Eloquent Images by Gary Hart
Insight, information, and inspiration for the inquisitive nature photographer
Chance and the prepared mind
Posted on June 3, 2016
Under the Rainbow, Colorado River, Grand Canyon
Sony a7R II
Sony/Zeiss 16-35 f4
1/60 second
F/11
ISO 100
“Chance favors only the prepared mind.” ~ Louis Pasteur
A few days ago someone on Facebook commented on my previous Grand Canyon rainbow image that getting “the” shot is more about luck than anything else. I had a good chuckle, but once I fully comprehended that this person was in fact serious, I actually felt a little sad for him. Since we tend to make choices that validate our version of reality, imagine going through life with that philosophy.
No one can deny that photography involves a great deal of luck, but each of us chooses our relationship with the fickle whims of chance, and I choose to embrace Louis Pasteur’s belief that chance favors the prepared mind. Ansel Adams was quite fond of repeating Pasteur’s quote; later Galen Rowell, and I’m sure many other photographers, embraced it to great success.
Double Rainbow, Yosemite Valley
As nature photographers, we must acknowledge the tremendous role chance plays in the conditions that rule the scenes we photograph, then do our best to maximize our odds for witnessing, in the best possible circumstances, whatever special something Mother Nature might toss in our direction. A rainbow over Safeway or the sewage treatment plant is still beautiful, but a rainbow above Yosemite Valley or the Grand Canyon is a lifetime memory (not to mention a beautiful photograph).
A few years ago, on a drive to Yosemite to meet clients for dinner (and to plan the next day’s tour), I saw conditions that told me a rainbow was possible. When I met the clients at the cafeteria, I suggested that we forget dinner and take a shot at a rainbow instead. With no guarantee, we raced our empty stomachs across Yosemite Valley, scaled some rocks behind Tunnel View, and sat in a downpour for about twenty minutes. Our reward? A double rainbow arcing across Yosemite Valley. Were we lucky? Absolutely. But it was no fluke that my clients and I were the only “lucky” ones out there that evening.
Before sunrise on a chilly May morning in 2011, my workshop group and I had the good fortune photograph a crescent moon splitting El Capitan and Half Dome from an often overlooked vista on the north side of the Merced River. Luck? What do you think? Well, I guess you could say that we were lucky that our alarms went off, and that the clouds stayed away that morning. But I knew at least a year in advance that a crescent moon would be rising in this part of the sky on this very morning, scheduled my spring workshop to include this date, then spent hours plotting all the location and timing options to determine where we should be for the moonrise.
Rising Crescent, El Capitan and Half Dome, Yosemite
I’d love to say that I sensed the potential for a rainbow over the Grand Canyon when I scheduled last month’s raft trip over a year ago, then hustled my group down the river for three days to be in this very position for the event. But I’m not quite that prescient. On the other hand, I did anticipate the potential for a rainbow a few hours earlier, scouted and planned my composition as soon as we arrived at camp, then called the rainbow’s arrival far enough in advance to allow people to get their gear, find a scene of their own, and set up before it arrived.
As I tried to make it clear in my previous post, anticipating these special moments in nature doesn’t require any real gifts—just a basic understanding of the natural phenomena you’d like to photograph, and a little effort to match your anticipated natural event (a rainbow, a moonrise, the Milky Way, or whatever) with your location of choice.
But to decide that photographing nature’s most special moments is mostly about luck is to pretty much limit your rainbows to the Safeways and sewage treatment plants of your everyday world. I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve prepared for a special moment in nature, changed plans, lost sleep, driven many miles, skipped meals, and suffered in miserable conditions, all with nothing to show for my sacrifice. But just one success like a rainbow above the Grand Canyon is more than enough compensation for a thousand miserable failures. And here’s another secret: no matter how miserable I am getting to and waiting for my goal event, whether it happens or not, I absolutely love the anticipation, the just sitting out there fueled by the thought that it just might happen.
I do photo workshops
When chance meets preparation
(When the planning payed off)
The illusion of genius
Posted on May 30, 2016
Rainbow Bridge, Colorado River, Grand Canyon
Sony a7R II
Sony/Zeiss 16-35 f4
1/80 second
F/11
ISO 100
Perhaps you’ve noticed that many popular nature photographers have a “hook,” a persona they’ve created to distinguish themselves from the competition (it saddens me to think that photography can be viewed as a competition, but that’s a thought for another day). This hook can be as simple (and annoying) as flamboyant self-promotion, or an inherent gift that enables the photographer to get the shot no one else would have gotten, something like superhuman courage or endurance. Some photographers actually credit a divine connection or disembodied voices that guide them to the shot.
Clearly I’m going to need to come up with a hook of my own if I’m to succeed. Flamboyant self-promotion just isn’t my style, and my marathon days are in the distant past. Courage? I think my poor relationship with heights would rule that out. And the only disembodied voice I hear is my GPS telling me she’s “recalculating.”
Just when I thought I’d reached an impasse that threatened to keep me mired in photographic anonymity, a little word percolated up from my memory, a word that I’d heard uttered behind my back a few times after I’d successfully called a rainbow or moonrise: “Genius.” That’s it! I could position myself as the Sherlock of shutter speed, the Franklin of f-stop, the Einstein of ISO. That’s…, well, genius!
And just as the fact that none of these other photographers are quite as special as their press clippings imply, the fact that I’m not actually a genius would not be a limiting factor.
But seriously
Okay, the truth is that photography is not rocket science, and nature photographers are rarely called to pave the road to scientific or spiritual truth. Not only is genius not a requirement for great photography, for the photographer who thinks too much, genius can be a hindrance. On the other hand, a little bit of thought doesn’t hurt.
