Eloquent Images by Gary Hart
Insight, information, and inspiration for the inquisitive nature photographer
Yosemite and the Joys of Spring
Posted on May 15, 2025
Tree and Bridalveil Fall, Bridalveil Creek, Yosemite
Sony a7R V
Sony 24-105 f/4 G
ISO 200
f/16
1/5 second
Probably the number one question I’m asked about Yosemite is, “What’s the best season for photography?” My response always sounds as if crafted by a waffling politician, but I swear I just don’t have the absolute answer everyone wants. And since I get to photograph Yosemite far more than the average photographer, and have for many years, my priorities are quite likely different than those of the average photographer.
I can say that my least favorite season is summer, because that’s when the waterfalls dry, the sky suffers from a chronic case of the blues (great for tourists, not so much for photography), and tourists swarm the park like ants to ice cream on pavement. But even summer offers beauty not possible any other season, mostly in the form of High Sierra splendor. Closed by snow most of the year, (usually) by late spring the high country roads to Glacier Point and Tuolumne Meadows have opened vehicular access to the exposed granite, wildflower-sprinkled meadows, gem-like lakes, and all the other pristine joys of Yosemite’s incomparable backcountry. And while Yosemite’s high country isn’t quite the respite from crowds it once was, its wide open spaces make solitude still much easier to find.
My own personal favorite season for creative photography is autumn. Though the waterfalls have dried completely or (at best) dwindled to a trickle, in autumn Yosemite Valley’s abundant assortment of deciduous trees throb with yellow and red. Adding to this varied color are mirror reflections in the Merced River, which has been slowed to a crawl along the length of the valley. As an added bonus, by the time the color arrives (mid/late October), dry waterfalls also mean most of the crowds have disappeared.
Winter is probably Yosemite’s most photographically variable season. Show up on a blue sky day in the midst of an (not uncommon) extended dry spell, and you’ll likely find brown meadows, trickling waterfalls, and dirt instead of snow. But arrive during or shortly after a snowstorm, and you’ll enjoy Yosemite Valley at its hands-down most beautiful—arguably one of the most beautiful sights anywhere on Earth. And since winter is the heart of California’s rainy season, the swirling clouds of a clearing storms are never more likely—even when the temperatures aren’t cold enough in Yosemite Valley to turn the rain to snow. Winter (specifically, mid/late February) is also when Horsetail Fall might turn molten red at sunset. Then there’s the rising full moon, which aligns most perfectly with Half Dome only in the winter months.
Yosemite in spring is all about the water—the season when the vertical granite can’t seem to shed the winter snowpack fast enough. Not only are the spring views dominated by well known Yosemite, Bridalveil, Vernal, and Nevada Falls, a seemingly infinite supply of ephemeral falls appear as well for a few weeks or months each spring. Rainbows on the waterfalls, dogwood everywhere, and reflective vernal pools decorating the meadows offer enough beauty to thrill tourists and photographers alike. All that water, paired with fresh green foliage, make spring the time I recommend for first-time visitors—it’s simply the season most likely to live up to expectations, and the least likely season to disappoint.
I stress about the conditions for my students before every workshop, but spring is the least stressful season for me because in Yosemite, there’s just no such thing as a bad spring day. Even though this is a relatively down year for the snowmelt that feeds the falls, last month’s Yosemite Waterfalls and Dogwood got a firsthand taste of all the joys of a Yosemite spring: plenty of water in all the falls, still pools dotting the meadows, and dogwood approaching peak bloom. And despite more clouds than usual, we had enough sunlight to photograph waterfall rainbows from four locations: three from different views of Bridalveil Fall, and one at the base of Lower Yosemite Fall.
One spot I never miss in spring is Bridalveil Creek, which offers an infinite number one-0f-a-kind scenes despite being in the heart of one of the most photographed locations in the world. Autumn is my favorite time to photograph Bridalveil Creek because I can add colorful leaves to the chain of cascades and pools beneath the fall, spring is a close second. While the creek in autumn seems to linger between each cascade, in spring it’s in far too much of a hurry to dally among the rocks.
Because of the intimate setting, its lack of a single obvious subject, and the sheer number of compositional elements begging to be composed into an image, I usually wait until the final day to bring my groups here. By then, everyone has refamiliarized themselves with their cameras, benefited from several days of training and image reviews, and had ample opportunity to get their creative juices flowing.
As usual, I started this group’s final morning at Bridalveil Creek, arriving just as the sky brightened ahead of the rising sun. Because this is an area to wander rather than stick together and photograph as a group, I began with a pretty thorough orientation, then set everyone free. I spent nearly an hour without my camera bag, just walking around trying to reach everyone to answer questions and make sure they were happy. Satisfied that all was well, I walked back to my car and grabbed my camera bag to see what I could find in the nearly one hour remaining.
