly what you’ll get before clicking—with my eye shifting between the sunstar and my histogram, I started clicking, adjusting my shutter speed by 1/3 to 2/3 of a stop with each click to maximize my options later (more/less light, larger/smaller sunstar). When the sun disappeared behind another tree I stopped shooting, pretty pleased with my initial results. But standing there, waiting for the sun, I realized that when it rose enough for its reflection to bounce off the river, we’d have a chance for a double sunstar—one through the trees, the other off of the reflection. (Technically this isn’t a sunstar reflection because the sunstar happens in the lens, not on the water.)
Since we were all standing in a slightly different spot, the sun appeared and disappeared at a different time for each of us, but I alerted everyone of the double sunstar opportunity so they wouldn’t stop as soon as the sun disappeared behind a tree. While waiting for the sun to return to my position, I enjoyed the reactions as others in the group started having success. I gotta say, as much as I missed my workshop locations during the pandemic “break” (I did!), it’s this group experience that I missed the most. It’s great to be back.
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A Galaxy of Sunstars
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One Quiet Night on the Rim
Posted on October 25, 2020
Comet NEOWISE in the Clouds, Navajo Point, Grand Canyon
Sony a7SII
Sony 20mm f/1.8 G
20 seconds
F/1.8
ISO 8000
One of the great joys of making my living photographing nature is the opportunity to witness the most beautiful scenes in the world. The problem is, most of these places aren’t a secret, so it can be difficult to have them at their best: alone. Fortunately, the best time to take pictures is usually the worst time to be outside—like rain and snow, freezing cold, and ungodly hours. To this list of good times to take pictures, this summer I added one more: During a global pandemic.
In July my brother Jay and I made two visits to Yosemite to photograph Comet NEOWISE, and one to the Grand Canyon to photograph lightning. With the world largely shutdown due to the pandemic, we got to experience firsthand what it must have been like to visit these congested summer destinations before they were overrun by tourists. I remember circling Yosemite Valley on our first visit and feeling disoriented by the lack of cars and the abundance of relaxed wildlife just chilling in the meadows and on the roadside. And at the Grand Canyon, with just two days notice, I was able to get a room just a few hundred yards from the rim for a rate I’d have been thrilled to get in the dead of winter.
One particular highlight in this year achingly short of highlights came on our last night at the Grand Canyon. Though we’d made this trip primarily because lightning was in the forecast, I also knew that rapidly fading Comet NEOWISE would be hanging in the northern sky after sunset. Unfortunately, the vestiges of those thunderstorms we’d come to photograph blocked most of our comet views. We struck out completely on the first night, but the second night we enjoyed a short but sweet comet shoot at Grandview Point before the clouds moved back in. The arrival of clouds following a successful shoot is often enough to send me packing, but having not seen a single other person our entire time out there, I wasn’t quite ready to let go of the opportunity to experience glory the Grand Canyon in absolute solitude.
Instead of driving back to our hotel, we continued east along the rim, all the way to the end of the road (normally this road continues to Cameron and beyond, but it was closed near the park’s east entrance), ending up at Navajo Point. I had little hope for more glimpses of NEOWISE, but with a view that really didn’t need any help, I set up my camera anyway. Though it was impossible for Navajo Point to be any more empty or quiet than Grandview Point had been, I think the distance from civilization made us feel even more isolated.
Beneath a mix of clouds and stars, Jay and I photographed and gazed for about a half hour. With the canyon illuminated by the light of a 25% waning crescent moon, we could see clearly all the way down to the river. But my Sony a7SII (long my dedicated night camera, since replaced by the Sony a7SIII) did even better, pulling seemingly invisible detail from the darkest shadows. Just as we were about to leave, the clouds parted and there was NEOWISE, as if it wanted to say farewell before embarking on its multi-millennia journey to the fringe of our solar system. I clicked a few frames before the clouds snapped shut and bid my friend goodbye.
I’m not going to pretend that the pandemic was a good thing, or that I’m in any way happy that it happened, but I’ve always believed that our state of mind is what we make it. Like everyone else, I can’t wait for things to return to normal, but when I find myself dwelling on the countless negatives of 2020, I try to remind myself of the year’s blessings that wouldn’t have happened otherwise. Perhaps small consolation in light of all the loss, but this night on the rim of the Grand Canyon was one such blessing, not just a high point of my year, but a high point of my life.
One Last Look at Comet NEOWISE (Yosemite and Grand Canyon)
In the Flow
Posted on October 18, 2020
Autumn Drift, Bridalveil Creek, Yosemite || Canon EOS 1DS Mark III :: Canon 70-200 f/4 L :: 15 seconds :: F/16 :: ISO 100
“Natural” is a moving target that shifts with perspective. Humans experience the world as a 360 degree, three-dimentional, five-sense reel that unfolds in an infinite series of connected instants that our brain seamlessly assembles as quickly as it arrives. But the camera discards 80 percent of the sensory input, limits the view to a rectangular box, and compresses all those connected instants into a single, static frame. In other words, it’s impossible for a camera to duplicate human reality—the sooner photographers get that, the sooner they can get to work on expressing the world using their camera’s very different but quite compelling reality.
Despite the creative opportunities the differences between human and photographic vision offers, many photographers expend a great deal of effort trying to force their cameras closer to human reality (HDR, focus blending, and so on)—not inherently wrong, but in so doing they miss opportunities to creatively reveal our natural world. Subtracting the distractions from the non-visual senses, controlling depth of focus, and banishing unwanted elements to the world outside the frame, a camera can distill a scene to its overlooked essentials, offering perspectives that are impossible in person.