It’s true that I’ve photographed more than my share of vivid rainbows and breathtaking celestial phenomena—moonrises and moonsets, moonbows, the Milky Way, and even a comet—from many iconic locations, but that’s mostly due to just a little research and planning combined with a basic understanding of the natural world. An understanding basic enough for most people who apply themselves.
For example, this rainbow. It was clearly the highlight of this year’s Grand Canyon raft trip, and while I did call it about fifteen minutes in advance, I can’t claim genius. Like most aspects of nature photography, photographing a rainbow is mostly a matter of being in the right place at the right time. Of course there are thing you can do to increase your chances of being in the right place at the right time. Whether it’s an understanding of rainbows that enables me to position myself and wait, or simply knowing when and where to look, when I do get it right, I can appear more prescient than I really am.
The essentials for a rainbow are simple: sunlight (or moonlight, or any other source of bright, white light) at 42 degrees or lower, and airborne water droplets. Combine these two elements with the correct angle of view and you’ll get a rainbow. The lower the sun, the higher (and more full) the rainbow. And the center of the rainbow will always be exactly opposite the sun—in other words, your shadow will always point toward the rainbow’s center. There are a few other complicating factors, but this is really all you need to know to be a rainbow “genius.”
In this case it had been raining on and off all day, and while rain is indeed half of the ingredients in our rainbow recipe, as is often the case, this afternoon the sunlight half was blocked by the clouds delivering the rain. Not only do rain clouds block sunlight, so do towering canyon walls. Complicating things further, the window when the sun is low enough to create a rainbow is much smaller in the longer daylight months near the summer solstice (because the sun spends much of its day above 42 degrees). So, there at the bottom of the Grand Canyon on this May afternoon, the rainbow odds weren’t in our favor.
But despite the poor odds, because this afternoon’s rain fell from clouds ventilated by lots of blue gaps, I gave my group a brief rainbow alert, telling them when (according to my Focalware iPhone app, the sun would drop below 42 degrees at 3:45) and where to look (follow your shadow), and encouraging them to be ready. Being ready means figuring out where the rainbow will appear and finding a composition in that direction, then regularly checking the heavens—not just for what’s happening now, but especially for what might happen soon.
We arrived at our campsite with a light rain falling. The sun was completely obscured by clouds, but knowing that the sun would eventually drop into a large patch of blue on the western horizon, I went scouting for possible rainbow views as soon as my camp was set up. When the rain intensified an hour or so later, I reflexively looked skyward and realized that the sun was about to pop out. I quickly sounded the alarm (“The rainbow is coming! The rainbow is coming!”), grabbed my gear, and beelined to the spot I’d found earlier.
A few followed my lead and set up with me, but the skeptics (who couldn’t see beyond the heavy rain and no sunlight at that moment) continued with whatever they were doing. After about fifteen minutes standing in the rain, a few splashes of sunlight lit the ridge above us on our side of the river; less than a minute later, a small fragment of rainbow appeared upstream above the right bank, then before our eyes spread across the river to connect with the other side. Soon we had a double rainbow, as vivid as any I’ve ever seen.
Fortunate for the skeptics, this rainbow lasted so long, everyone had a chance to photograph it. Our four guides (with an average of 15 years Grand Canyon guiding experience), said it was the most vivid and longest (duration) rainbow they’d ever seen. (I actually toned it down a little in Photoshop.)
Genius? Hardly. Just a little knowledge and preparation mixed with a large dose of good fortune.
One more thing (May 31, 2016)
The vast majority of photographers whose work I enjoy viewing achieved their success the old fashioned way, by simply taking pictures and sharing them (rather than blatant self-promotion or exaggerated stories of personal sacrifice). In no particular order, here’s a short, incomplete list of photographers I admire for doing things the right way: Charles Cramer, Galen Rowell, David Muench, William Neill, and Michael Frye. In addition to great images, one thing these photographers have in common is an emphasis on sharing their wisdom and experience instead of hyperbolic tales of their photographic exploits.
Grand Canyon Workshops || Upcoming Workshops
A gallery of rainbows
Grand Canyon drive-by shooting
Posted on May 25, 2016
River Rock, Colorado River, Grand Canyon
Sony a7R II
Sony/Zeiss 24-70 f4
1/80 second
F/9
ISO 200
A couple of weeks ago I blogged about shooting sans tripod on my recent Grand Canyon raft trip. My rationale for this sacrilege was that any shot without a tripod is better than no shot at all. I have no regrets, partly because I ended up with Grand Canyon perspectives I’d have never captured otherwise, but also because shooting hand-held reinforced for me all the reasons I’m so committed to tripod shooting.
Much of my tripod-centric approach is simply a product of the way I’m wired—I’m pretty deliberate in my approach to most things, relying on anticipation and careful consideration rather than cat-like reflexes as my path to action. That would probably explain why my sport of choice is baseball, I actually enjoy golf on TV, and would take chess or Scrabble over any video game (I’m pretty sure the last video game I played was Pong). It also explains, despite being an avid sports fan, my preference for photographing stationary landscapes.
Despite this preference, for the last three years my camera and I have embarked on a one week raft trip through Grand Canyon, where the scenery is almost always in motion (relatively speaking, of course). And after three years, I’ve grown to appreciate how much floating Grand Canyon is like reading a great novel, with every bend a new page that offers potential for sublime reflection or heart pounding action. And just as I prefer savoring a novel, lingering on or returning to passages that resonate with me, I’d love to navigate Grand Canyon at my own pace. But alas….
The rock in this image was a random obstacle separated from the surrounding cliffs at some time in the distant past, falling victim to millennia of dogged assault by rain, wind, heat, cold, and ultimately, gravity. Understanding that the river is about 50 feet deep here makes it easier to appreciate the size of this rock, and the magnitude of the explosion its demise must have set off.