I often head to the third bridge and work my way to some larger cascades (or small waterfalls) upstream; other times, especially when the group seems to require more help, I just shoot from one of the bridges. But this time I took advantage of a new gap in the trees that opened a new view of the fall just upstream from the third bridge. I’d been especially drawn to a young tree with brand new leaves, and envisioned juxtaposing it against the explosive white mist at the base of the fall. Three or four others in the group were working this scene, so I worked around them and finally ended up with the composition I’d visualized earlier.
With my 24-105 lens I started quite a bit wider, and gradually tightened my compositions as familiarity with the scene’s nuances enabled me to eliminate things. The patterns at the base of the wall changed continuously, so once I found a composition I liked, (true to form) I photographed it more than a dozen times, at several shutter speeds, to give myself a variety of water patterns and blur effects.
Join Me In Yosemite
The Joy of a Yosemite Spring
Click any image to scroll through the gallery LARGE
Ruminating on my Workflow—Both Digital and Analog
Posted on May 10, 2025
Spring Sunset, Half Dome, Yosemite
Sony a7R V
Sony 24-105 f/4 G
ISO 50
f/16
2 1/2 seconds
In one of the training sessions during last week’s Yosemite Spring Waterfalls and Dogwood photo workshop, someone asked about my digital workflow. During my (riveting) file management summary, I mentioned off-handedly that I never delete a raw file, regardless of its content. The amount of push-back I got surprised me, but it caused me to consider more closely my reasons for doing something I never imagined could be so controversial.
For starters, in addition to my primary reason for never deleting my raw files which I’ll get to shortly, I can cite several valid secondary reasons:
- Processing improvements might someday render a previously unusable image salvageable. For example, once considered a pipe dream, the ability to sharpen previously soft images has arrived, and capability continues improving. And today’s noise reduction software has allowed me to process images I once deemed so unprocessable that I would never have considered keeping them.
- I often use images from past shoots for information. Keeping each camera’s timestamp accurate (by adjusting it before each shoot) enables me to return virtually to prior locations and determine things like the time sunlight strikes a particular feature, or (by checking against past moon/sun rise/set image) the number of degrees a peak or mountain range rise above a hypothetical flat horizon.
- Applying my click-evaluate-refine-click… approach to arrive the final (“perfect”) image, it’s helpful to me to be able to reference the steps that got me to any given image.
- Knowing that I never delete anything saves me from the inevitable panic that would ensue when I can’t locate image where I expected to find it.
Each of these is a valid reason that, to me, by itself might be enough to justify a no-delete policy. But honestly, the biggest reason I don’t delete images is time. Going through each image one-by-one wastes minutes or hours that could have been spent on more productive endeavors; accelerating the image purge process by deleting large groups of images in one fell swoop, risks inadvertently expunging something important.
The most common arguments I hear in favor of culling images are organization and storage space. To which I say, locating any image isn’t a problem if you have an organized import procedure—mine is quite simple, involving a folder for each year, embedded with folders for each of that year’s shoots, then letting my Lightroom import rename each file to something descriptive. And storage space? Consider that on my desk is an 18 TB hard drive that cost me around $300. Not only does it contain every digital original (jpeg for a year or two, then raw ever since) I’ve captured since I transitioned to digital more than 20 years ago (2003), it’s still is only a half full. In other words, storage is cheap—really cheap.
I’m not advocating for my approach as much as I’m explaining it. As with pretty much everything else in photography, and despite what you might hear from self-proclaimed experts, there is no universal “best” way to do something: choose the workflow that’s best for you.
Awkward segue
“Workflow” has become something of a buzzword in the photography world, generally apply to image management. But really, it can describe the processes that guide any task from start to finish. Thinking about last week’s Yosemite dogwood workshop, it occurs to me that I also have an analog workflow for running my workshops, developed over the past 20 or so years (has it really been that long?).
A workflow is only as good as its ability to handle the unexpected or uncommon: flexibility. In my image management workflow, flexibility includes (among other things) multiple and redundant backups, including at least one offsite backup, to safeguard against any imaginable threat to my images. But that flexibility should also factor in the ability to quickly locate and access any image quickly, and in multiple ways, whether I’m at home or the road.
In my Yosemite workshops, flexibility starts with my lifetime of accumulated Yosemite knowledge that enables me to structure each workshop on the fly, based on the conditions. (FYI, I’m not trying to portray myself as the only photographer with this kind of intimate knowledge.) I start with a (mental) A-list of locations I want to get my group to no matter what, and a B-List of locations that I tap based on the conditions. And whether a photo spot is the A- or B-list, the when of each location visit is always determined by the conditions.
Last week’s workshop was a perfect example of why I never want to get too locked into a plan. We enjoyed conditions that were equal parts beautiful and challenging, requiring a lot of quick thinking and abrupt shifts to take full advantage. The fickle weather included low clouds (we didn’t even see all of Half Dome until the third day), high clouds, blue skies, light drizzle, torrential downpours, lightning and thunder, and a short-lived but generous dose of hail. Compounding the complications for me were especially unreliable weather reports that at some points felt downright random.