Blurred water
Motion is one thing that an image “sees” differently from you and me. But working in a static medium doesn’t mean photographers can’t convey motion, or use motion in a scene to creative effect.
One question I’m frequently asked is, “How do I blur water?” And while there’s no magic formula, no shutter speed threshold beyond which all water blurs, blurring water isn’t that hard (as long as you use a tripod). In fact, when you photograph water in the full shade or cloudy sky conditions I prefer, it’s usually more difficult to freeze moving water than it is to blur it.
The amount of moving-water blur depends on several variables:
- The water’s speed: Whether it’s a flowing river or crashing surf, the faster the water moves, and the greater the blur. And regardless of the speed, white water (surf or whitewater) blurs better than blue or green water.
- The water’s direction of motion relative to your position: Water moving at right angles to your position will blur more than water moving toward or away from your position.
- Your focal length: The longer the focal length, the greater the blur.
- Your distance from the water: Motion blur increases as you move closer
- And of course, the shutter speed: The longer your shutter is open, the greater the blur.
Of these variables, it’s shutter speed that gets the most attention. That’s because focal length and subject distance are compositional considerations, and we usually don’t start thinking about blurring the water until after we have our composition. To achieve a longer shutter speed without overexposing, you need to reduce the light reaching (or detected by) the sensor. There are several tools at your disposal, each with its own advantages and disadvantages:
- Only photograph moving water in overcast or full shade.
- Reduce your ISO (light sensitivity): Many cameras allow you to expand their ISO below their native value (usually, but not always, 100). This capability is often disabled when the camera comes out of the box, so you need to check your manual to see if your camera has a menu setting that enables “expanded ISO” (or whatever your camera manufacturer calls it). Unlike the film days, when a lower ISO (we called it ASA back then) meant better image quality, any ISO value lower than the camera’s native ISO is emulated (manipulated with internal programming) and may result in slightly lower image quality. This degradation isn’t usually enough to make a huge difference, but it’s still something to avoid unless it’s the best way to achieve a longer shutter speed.
- Shrink the aperture (larger f-stop number): A smaller aperture reduces the light that reaches the sensor. It also increases the depth of field, which could be good, bad, or irrelevant. And a smaller aperture increases diffraction, which soften of the image. While this softening isn’t usually a problem unless you’re making big prints, its best to avoid using a smaller aperture than you need. As a general rule, I resist going with an aperture smaller than f/11 (but don’t hesitate to when it’s the only way to achieve my desired effect).
- Add a polarizing filter: In addition to reducing reflections, a polarizer will subtract 1 to 2 stops of light (depending on its orientation). When using a polarizer, you need to be vigilant about orienting it each time you recompose (especially if you change your camera’s horizontal/vertical orientation), and monitoring its effect on the rest of your scene.
- Add a neutral density filter: A neutral density filter is, as its name implies, both neutral and dense. Neutral in that it doesn’t alter the color of your image; dense in that it cuts the amount of light reaching your sensor. While a dark enough ND filter might allow you to blur water on even the brightest of days, it does nothing for the other problems inherent to midday, full sunlight shooting (specifically, extreme dynamic range). ND filters come in variable and fixed-stop versions—the flexibility of variable NDs (the ability to dial the amount of light up and down) means living with the vignetting they add to my wide angle images.
- Don’t even think about any kind of subject blur without a sturdy tripod. For help selecting the right tripod, read the Tripod Selection article in my Photo Tips section.
Other motion blur opportunities
Motion blur opportunities aren’t limited to crashing waves and rushing whitewater. For example, I love using long shutter speeds to smooth the undulations and chop on the surface of an ocean, lake, or flowing river. And a particular favorite approach of mine is blurring something floating atop moving water, like dots of foam or autumn leaves. And my favorite time and place for this is each autumn at Bridalveil Creek in Yosemite. Here, beneath Bridalveil Fall and shaded by Yosemite’s towering granite walls, are countless pools surrounded by colorful trees and fed by tumbling cascades.
The motion of the cascade’s entry and exit creates arcs and spirals of motion in the pool, punctuated by small pockets of stillness near the perimeter. Leaves fall from the trees and land on the water, or flow down from upstream, congregating on the pool’s surface. Some just make a single arced pass before continuing downstream, others join a circular dance that can last for hours. It’s usually impossible to see any organization to the pool’s motion without something floating on the surface, but a long enough exposure with leaves or floating foam will reveal a distinct flow pattern.
After finding a pool adorned with drifting autumn leaves, I set up my tripod and camera, find a composition, and dial in a shutter speed measured in seconds. Depending on the speed of the circulation, sometimes 10-second shutter speeds are enough, but usually I try to go to 20 or 30 seconds. With the help of a neutral density filter, I’ve gone as long as 3 minutes (and maybe longer).
Once the blur patterns reveal themselves in my images, I tweak my composition and shutter speeds accordingly. Because there are usually many leaves, and each leaf takes a slightly different path depending on its size and interaction with other swirling leaves, each click results in a unique image. I’ll sometimes work a single composition for 15 or 20 minutes, collecting as many motion patterns to choose between as possible, before moving on to another composition or scene.
The image I’ve shared here is a 15-second exposure, captured at Bridalveil Creek in 2009. Because this location is always in full shade, and this was a cloudy day, the scene was dark enough that I could slow my shutter enough with just a polarizer. I’ve always felt like a polarizer is essential to remove glare from the water, leaves, and rocks in these scenes, but at the time I always had to decide between a polarizer or neutral density filter—I couldn’t do both. (I now have a Breakthrough 6-stop darkening polarizer that achieves the best of both worlds.)
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World In Motion
Eloquent Images by Gary Hart 