Unfortunately, viewing my subject at eight miles per hour precludes the realtime analysis and consideration its story merits, and I was forced to act now and think later. In this case I barely had time to rise, wobble toward the front of the raft, balance, brace, meter, compose, focus, and click. One click. Then the rock was behind me and it was time to turn the page.
Grand Canyon Photo Workshops
Rivers Front and Center
Grand Canyon garden spot
Posted on May 23, 2016
Nature’s Garden, Deer Creek Fall, Grand Canyon
Sony a7R II
Sony/Zeiss 24-70 f4
1/3 second
F/20
ISO 400
Who knew there could be so much intimate beauty in a location known for its horizon stretching panoramas? In fact, there are so many of these little gems that I run out of unique adjectives to describe them. Springing from a narrow slot in the red sandstone to plummet 180 feet to river level, Deer Creek Fall is probably the most dramatic of the many waterfalls we see on the raft trip.
Last year we stayed at Deer Creek Fall long enough to photograph it, but not long enough to explore. The prior year, on my first trip, we spent a couple of hours here; with temperatures in the 90s, most of the group photographed from the bottom, then cooled off in the emerald pool at its base. But a few of us took the relatively short, fairly grueling, completely unnerving trail to the top. Grueling because the route is carved into the sun-exposed sheer wall just downstream from the fall; unnerving because just as you’re catching your breath atop the slot canyon feeding the fall, you realize that continuing requires navigating about 20 feet of 18 inch wide ledge in the otherwise vertical sandstone. With no handhold and a 75 foot drop to the creek that may as well be 750 or 7500 feet (the outcome would be the same), I studied it for about five minutes. Watching the guides stride boldly across without hesitation, in flip-flops, did little to quell my anxiety. I finally sucked it up and made it to the other side, but once was enough.
This year, thanks to some deft planning by our lead guide, we scored the campsite directly across the river from the fall. He deposited the group at the fall, then motored across the river with another guide to get the camp started. The two other guides led a hearty group up the trail to the top, while the rest of us explored with our cameras at river level.
Already familiar with scenes down there, I scaled a boulder-strewn notch in the rocks just upstream to an elevated platform with great top-to-bottom view of the fall. Up here I found enough foreground options to keep me happy for the duration of our stay, and was so engrossed that I was completely unfazed by the verticality of my surroundings.
As I worked the scene, I eventually honed in on a vivid green shrub that stood out against the red sandstone, ultimately landing on variations of the composition you see here. Working this scene I dealt with intermittent showers, a fickle wind that ranged from nearly calm to frustratingly persistent, and a real desire for depth of field throughout my frame. After a number of frames at f16, I magnified an image on my LCD enough to see that the shrub was sharp, but the background was just nearly sharp. As much as I try to avoid anything smaller than f16, I stopped down to f20 and refocused a little farther back, about three feet behind my shrub. Another check of my LCD confirmed that everything from the nearby rocks to the background plants was sharp.
Our campsite that night was less than spacious (think compact condo living as opposed to sprawling suburban subdivisions), but definitely worth the close confines for the view alone. This stay across from Deer Creek Fall turned out to be memorable for one other event that happened later that evening, but that’s a story for another day….
Grand Canyon Photo Workshops
A Gallery of Waterfalls
Rapid day
Posted on May 19, 2016
Nightfall, Colorado River, Grand Canyon
Sony a7R II
Sony/Zeiss 16-35 f4
1.3 seconds
F/11
ISO 200
Every once in a while an image so perfectly captures my emotions at the moment of capture that I just can’t stop looking at it. This is one of those images.
After two relatively benign days of peaceful floating punctuated with occasional mild riffles and only a small handful of moderate-at-best rapids, the group was feeling pretty comfortable on the river. But our guides had made it pretty clear that we hadn’t really encountered anything serious yet, and most in the group were a little anxious about what was in store for day-three—”rapid day.”
Our second night’s camp was a few miles downstream from the Little Colorado River, just ten minutes upstream from Unkar, our first major rapid. I could tell people were getting a little anxious because, as the only person on the trip to have done it before (this was my third trip in three years), I spent much of the evening reassuring people that while the rapids were indeed an E Ticket ride (on that scale, we’d so far navigated no more than two C Tickets), they were more thrilling than threatening. Of course I had to qualify my reassurance with the disclaimer that last year Unkar, tomorrow’s very first rapid, had tossed me from the raft and into the Colorado.
My 2016 Grand Canyon raft trip group perched atop our two J-Rig rafts. Each raft is comprised of five rubber tubes strapped together and attached to a frame that secures an amazing amount of storage space. (That’s Deer Creek Fall in the background.)
With 28 rafters and 4 guides, my group filled two J-Rig rafts— massive, motorize floating beasts with room for 15+ people and more than a week’s worth of supplies and equipment. When we’re just floating with the current, J-rig rafters can stand and stretch, and even wander around the rafts with relative ease. But when a rapid approaches, we have to hunker down and lock onto the designated hand-holds in one of the raft’s three three riding zones:
- The “chicken coup” is nestled in the middle of the raft, between storage areas. Here rafters can survive even the wildest rapids in relative peace and dryness. A few rafters make a permanent home in the chicken coup, but most ride back here for a breather, or to dry off, before returning to the more exposed positions.
- Farther toward the front are the boxes, elevated storage cabinets doubling as benches that provide rafters a great view, a thrilling ride, and a pretty good drenching. I was sitting on the boxes last year when I got launched into the river.