In a blue-sky Yosemite workshop, we may only get to Tunnel View once or twice, but when we enjoy actual weather, each visit to Tunnel View provides a completely different look. In this workshop, we made it to Tunnel View at least a half dozen times. And in a typical (more benign weather) dogwood workshop, I try to give my group time to get themselves in their creative zone by holding off on the serious dogwood shoots until day three (of four). But this time, the conditions on days one and two were so perfect for photographing dogwood (peak bloom, dense clouds, no wind), we started photographing dogwood on our first afternoon, saving the larger views for later in the workshop when the weather forecast promised that there would be fewer clouds obscuring Yosemite’s monoliths.
But photographing El Capitan and Half Dome requires El Capitan and Half Dome to actually be visible (not my first Yosemite rodeo)—since they usually disappear into the clouds when it rains, I grew increasingly concerned when the forecast for our final day started trending toward rain. One week before the workshop, our last day was “Mostly sunny, with a 10% chance of showers”; by the time the workshop started, the final day forecast was “Party sunny, with a 30% chance of showers.”
Forecasts are important because I plan locations based on conditions—not just conditions now, but my expectations of conditions later in the workshop (an inexact science at best). For my A-list locations especially, I don’t want to risk missing one entirely because I delayed until later in the workshop, only to find conditions deteriorated more than I’d expected.
For several reasons, I like finishing my Yosemite workshops with a sunset view of Half Dome from a peaceful bend in the Merced River on Yosemite Valley’s the east side. Though it’s a personal favorite that I visit a lot on my own, I also love sharing this spot with my groups. But when the workshop’s penultimate day presented a nice mix of clouds and blue sky, and the rain forecast for the final day had increased to 60%, I upended my preferred workshop workflow one more time and bumped my planned last-day Half Dome shoot to that evening.
I can’t say that my decisions always work out this well, but the personal validation is sure nice when they do. We arrived about an hour before sunset and found beautiful conditions from top to bottom. I love the fresh green of Yosemite’s brand new leaves each spring—I’d been to this spot with my moonbow group earlier in April, but the green was just starting then. This time the trees had completely leafed out and the difference was glorious. In autumn we can get mirror reflections here, but with peak spring flow swelling the Merced River, the reflection was a nice abstract of color and shape instead. And to top it all off, the clouds above Half Dome changed by the minute, making the sky much more interesting than the boring blue that’s so common in Yosemite.
Still, despite all this, my camera bag stayed on the ground nearby as I worked with my group, pointing out composition opportunities and encouraging them to find foregrounds and maybe try a neutral density filter to enable a long exposure that might reveal hidden (to the naked eye) patterns in the flowing water. As sunset approached and the light faded, some started packing up their gear. I told them not so fast: Half Dome can get light up to five minutes after sunset, and we have no way of knowing whether there’s an opening on the horizon for the sun to slip through. In other words, we’ll just sit tight for a few more minutes.
As if on queue, almost immediately I saw some of the highest clouds start to brighten and warm, so I opened my camera bag and extended my tripod, just in case. Within a minute or two the clouds above Half Dome started to pinken and I had my camera out and mounted within seconds.
There’s no time for creativity and experimentation when I’m with a group, but I’m extremely familiar with the many composition options here and went straight for my go-to good sky and reflection framing: vertical, Half Dome slightly right of center, just wide enough to include all of the best parts of the clouds (more specifically in this case, the color) and their reflection. You could call this compositional workflow (there’s that word again) that enabled me to get a nice image as quickly as possible.
Focus was easy since everything was at infinity. I wanted to emphasize the water’s motion with a long exposure, but didn’t have time to retrieve and screw on a neutral density filter. Fortunately, it was late enough that I was able to get a 2 1/2 second shutter speed using ISO 50 and f/16.
The pink only lasted a minute or two, and the direct light never reached Half Dome, but no one complained. As it turned out, our final sunset the next day was completely washed out by an electrical storm that swallowed Half Dome and El Capitan, and included some of the heaviest rain I’ve ever seen in California (and at one point chased me into the Wawona Tunnel to escape marble-sized hail).
One more thing
Going back to this compositional workflow I idea, in general I’m opposed to formulaic composition because it stifles creativity, but every image doesn’t need to break new ground, and like I said, nothing in photography is absolute…
More Yosemite Photo Workshops
Workshop Schedule || Purchase Prints || Instagram
Variations on a Scene: Images From This Location Through the Years
Click any image to scroll through the gallery LARGE
Speaking of Highlights…
Posted on April 12, 2025
Frozen Canyon, Fjadrargljufur, Iceland
Sony a7R V
Sony 24-105 f/4 G
ISO 100
f/11
1/50 second
Fjadrargljufur, Iceland
In our annual Iceland photo workshop, Don Smith and I start with an assortment of must-see locations we’d be remiss to pass on: Kirkjufell, Glacier Lagoon, Diamond Beach, and Vestrahorn, to name a few. These Iceland highlights are well-known and photographed enough that they probably had much to do with the workshop students decision to sign-up for the workshop in the first place. But Iceland’s winter conditions, though not as cold as you might expect, can be quite harsh and unpredictable. So each, using the insights of our local guides, Don and I work to identify “new” (to us) highlights that enable us to pivot our original plan when conditions dictate. With several new waterfalls explored, this year had already been especially productive in the new options department when we explored Fjadrargljufur.