- Up front are the tubes, which flex and contort as they bear the brunt of each rapid. Riding a rapid on the tubes is akin to straddling a bucking bronco, complete with the front and back hand-holds and random g-force. The two most important things to remember up here to hold on for dear life, and to lean into the tube and “suck rubber!” when a rapid hinges the tubes back into your face. This is the wettest and wildest ride—definitely not for the faint of heart.
The next morning we pushed off a little before 8:00. I’d decided before the trip that, given our history, I wanted to be up front for Unkar. I was joined on the tubes by only one other rafter, while everyone else, uncertain about what was in store, crammed into the two back areas. (We called our other raft the “party raft”—their tubes were packed with rafters throughout the trip.)
Approaching Unkar, the guides’ moods changed: Wiley cut the engine, and we drifted toward the downstream roar while Lindsay delivered a serious lecture about rapid survival. Adding to the tension, on her way back to her seat, for the first time Lindsay checked everyone’s lifejacket and hand holds. Then, before we had a chance panic, the engine fired, the river quickened, and the raft shot forward and plunged into the whitewater.
A major rapid assaults many senses at once. The larger rapids pummel you with a series of waves that toss you in multiple directions at once and barely give a chance to recover before the next rapid tosses you in directions you didn’t know existed. The largest rapids, like Unkar, have multiple stomach-swallowing drops and ascents; you soon learn that the largest are nearly vertical, horizon-swallowing, down/up cavities that run green and smooth with a garnish of churning whitewater dancing on top. Depending on how the raft hits a wave, we could ride over with barely a splash, or crash through in a full emersion baptismal experience.
The soundtrack to the rapid’s visual, tactile, and equilibrium experience is a locomotive roar mixed with screams. You know the ride’s over and you’ve survived when the screams turn to shouts, and finally laughter as everyone dares to take their eyes from the river to make eye contact with the other survivors.
Unkar turned out to be one of the bigger—but definitely not the biggest—rides of this year’s trip. When it spit our boat out the other end, I uncurled my fingers from the ropes and shook the water free, checked all my parts to ensure they were as they were when we entered, then scanned my fellow rafters for their reaction to their first major rapid. The euphoria was clear, and I think if it had been possible, the vote to do it all over would have been unanimous.
As I suspected might happen, surviving Unkar emboldened the group; by the end of the day and for the rest of the trip, we had far more people riding on the tubes, with the limiting factor not so much fear as it was the 47 degree river water with an uncanny ability to penetrate even the most robust “waterproof” rainwear.
That evening, thirty-plus major rapids (and at least as many lesser rapids) farther downstream, we pulled into camp soggy and sore, but far from beaten. The afternoon had turned showery, and the showers persisted as we set up camp, slowing our drying more than adding to our wetness. While the guides prepared dinner in a light drizzle, I wandered down to the river to survey the photo opportunities. I found pictures everywhere—upstream, downstream, across the river—but rather than dive right into my camera bag, I first took the time to savor my surroundings.
The canyon’s pulse, the river’s ubiquitous thrum echoing from rocks that predate the dinosaurs, is simultaneously exhilarating and meditative. Unable to bottle this exquisite balance to take back with me, I turned to my camera, hoping for the next best thing—an image that will bring me back.
Shortly before sunset the rain stopped and sunlight fringed openings in the thinning clouds. By this time several others in the group had joined me at the river’s edge, each camera pointing at a different scene. I’d found mine, I soon tired of the limited foreground options and set out across a field of river-rounded boulders, hopping in my flip-flops toward a promising formation of rocks protruding from the river about a hundred yards away.
It wasn’t until I was all the way there that I realized that the solitary plant I could see protruding from the river wasn’t going to be a distraction to deal with, it was going to be my subject. As the sky colored and darkened, I kept working on this one little plant, positioning and repositioning until the plant, surrounding rocks, and looming peak felt balanced. The final touch that tied the scene up came when I moved a little closer and raised my tripod to its apex so my plant was isolated entirely against the river.
After spending a little more time with this image, I better appreciate why the scene resonated with me then, and why I feel so drawn to it now. The river is rushing here, flaunting the power that tossed and drenched me and my fellow rafters all day, yet this small plant stands motionless for the duration of an exposure that exceeds one second. I admire its calm, the way it towers unfazed above the force that carved this magnificent chasm.
Join me in Grand Canyon
A Grand Canyon Gallery
Eye on the sky
Posted on April 27, 2016
High Sierra Moonrise, Glacier Point, Yosemite
Sony a7R II
Sony/Zeiss 24-70 f4
2.5 seconds
F/10
ISO 200
I spend much of my photography time chasing the moon. Most of my trips factor in the moon’s phase and location—usually to catch a full or crescent moon rising or setting above a particular landmark, and often to photograph a landscape by moonlight (full moon) or starlight (no moon). But sometimes the moon catches me less than fully prepared, and I need to improvise.
For example
I enjoyed the January full moon with my workshop group in Death Valley and the Alabama Hills; in February my Horsetail Fall workshop group photographed a full moon rising above Yosemite Valley; in March I was in Sedona with Don Smith to photograph the full moon as it rose above Cathedral Rock and Oak Creek; and last week my Yosemite Moonbow and Wildflowers workshop group photographed the April full moon above Bridalveil Fall and the Merced River Canyon, then headed off to catch a moonbow in the mist at the base of Lower Yosemite Fall. And chasing the moon isn’t all about the full moon—already this year I’ve photographed several thin crescents in the Sierra foothills, and next week I raft Grand Canyon, where my group will (fingers crossed) witness a waning crescent moon just after sunset, and later that night photograph the canyon illuminated by nothing but the Milky Way and thousands of stars only visible in a moonless sky.
All this planning around the moon does indeed get me to many beautiful locations at just the right time, but sometimes the moon catches me in situations where, without the necessary knowledge at hand, I’m forced to think on my feet (and smartphone). Most recently was the unplanned moonrise added to last week’s Yosemite workshop. When the National Park Service opened Glacier Point about a month earlier than expected, I quickly inserted a Glacier Point sunset into the workshop but didn’t have time for anything more than a cursory moonrise check.
Beautiful clouds and light made our Glacier Point sunset a success, but as we were about ready to return to the warmth of the cars, the moon’s imminent arrival crept into the back of my mind. What I knew was that this night, from Glacier point the moon would be rising far to the right of Half Dome (out of the primary view), and probably just slightly too late to photograph effectively (not enough light to capture both landscape and lunar detail). Nevertheless, before packing up my gear I pulled out my iPhone to be certain we weren’t making the classic photographer’s mistake of leaving too early.
This won’t be on the test
Without a strong cell signal, I had to resort to apps that function offline. I started with Focalware, my go-to app for the sun’s and moon’s altitude and azimuth from any location on Earth. Next, now armed with the moon’s azimuth, I opened MotionX-GPS (with the map pre-downloaded) to plot its location relative to the current landscape, determining that it would emerge from behind Mt. Clark.
The final (and most difficult) piece of the puzzle was determining when the moon would appear. This is tricky because published moonrise times always assume a flat horizon—great if you’re on a ship at sea, but not so much anywhere else, and especially not in the mountains.
Using the topo info in the MotionX app, I determined that Mt. Clark’s elevation was around 11,500 feet. Knowing the Glacier Point is at 7,200 feet, I subtracted 7,200 from 11,500 and got 4,300 feet, the vertical distance between my location and the point where the moon would appear. Because the MotionX app also gave me the horizontal (as the crow flies) distance between me and Mt. Clark (about 8.2 miles, or around 43,300 feet), I had everything I needed to plug into my HP-11C (scientific calculator) app and compute the altitude, in degrees, that the moon would need to achieve before cresting the peak (thank God I stayed awake in trigonometry). With that information, it was a simple matter of returning to Focalware to see what time the moon would ascend to that altitude (appear above Mt. Clark).
There are apps that will do all this for me (PhotoPills and The Photographer’s Ephemeris are the ones I recommend), but they require connectivity, and the foresight to do the work when my signal is strong enough to download the maps. (Plus, I just like doing it my way.)
I never tire of this stuff
So, after less than five minutes of figuring, I was confident enough to tell everyone the moon would appear from behind Mt. Clark at 7:57 p.m., plus or minus two minutes. That gave us a couple of minutes to prepare a composition, and sure enough, right around 7:55, the clouds behind Mt. Clark started to glow; at 7:58, there it was and we were in business. In this case the thin clouds on the horizon subdued the moon’s brilliance just enough that I could give the foreground enough light without turning the moon to a white disk.
As often as I do this (sometimes I plot the moon just for fun, even though I know I can’t be there to enjoy it), few things thrill me more than my eyes on the exact point on the horizon at the moment the moon first nudges into view.
Understanding vs. knowledge
I know my process sounds complicated, but it really isn’t—in fact, plotting the moon this way doesn’t require any special insight beyond what most of us learned in high school. But it does illustrate something I constantly stress: the advantage of understanding over knowledge. When we know something, we can respond to a finite set of circumstances; when we understand something, we can reason our way to knowledge beyond our training.
One more quick example: A couple of days ago, I was scouting a potential sunrise location in the Columbia River Gorge. Because I’m reluctant to trust compass apps that point an arrow (or whatever) in a general direction, I pulled out Focalware and saw that tomorrow’s sunrise azimuth would be 70 degrees. Focalware also told me that the sun’s current azimuth was 253 degrees. Since I know that a (solar) shadow always points exactly 180 degrees from the sun’s current azimuth, I knew that my shadow was pointing directly at the 73 degree azimuth (253 minus 180), more than close enough to figure out where the sun would appear (in this case, farther north than ideal).
Whether it’s lunar geometry, exposure settings, depth of field, or whatever, understanding (and visualizing) a system’s underlying principles is always superior to memorizing its facts. And amazingly, it’s almost always simpler than we imagine. Since the position of the sun, moon, and stars are important to me, I try to visualize the celestial choreography.
Likewise, the more you can understand what’s happening when you adjust your shutter speed, f-stop, and ISO, the better prepared you’ll be to reason your way through difficult exposure puzzles, such as, I really need a lot of depth of field to get this tree and that mountain sharp, but the breeze is really blowing the leaves?, or, The exposure is perfect for this 20-second pinpoint stars image, but how can I do a 30-minute star trail shot of the same scene without changing the exposure?.
Photo Workshop Schedule
A gallery of celestial wonders
My Technology Can Beat Up Your Technology
Posted on April 18, 2016
Skylight, Lower Antelope Canyon, Arizona
Sony a7R II
Sony/Zeiss 24-70 f4
1/100 second
F/11
ISO 200
For some reason, the technology choices of others seem to be the source of profound angst to many (self appointed) online “experts.” Whether it’s vinyl vs. digital music, Windows vs. Mac OS, Android vs. iOS, Nikon vs. Canon vs. Sony, mirrorless vs. DSLR, nothing seems to incite in-your-face rancor like someone else’s technology choice. While I’ve been quite content to remain on the sidelines during these pointless battles, I must confess to being an occasional (amused) observer.
One thing I’ve observed during these skirmishes is that most desperate attacks seem to come from the side playing catch-up—the underdog. I mean, was there anyone more annoying than an Apple user in the nineties?