Fjadrargljufur is a short, narrow canyon carved into ancient lava flows by the Fjaðrá River. Just inland from Iceland’s rugged South Coast, access to Fjadrargljufur is via a steep (-ish), but well maintained, trail that offers several vantage points to catch your breath as you gaze up or down the canyon. After hiking a little less than a mile, you reach the trail’s end and are rewarded for your effort by two waterfalls and multiple vantage points from which to photograph them.
While not as well known as many Iceland natural icons, Fjadrargljufur is far from anonymous, so we weren’t the only ones there. But instead of the crowds that can clog some locations, the other visitors here were a complete non-factor. Last year, on our first visit to Fjadrargljufur, dense fog, snow flurries, and an icy trail prevented us from venturing far enough up the canyon to view the waterfalls. Nevertheless, we saw enough to know that this was a spot worth returning to and we were happy to make that happen this year.
On this visit we found a little snow and ice on the ground, but the trail was in much better condition. In locations like this, with well-defined trails and no forks to cause confusion (and especially when a lot physical exertion is required), we usually give everyone a be-back time and set them free to explore at their own pace. So, following a brief orientation, the group spread quickly—some didn’t venture beyond the closer (and less physically demanding) vistas, but about half of the group made it all the way to the waterfall reward at trail’s end.
I spent most of my time at Fjadrargljufur photographing the waterfalls, but as I started the walk back, I was stopped by the down-canyon view. The dense clouds that had been with us all morning had thinned, pouring sunlight into the canyon and illuminating rich green moss hugging the rocks. And the clouds that earlier had spread a homogenous, gray blanket overhead, were suddenly suffused with personality that shifted by the minute.
Surveying the scene for a composition, I knew that any camera would struggle to capture the extreme difference between the darkest shadows in the canyon and bright clouds. I also knew that my camera (Sony a7R V) would be up to the task, but only if I took extreme care with my exposure.
I digress…
In difficult exposure scenes, the single most important concern is sparing the highlights. First, since the human eye is always drawn to the brighter areas of an image (the brighter it is, the greater the attraction), blown highlights will be the first thing viewers see. If your subject is in shade surrounded by sunlight, you’re there at the wrong time. (Yes, I know that, like everything else in photography, there are exceptions, but they’re few and far between.) And second, dark shadows are usually easier to recover than bright highlights in post-processing.
This seems like a good time to mention the single biggest mistake I see workshop students make: Using the LCD preview image to make exposure decisions, instead of using the histogram. The LCD image is for composition; for exposure, you have to use the histogram. In fact, in a high dynamic range scene (a scene with dark shadows and bright highlights), if the image looks good on the back of your camera (the LCD image preview), you have almost certainly overexposed the highlights or underexposed the shadows beyond recovery.
Most common are already-bright sky scenes made impossibly bright by an inexperienced photographer exposing to make the shadows look good—the consequence is a completely white sky, or (at best) a sky with most of its color washed out. Another common rookie mistake is underexposing the sky to 0ver-saturate sunset color—the resulting sunset might look beautiful, but pulling up the shadows later will reveal mushy, detail-robbing noise.
In a properly exposed high dynamic range scene, on the camera the shadows will look a little too dark, and the highlights will look a little to bright, but neither will be too extreme to recover in post-processing (Lightroom/Photoshop for me). The best way to ensure the best possible exposure is to monitor and trust the histogram, regardless of what you see on your LCD. Want to learn more?
So anyway…
Fjadrargljufur Preview and Histogram: This is my original, unedited capture
As I always do in high dynamic range scenes like this, I started by working out my composition, taking extreme care to avoid cutting off the dark cloud that was soaring farther skyward by the second. Since motion and depth of field weren’t a factor in my composition, I just went with ISO 100 and f/11, and focused at infinity (somewhere down the canyon). That left my shutter speed to control my exposure.
With an eye on my live-view (pre-capture) histogram, I slowly lengthened the shutter time (slower shutter speed) until the histogram graph bumped up against the right side. My primary exposure concern was sparing the far more important, and more difficult to recover, highlights—even though the histogram showed my shadows were still slightly clipped, I knew my camera well enough to be confident that I could recover them later.
To illustrate why exposure decisions should never be based on the camera’s LCD preview image, I’ve shared the jpeg preview of the original raw file that appeared on my LCD, with the Lightroom version of the histogram. While the canyon looked quite dark, and the sky looked much too bright, my histogram told me everything was recoverable. Had I tried to make an image shadows or highlights that looked good, the other side of the exposure continuum would have been unusable.
Believe it or not, this file was extremely easy to process. With just two moves in Lightroom—pulling the Shadows slider to the right (+100), and the Highlights slider to the left (-100)—the scene instantly looked very close to finished result. After that, most of my processing work was minor refinements and some dodging and burning.
Speaking of Highlights…
When a workshop group spreads as far and wide as we did on this visit, it’s always fun to hear everyone’s report once we’re back on the bus. Even though people were photographing different things on our Fjadrargljufur visit, the enthusiasm seemed pretty unanimous. Of course we keep finding new locations (this year was especially productive), so it’s impossible to say we’ll be able to make it to all of the “keepers” every year, but given Iceland’s changeable and potentially extreme winter conditions, it’s always nice to be armed with more highlights than we can use.
Trusting My Histogram
Breaking My Own Rules
Posted on April 3, 2025
Follow the Lights, Snaefellsnes Peninsula, Iceland
Sony α1
Sony 14mm f/1.8 GM
ISO 3200
f/1.8
6 seconds
My goal is to create images that celebrate Nature, images that allow viewers to imagine a world untouched by humankind. So it makes sense that I avoid including anything manmade in my images. But I also rail against (most) camera clubs for their rule-bound creative constipation, and those strong feelings collided earlier this year on a chilly January night Iceland. I resolved the conflict by reminding myself that any time I’m following rules (even my own rules), I’m not being creative.
Earlier in my photographic life I was somewhat less discriminating with my subject choices. In fact, I’d actively seek any outdoor subject that I found beautiful, regardless of its origins. Though many of my bridge and skyline images from those days were on (or atop) my personal bestseller list ($$$), as my career evolved, I found myself resenting humankind’s intrusion on the natural world and became less inclined to validate that intrusion with a photograph. These subject choices eventually, and pretty organically (not consciously), evolved into my present style: photograph the world untouched by humans, which made the mere presence of a building, fence, path, or human being reason enough to put my camera down.
I don’t think it’s wrong to photograph manmade objects—in fact I enjoy others’ photos of a wide variety of subjects outside my wheelhouse—it’s just that I’m not personally drawn to photograph them. But since I am still a photographer at heart, it’s difficult to pass beauty of any sort. In recent years, I’ve scratched the itch to preserve “unnatural” beauty with my iPhone. Though I rarely do anything with these images spontaneous snaps, somehow knowing I’ve saved the scene makes me feel better.
Since becoming so hardcore about avoiding manmade objects, I have encountered a handful of scenes that tested my resolve. For example, there was that frigid night beneath the Milky Way atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii, when a giant telescope made too perfect a foreground to ignore. And the night, also beneath the Milky Way, at Cape Royal on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, when a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket photobombed my scene—that time I almost resisted photographing it, and am so glad I didn’t.
But whether it’s a streaking rocket, dilapidated fence, or photogenic bridge, some things are too beautiful not to preserve just because of some self-imposed rule. Most recently, on this January night in Iceland the northern lights outperformed our most unrealistic expectations, but for a little while the best display included a road and our hotel. (I already described that night in my recent Shock and Awe blog post, so I won’t bore you again with the story.)
Night Lights, Snaefellsnes Peninsula, Iceland
For most this night’s kaleidoscope display, the aurora danced beautifully above snowy peaks and pristine snowfields—dark sky and no human intrusion involved. But as usually happens in the most intense aurora shows, the lights weren’t limited to the northern sky, and this evening they seemed to be especially drawn westward, where the “highway” (in the sense that it’s the main route encircling Snaefellsnes—we didn’t see a single car while we were out there) and the lights of our small hotel intruded on any scene I could imagine.
Nevertheless, I regularly checked-in on the rest of the sky and at one point just couldn’t ignore what was happening in the west. Grabbing my tripod/camera, I hustled to the road to look for any composition that might work. It was immediately obvious that the road would be unavoidable, but I saw that by moving farther west, I could at least eliminate the hotel and a few other minor distractions.
Given that the road was a non-negotiable condition of photographing in this direction, I just decided to lean into it and make the gently curving blacktop into an actual subject that guided the eye skyward. Orienting my camera vertically maximized the aurora and highway, and minimized potential distractions on the periphery. I only took a couple of frames in this direction, and it wasn’t until I saw the results on my camera that I realized how much I like this “unnatural,” rule-breaking image.
Don Smith and I just added a 2026 Iceland Northern Lights workshop
Workshop Schedule || Purchase Prints || Instagram
Human Interference
Click any image to scroll through the gallery LARGE
If You Can’t Join Them, Beat Them
Posted on March 27, 2025
Frozen Sunset, Vatnajökull Glacier Ice Cave, Iceland
Sony a7R V
Sony 12-24 GM
1/20 second
F/5.6
ISO 100
If you’ve ever photographed the slot canyons of Northern Arizona, you have some idea of the Iceland ice cave experience. Beautiful for sure, but mixing herds of gawking tourists with tripod wielding photographers, in a confined space, is also a recipe for frustration. While I’d say that Upper and Lower Antelope Canyons (the most popular of the Arizona slots) are probably more crowded than the Iceland ice caves I’ve visited (but not by a lot), slot canyons are rarely dark enough to compel visitors to don headlamps in the middle of the day. And as most photographers would agree, the only thing more frustrating than waiting for someone to douse their headlamp so you can start your exposure, is being in the middle of an exposure when someone activates their headlamp.