On the other side, it seems that the job of the front-running users who are under attack, those users with the technology embraced by the masses, is to respond with smug condescension. Which of course only further inflames the underdog. I mean, is there anyone more smug than an Apple user today?
(Before you accuse me of Apple-user bashing, let me assure you that I’m a committed Apple zealot who long ago lost track of the number of iDevices within arm’s reach. In place of Apple you could plug in Nikon/Canon/Sony, vinyl/digital, and so on and easily find the same attack/condescend cycle repeating.)
But given all this, imagine my concern since exiting the Canon vs. Nikon battle zone for the relative peace of Sony in 2014—suddenly I was photographing with gear that seemed too anonymous to incite emotion from pretty much anyone. Where had I gone wrong? Which is why it was with great excitement that I recently read a blog post disparaging Sony mirrorless shooters—to be more specific, Sony full-frame mirrorless shooters, a fraternity of which I’m a card carrying member. It was like the new phone book had arrived and suddenly, “I’m somebody!”
According to this self-proclaimed authority, as a Sony shooter I’m an ignorant lemming with dubious lineage and poor bathing habits. (Okay, so maybe I’m reading between the lines a bit, but I have no doubt the argument would have gotten there soon enough.) Rather than take offense, I viewed this blogger’s anti-Sony rant as a badge of honor, a sign that my Sony mirrorless gear has achieved enough status to stir the juices of the insecure. Not only that, I’m now in a position to respond with condescending smugness—a significant milestone indeed.
But seriously
Okay, but seriously, who cares? Who? Cares? Are people really that insecure about their technology choices that they feel threatened by mine? I have my own very specific photography needs, as I’m sure you do as well. You can’t pretend to know my needs, I can’t pretend to know yours. I find no offense (or, I must confess, interest) in the equipment you choose, and certainly hope that you find none in mine.
On the other hand, I’ve reached the point in my career that my equipment choices do affect the decisions of others. People who like my pictures ask what equipment I use, and for my opinion on the equipment they should purchase. While I’m happy to answer these questions (as time permits), the real answer is that the equipment matters very little in relation to the person operating it. Today’s technology is pretty much across-the-board amazing compared to what used to be considered state-of-the-art. The limiting factor in your photography will almost certainly not be your equipment.
For anyone looking to upgrade their equipment, my advice is to filter out all the noise, target the few features that are most important to you, and try to identify the system that best suits you. It almost certainly won’t be exactly the same as the system that best suits the online “experts,” no matter how loudly they make their case.
And beware, often the people most willing to share their opinions are far more ignorant than they realize. Before taking the word of any stranger, especially when it comes to how and where to spend your own hard-earned money, at the very least you should review their images to confirm that: 1) they actually have an idea of what they’re doing, and 2) what they’re doing actually resonates with you.
All that said, I’d like to explain why I’m confident that I’ve found the best camera system for my photography. It comes down to the realization over the year-and-a-half I’ve been shooting Sony full-frame mirrorless, that I’m getting images that I never could have gotten with my Canon DSLRs. For me, that means ridiculous dynamic range from my a7RII, and similarly ridiculous high ISO performance from my a7SII. It also means more room in my bag, enabling me to carry more gear, which helps me be more prepared for whatever Mother Nature delivers.
The most recent validation of my Sony system was captured late last month, on bright afternoon visit to Lower Antelope Canyon near Page, Arizona. Upper and Lower Antelope Canyons are narrow slot canyons carved in red sandstone by millennia of extreme drought punctuated by brief flash-floods. I’ve photographed these canyons many times in the last ten or so years; while I’ve always loved photographing there, I’ve also been frustrated by the extreme dynamic range that forces me (and pretty much everyone else) to decide between the scene’s highlights or shadows.
Since I don’t blend images (if I can’t capture it in one click, I don’t shoot it), dynamic range is a huge deal for me. Our cameras just can’t capture in one click the range of light—from darkest shadows to brightest highlights—that our eyes see. But that doesn’t prevent me from trying to squeeze out as much dynamic range as my camera will allow (and always hoping for more).
Already aware that my Sony a7RII (and the a7R before it) has more dynamic range than any camera I’ve ever used, on this year’s Antelope Canyon visit (helping good friend Don Smith with his Northern Arizona workshop), I decided to put the camera to the test with an extreme dynamic range scene that has always overwhelmed any camera I’ve thrown at it: in one frame, attempting to capture detail in the red rock buried in Antelope Canyon’s deepest shade, and the brilliant, sunlit blue sky outside.
On this visit, for most of the walk through Lower Antelope, a thin layer of clouds obscured the blue sky overhead. But as we were heading toward the exit, I looked up and saw a break in the clouds through the narrow slit overhead. I quickly metered the scene, targeting the brightest part of the remaining clouds and pushing the highlights as far I could without clipping (overexposing) them beyond recovery. On my LCD the image looked like a failure, with blinking (overexposed) highlights and black shadows, but the histogram told me I’d gotten the exposure as close to correct as possible—it showed a little clipping on both sides, but maybe (fingers crossed), there’d be enough in the highlights and shadows to salvage the image.
Despite the unusable appearance on the camera, and my previous (Canon) experience trying to photograph Antelope Canyon with sky, on my computer a small miracle happened: Tugging Lightroom’s Highlights slider to the left restored all the detail to the clouds and blue to the sky. So far so good, but on previous attempts, capturing blue sky in an Antelope Canyon image was always a death knell for the shadows. So imagine my surprise when I started pulling Lightroom’s Shadows slider to the right and rich red sandstone magically appeared, even in the darkest shadows. It was all there!