With larger “rooms” connected by twisting passages that can be small enough to require squeezing through or ducking your head (sometimes both), slot canyons and ice caves have much in common. While these similar features are a big part of the appeal that draws tens of thousands of visitors each year, the similarities don’t translate to the light. In a slot canyon, sunlight pouring through one narrow overhead opening creates bouncing light and dramatic contrast. Conversely, an ice cave is evenly illuminated by translucent ceilings and walls that steep its narrow confines in soft, shadowless light.
The big attraction at the slot canyons (though in my opinion, a little overrated), is the shafts of light that spotlight the red sandstone on sunny days. The fact that these shafts are only possible midday is no secret, which means photographers have to choose between battling nearly incomprehensible crowds, or missing the main event (while enduring simply moderate crowds).
That’s different from the ice cave experience, where consistent light spreads the crowds more evenly across the day. Early in our Iceland experience, Don Smith and I learned that the best way to avoid joining the ice cave crowds is to beat them—no, (tempting as it may be) not with a tripod, with the clock. Since most of the non-photography public has an aversion to going out before the sun (even, experience has shown, when sun doesn’t appear until 10 a.m.), departing for the ice cave early enough to arrive on the front-end of Iceland’s long, gray dawn can provide up to an hour of relative peace before the large vans start unloading. Of course this strategy means sacrificing a sunrise shoot (since we’ll be in the ice cave when the sun comes up), but the trade-off is usually worth it.
We learned this year that beating the crowd doesn’t necessarily mean getting out there before them—it can also mean outlasting them. Turns out another thing tourists hate is being late for dinner. So this year (as I wrote in last week’s blog), when extreme wind threatened our planned Vestrahorn sunset shoot, Don and I flipped our usual beat-the-crowd strategy upside-down and did the ice cave at the end of the day, hopeful for quality time in the ice cave after the tourists cleared out.
As soon as we arrived, we were jolted by all the frustrations inherent in mixing tourists and photographers in a confined space—each time we were lucky enough to encounter an empty space, before the group could set up and start shooting, the next herd of bobbing headlamps would approach from one direction or the other to shuffle through our scene like a slow moving freight.
While deep shadows and brilliant walls make dynamic range the greatest photographic challenge in a slot canyon, in the darkest parts of an ice cave (deep in the glacier, or smothered beneath several feet of snow on the surface), the biggest obstacle is having enough light to compose and focus, as well as the extreme ISO and long exposures an ice cave’s darkness requires. That’s why many photographers augment their ice cave images with artificial light, which of course leaks into each nearby photographer’s frame whether they want it or not. Fortunately, most ice caves have enough bright areas to satisfy those of us who only use natural light.
Much of this year’s ice cave (the location and layout can vary from year-to-year) was large enough, and bright enough, that, while waiting for the crowds to clear, I had no problem identifying lots of natural light scenes to photograph later. In the meantime, I turned my camera and 24-105 lens toward scallops and ridges etched in the cerulean ice overhead. As I worked, groups ambled by in both directions, but after a while I noticed that all of the intruders were moving toward the exit—a very good sign. Before long, we had the entire place to ourselves, with nearly an hour of useable light remaining.
Remembering similar experiences, both in slot canyons and previous ice caves, I relished another opportunity to worship in the cathedral surroundings. By this time, most everyone in the group had dispersed to their own happy places, and I felt free to explore on my own, or with one or two others. At one point I found myself in a large chamber illuminated by a battery powered LED installed by the guides. When I asked our guide to extinguish the light, the room instantly became so dark that even 30-second exposures at 12800 ISO barely registered on my LCD.
With the clock ticking, I quickly returned to the relative brightness of the cave’s main halls and chambers, spending the rest of my time working the scenes I’d identified earlier. Time flew—when the cave started to darken and I saw fewer and fewer people from the group, I started backtracking to the exit (which had also been the entrance).
On my way back, suspecting everyone (myself included!) had memory cards brimming with beautiful images, I started congratulating our decision to forego sunset in favor of the ice cave’s calm confines—who needs a sunset anyway? But when I turned the final corner and saw sunset-gold framed by blue ice, I stopped in my tracks—all this, plus a sunset? It hardly seemed fair.
With the light fading and most of the group already outside, I had to work fast. (I wanted as much time as possible, but it’s never a good look when the leader is the person everyone is waiting for.) So I set up quickly, opting for my 12-24 lens to include as much of the sculpted blue chamber as possible. I dropped as low I could, dialed the lens all the way out to 12mm, and angled up to emphasize the icy blue ceiling over the rocky brown floor (duh).