Does this mean that my new Sony mirrorless bodies are better than my Canon DSLR bodies? I can’t say, nor will I try to say—we each make the choice that best suits our style and needs, and all the online ranting from experts shouldn’t sway us. But for me, regardless of what others might say, or how loudly they might say it, I know I’m getting images that I never could have gotten before. And that’s really all that matters.
Workshop Schedule || Purchase Prints || Instagram
Previously Impossible (shots I wouldn’t have gotten with “lesser” technology)
Your camera is not an Etch A Sketch
Posted on April 11, 2016
(In defense of the tripod)
Grand Morning, Yavapai Point, Grand Canyon
Sony a6300
Sony/Zeiss 16-35 f4
.6 seconds
F/10
ISO 200
Who remembers the Etch A Sketch? For those who didn’t have a childhood, an Etch A Sketch is a mechanical drawing device that’s erased by turning it upside-down and shaking vigorously.
When I come across a scene I deem photo-worthy, my first click is a rough draft, a starting point upon which to build the final image. After each click I stand back with the latest frame on my LCD and scrutinize my effort, refine it, click again, evaluate, refine, and so on. On a tripod, each frame is an improvement of the preceding frame.
Taking this approach without a tripod, I feel like I’m erasing an Etch A Sketch after each click. That’s because every time I click, I have to drop the camera from my eye and extend it in front of me to review the image, essentially wiping clean my previous composition. Before I can make the inevitable adjustments to my most recent capture, I must return the camera to my eye and completely recreate the composition I want to refine.
I bring this up because a week or so ago, on another landscape photographer’s blog I read that she rarely uses a tripod anymore because image stabilization is so good—and anyway, even when stabilization won’t be enough to prevent camera shake, she can just increase her ISO. Reading comments like this reminds me how many landscape photographers don’t get that the tripod’s greatest value isn’t its ability to prevent hand-held camera shake, its the ability the tripod provides for making incremental improvements to a static scene (such as a landscape).
Before I continue, let me just acknowledge that there are indeed many valid reasons to not use a tripod. For example, you get a tripod pass if your subject is in motion (sports, wildlife, kids, etc.), you photograph events or in venues that don’t allow tripods, you have physical challenges prevent you from carrying a tripod, or even if you just plain don’t want to (after all, photography must ultimately be a source of pleasure). But if you’re a landscape shooter who wants the best possible images, “Because now I can get a sharp enough image hand-holding” is not a valid reason for jettisoning the tripod.
Technology certainly has changed the tripod equation. There was a time—way back in the film days, when ISO was ASA and anything above 400 was really pushing the limit, before instant LCD review and image stabilization—when the tripod’s prime function was preventing hand-held camera shake. But today, probably 80 percent of my images could be acceptably free of camera shake without a tripod. Yet the tripod survives….
For example
Last month I was at the Grand Canyon to help my friend Don Smith with his Northern Arizona workshop. A week earlier I’d added the brand new Sony a6300 to my camera bag, but a ridiculously busy schedule had kept it there. Sony had requested a sample image for their Sony Alpha Universe page, and I was down to just one day to deliver.
Our first morning on the rim was my only chance to meet Sony’s deadline before the workshop started. Landing at Mather Point about 45 minutes before sunrise, I beelined along the rim to Yavapai Point (about a mile), straight to a tree I’d been eyeing for years. On all previous attempts, something had foiled me: either the light was wrong, the sky was boring, or there were too many people. One sunrise a few years ago, I found the tree and canyon bathed in beautiful warm light, and the sky filled with dramatic, billowing clouds—perfect, except for the young couple dangling their legs over the edge and making goo-goo eyes beneath “my” tree. They looked so content, I just didn’t have the heart to nudge them over the edge (I know, you don’t have to say it, I’m a saint).
But this morning, everything finally aligned for me: nice clouds, beautiful sunrise color, and not a soul in sight. I went to work immediately, trying compositions, evaluating, refining—well, you know the drill. As I worked, I started honing in on the proper balance of foreground and sky, alignment of the tree with the background, depth of field, focus point, framing—I was in the zone.
When I thought I had everything exactly right, I stood back for a final critique and realized I’d missed one thing: The tree intersected the horizon. While not a deal-breaker, it’s something I try to avoid whenever possible. To rectify the problem, my camera needed to be about eight inches higher. I made the adjustment, and when the color reached its crescendo about two minutes later, I was ready.
Raising the camera would have been no simple task if I’d been hand-holding, but (since my Really Right Stuff TVC-24L tripod, with head and camera, elevates to about six inches above my head) it was no problem with my tripod (though I wish the a6300 LCD articulated for vertical compositions). But the extra tripod height was just a bonus. The true moral of this story, the thing that so perfectly illustrates the tripod’s value, is that there is no way I’d have gotten all the moving parts just right with a hand-held point and click approach.
Of course your results may vary, and as I say, photography must ultimately be a source of pleasure. So if using a tripod truly saps pleasure from your photography, by all means leave it home (and enjoy your $3,000 Etch A Sketch). But if your pleasure from photography derives from getting the absolute best possible images, the tripod is your friend.
Grand Canyon Photo Workshops
A Grand Canyon Gallery
Look Behind You
Posted on April 3, 2016
Painted Dunes, Mesquite Flat Dunes, Death Valley
Sony a7R II
Sony/Zeiss 16-35 f4
.4 seconds
F/11
ISO 100
Every once in a while we find ourselves at just the right place when Mother Nature delivers something special. When that happens, the best thing to do is stay calm and keep your head on a swivel.
In January my Death Valley workshop group had one of those moments. We’d walked almost a mile to get out to dunes that hadn’t been trampled, then waited while a sky that was solid overcast broke up just as the sun dipped below the horizon. The result was about ten minutes of horizon-to-horizon red that at its peak painted the dunes as well.