The exposure was quite tricky, because the light outside was so much brighter than inside the cave. Once my scene was composed and focused, I adjusted my shutter speed with an eye on the histogram, pushing the highlights all the way to the right border. The LCD preview showed a bright (but not blown) sky and nearly black ice cave, but my confidence in my Sony sensor was validated when I processed the image in Lightroom/Photoshop. (As with all my images, this was a single click—no blending exposures.) On my LCD, the only thing visible inside the cave was the sunset reflection on the ceiling, a bonus I hadn’t counted on.
I only had time for a half-dozen or so frames before I heard the approaching voices of the group’s final stragglers and quickly collapsed my tripod to beat them out of cave.
Join Don and Me in Iceland
Workshop Schedule || Purchase Prints || Instagram
Ice Caves and Slot Canyons
Twin Peaks
Posted on March 7, 2025
Blue Hour Reflection, Vestrahorn, Iceland
Sony a7R V
Sony 12-24 GM
1/6 second
F/10
ISO 125
In the canon of iconic Iceland mountains, Vestrahorn is rivaled only by Kirkjufell, the much-photographed wizard-hat on Snaefellsnes Peninsula. While Kirkjufell’s acclaim is much deserved, as a photographer, one thing in particular that distinguishes Vestrahorn from Kirkjufell for me is its variety of compositional options.
Winter Chill, Kirkjufell and Kirkjufellsfoss, Iceland
Kirkjufell is arguably Iceland’s most visually striking mountain, but the vantage points from which to photograph its distinctive outline are for the most part limited to the trail that starts at the parking lot, climbs briefly to a small bridge, then circles down a short but steep slope. I’ve never been there in summer, but in winter it’s pretty difficult to venture anywhere off this trail.
I can’t discount the fact that Kirkjufell also comes with its very own foreground waterfall, but Vestrahorn (despite lacking a waterfall of its own) has acres and acres of diverse terrain for a creative (and mobile) photographer to explore. So expansive and varied is the surrounding terrain, I’ve been coming here since 2019 and am still finding completely new foregrounds to add to my Vestrahorn images.
Exploring for new foregrounds is probably my favorite part of photographing popular subjects. The first two or three years I visited Vestrahorn, I’d do most of my photography at the beach, where the barely sloping sand stretches far into the distant surf, and the area separating the beach from open ocean is (I estimate) at least a half mile—distant enough that the swells (finally) break on the sand as the smallest, least aggressive waves imaginable.
Vestrahorn Reflection, Stokksnes Beach, Iceland
Once reaching the beach, what these waves lack in height, they more than make up for in length, gently washing up a hundred yards or more onto the black sand, before running out of gas and slowly sweeping back. In their wake is an ephemeral mirror that, when timed right (before the water percolates into the sand, or is overrun by the next wave), paints the bottom half of any image with an inverted duplicate of Vestrahorn and its surroundings. And because these waves are so low and slow, it’s possible to safely stand in the approaching surf wearing mid-calf waterproof boots, and keep your socks completely dry.
But the experience at the beach isn’t all about reflections. Each wave deposits, or repositions, an assortment of shells and smooth stones. After tiring of photographing reflections, I’ll often switch to these transient elements for my foreground. Other times, I’ll make my foreground all about the waves themselves, capturing the intersecting lines and arcs of waves arriving at different times and angles, or playing with long exposures to blur the leading or trailing edges advancing or receding water. And depending on how I time these shots, it’s also possible to create single frames that include reflection, shells/stones, and wave effects.
As much as I enjoy playing with all the visual elements at the beach, a couple of years ago I decided I should spend more time in the dunes. I’ve photographed the dunes of Death Valley and White Sands quite a bit, but these dunes are completely different. For starters, they’re black. They’re also much smaller, and capped with patches of grass like blonde toupees. But their small size, easy navigability, and distinctive curves are ideal for strategic juxtaposition, allowing me, with careful positioning, to assemble them into strong foreground elements that guide the eye elegantly to the mountain and sky beyond.
Winter Twilight, Vestrahorn and Dunes, Iceland
And then there are the components that vary with each Vestrahorn visit: clouds, light, snow, and ice. On last year’s visit, we didn’t have a lot of snow and ice, but the sunset light was off the charts, allowing me to capture one of my favorite Vestrahorn images that used an ultra-wide lens to fill my frame with the nearby dunes and colorful clouds, while shrinking the massive mountain to a small, distantive centerpiece.
Don Smith and I have been bringing our Iceland photo workshop groups to Vestrahorn for as long as we’ve been visiting Iceland. It’s always been a sunset spot, but one thing we’ve learned after many years photographing Iceland in winter is the need to constantly monitor the weather and stay flexible. Which is why we rely heavily on our Icelandic guides, and almost always follow their experience-based advice. This year’s Vestrahorn visit was a perfect example.
Our original plan was Vestrahorn for sunset, and the ice cave for the next morning. But this year the threat of extreme wind on our Vestrahorn afternoon caused us to flip-flop our sunset/sunrise locations so we’d be in the sheltered ice cave when the wind was strongest. This ice cave worked out great, and the next morning we traveled to Vestrahorn for our first-ever sunrise here.