We’d been watching a hole in the clouds to our north shift in our direction, and I started to get an inkling that the ingredients were there for a vivid sunset about fifteen minutes earlier, when peaks in the northeast, then the clouds overhead, started to glow with warm, late light. I’d been using my 70-200 telephoto lens to isolate areas of the dunes, but realized that if the sky did indeed light up, I’d almost certainly want something wider and switched to my 16-35. I also encouraged everyone to do the same, and to anticipate the color and identify sunset compositions now, before it happened. Shortly thereafter we got our first hints of pink and the show was on.
That evening was a great example of something I preach in my workshops: No matter how great the scene you’re photographing, every once in a while take a few seconds to look around. On this evening I was excitedly photographing in one direction when I realized everyone in the group was photographing in the opposite direction. Turning to admonish them, I saw what they were photographing and shut up, quickly aiming my camera in that direction instead.
Read more about that evening, and see a picture of the other direction, here: Finding a new sandbox.
Sunset color
As I’ve written before, the ingredients for sunset (or sunrise) color are clouds, direct sunlight, and clean air (the cleaner the better). The idea that polluted or dusty air is good for sunset is a myth. (If that were true, Los Angeles and Beijing would be know for their sunsets, not Hawaii or the Caribbean.)
The red you see at sunset is the only color remaining after the white sunlight we see at midday has been stripped of all other wavelengths. It’s actually a rather interesting process (to me at least) that you can read more about here: Sunset Color.
Join Me in Death Valley
A gallery of sunset magic
Click an image for a closer look, and a slide show. Refresh the screen to reorder the display.
Wild about wildflowers
Posted on March 29, 2016
Dancing Poppy, Sierra Foothills, California
Sony a7R II
Sony FE 90mm f2.8 Macro
1/800 second
F/4
ISO 1600
I’ve given up trying to predict California’s wildflower bloom. There are a lot of theories about the conditions that cause a great wildflower bloom: wet winter, early rain, late rain, warm spring, wet spring, and so on. For each condition correlation you can cite, I can cite an exception. So now I just cross my fingers and wait to see what spring delivers.
Well, it turns out this is a great year for wildflowers in California. Death Valley is winding down its “super bloom,” the best since 2005, my Facebook feed is suddenly saturated with California wildflower images, and it seems like every day I’m hearing about another don’t-miss poppy location.
While Death Valley’s bloom was dominated by yellow, daisy-like desert gold, with a few other varieties and colors sprinkled in, for most of California it’s the poppy that takes center stage each spring. The highlight of Sunday my drive from Phoenix to Sacramento (I know, not a lot of competition for highlights on this route) was top-to-bottom orange hillsides flanking the usually maligned Grapevine (if you’ve lived in California, you know what the Grapevine is; if you haven’t, just ask a Californian. But be prepared to endure a lengthy “that time my car broke down” story).
My close-focus technique
There are many ways to photograph poppies, ranging from wide panoramas that highlight poppies’ propensity to dominate vast expanses of the landscape, to tight macro views that emphasize their elegant curves and translucent gold and orange. Likewise, there are depth decisions to be made with each poppy composition, from complete front-to-back sharpness to a single, minuscule point of sharpness.
While I’ll employ whatever approach I think best serves the scene, my poppy images tend toward close focus and limited depth of field captures that use a paper-thin sharpness range to blur all but the most essential aspect(s) of my scene. With this approach, I can highlight my subject, blur away distractions, and create a complementary background of color and shape.
I start by identifying a flower or flowers that I can isolate from the surroundings. Finding the right background is as essential finding the right subject—without my subject and background working in unison, the image will almost certainly fail. What’s the right background? Other flowers, sparking water, deep shade (that I can turn dark green or black)—use your imagination, and experiment.
Given my desire for minimal depth of field, my lens choice is usually a function of the background’s distance from my subject—there’s an inverse correlation between focal length and depth of field, so the farther away the background, generally the longer the focal length I choose. Since a narrow depth of field is my goal, I usually start wide open (my lens’s widest aperture). To focus closer than the lens permits and further reduce the depth of field, I sometimes add one or more extention tubes.
With my subject, background, lens, and f-stop determined, I set up my tripod as close to the subject as I can focus and get to work. Because of the amount of review and refine I do, a tripod is an essential part of my approach—I can’t imagine doing close focus photography without one. With each click I scrutinize the result for adjustments, large or small—when I’m ready for the next click, having the scene I just reviewed waiting there for me on my tripod allows me to apply my refinements without having to recreate the image as I would if I had been hand-holding.
In the world of close focus photography, the scene looks completely different to the camera than it does to the eye, even more than most other types of photography. So I usually don’t identify my ultimate composition, focal length, and f-stop until I’ve worked the scene awhile. When I get the composition the way I want it, I usually run through a series of f-stops to give me a variety of subject sharpness and background blur effects to choose between when I review my images later on my large monitor.
At the kind of magnification I normally use for these close focus images, even the slightest breeze can introduce motion blur that ruins an image. I’ve become so comfortable shooting at high ISO with my Sony a7RII that my default close-focus ISO for shade or overcast is now 800. If there’s a breeze, I’ll go all the way to ISO 6400—sometimes higher. Whatever your camera’s high ISO capability, it’s very helpful to familiarize yourself with your ISO comfort zone for your camera.
Because your eyes see a close-focus scene so differently than the camera sees it, your close-focus photography will improve with experience. When you start, some of your best images may be accidents, blurred background effects that you didn’t anticipate. But soon you’ll come to learn what to look for, and how to achieve it.
Now go enjoy spring!
A Poppy Gallery
Click any image to scroll through the gallery LARGE
Eloquent Images by Gary Hart 