Our group arrived in the blue hour and scattered almost instantly. Though Vestrahorn gets nice light at both sunrise and sunset, this time it wasn’t sunrise light or color that excited them, but rather, the spectacular clouds swirling about the peak, As I made my way around to check on everyone in the chilly twilight, I soon found myself beyond the dunes to an area of shallow pools I knew of, but had never photographed. Usually these pools are frozen, creating intricate patterns that make excellent foregrounds themselves, but this year, instead of ice we got blue-gray reflections of the mountain and clouds, framed by frozen sand.
Blue Hour Reflection, Vestrahorn, Iceland
Walking the perimeter of the largest pool while helping one of my workshop students identify a suitable foreground, I pointed out a mini-cove that seemed to cradle Vestrahorn. After my student finished with his shot, I stepped in to try a composition of my own. After working the scene for a couple of minutes, I was so excited by what I saw on the back of my camera, I walked around herding as many in my group as I could find over to this spot. Unfortunately, not everyone made it before the clouds descended and obscured much of the peak, but by that time it seemed that most of the group had found something that pleased them before the mountain went away.
My point is not that Vestrahorn is “better” than Kirkjufell (or vice-versa). But based on the photos shared by others, it does seem that Kirkjufell gets more attention than Vestrahorn. And I will say that if the joy you get from photography is found in creating unique images rather than collecting icons (not that there’s anything wrong with that), you might just be happier at Vestrahorn.
Join Don Smith and me in Iceland
Workshop Schedule || Purchase Prints || Instagram
Twin Peaks
Click any image to scroll through the gallery LARGE
Shock and Awe
Posted on February 27, 2025
Night Lights, Snaefellsnes Peninsula, Iceland
Sony α1
Sony 14mm f/1.8 GM
ISO 3200
f/1.8
5 seconds
That night at dinner, one person in the workshop group asked if there was a chance we’d see the northern lights, or if he could safely have another beer. I laughed and told him, while I can’t predict the future, I’d be shocked if the northern lights happened this night and to just go ahead and have that beer. I’ve never been happier to be wrong (and that my advice didn’t ruin his evening).
Each winter Don Smith and I do a winter workshop in Iceland. There are many reasons to visit Iceland in winter, but for most of our workshop students, at the top of the list is the northern lights. Because northern lights success doesn’t just happen, each day Don and I powwow with our Iceland guide to assess our odds for aurora success that night, and to plan our strategy to be there when it happens. We base these decisions on forecast aurora activity, expected cloud coverage, dark sky (no light pollution) views of the northern sky, and the experience we’ve gained from prior northern lights shoots.
Our second night on Snaefellsnes Peninsula (the workshop’s third night), the expected KP-index (the universally accepted 0 to 9 scale of aurora activity) was a very disappointing 1—about as low as we ever see in Iceland. Worse still, an incoming storm had already started to spread clouds, further reducing the night’s aurora expectations.
But regardless of the target (aurora, lightning, Milky Way, and so on), past surprises have taught us to never not have a plan in the event of the unexpected, so at dinner this evening we laid out the bad news to the group, but promised to keep an eye on the sky and notify them if anything changes. Though the incoming storm meant we wouldn’t be able to drive to another location if the aurora surprised us, we told the group that just across the road from our remote hotel was an unobstructed, dark-sky view of the northern sky above snowy peaks—perfect for the northern lights.
With a plan in place, everyone retreated to their rooms for the night with the lowest of expectations. At about 9:30 I was still up, answering e-mails and doing other boring business stuff, when I glanced at my phone and saw at least a dozen notifications from the WhatsAp Iceland group thread. Well that’s interesting…
It seems that Siggi, our exceptional Icelandic guide, had gone outside at around 9:15 and discovered clear skies and aurora. Without bothering to read all the other exclamations from the group, I bundled up, grabbed my gear, and rushed out as fast as I could. I expected something similar to the aurora display we had over Kirkjufell the prior night—enough to show up in the camera, but not bright enough for our eyes to register—but as soon as I stepped out into the cold and looked up, I spotted a soaring shaft of light that told me tonight would be different. Much different.
I hurried to the outline of photographers assembled across the road and quickly trudged through two feet of snow to set up at barbed wire fence. Out here, away from the hotel’s lights, it was even more apparent that something special was underway.
Don, Siggi, and I had prepared the group for photographing the northern lights, but with any type of night photography, there’s no substitute for experience. Since this was the first aurora experience for many in the group, I spent my first few minutes out there moving around, helping get people up to speed. While focus is always tricky at night, aurora focus is no different than any other night scene. The greatest challenge for aurora first timers, even those with lots of night experience, is the need to constantly monitor the rapidly changing exposure. An exposure bright enough to reveal foreground detail and aurora color one minute, might completely blow out the aurora the next. And a 15 second exposure might be fine when the aurora is changing slowly, but it blurs intricate detail when the aurora’s activity ramps up. Fortunately, it didn’t take long for everyone to settle in, and soon my instructions were down to occasional shouts reminding everyone that the brightness had changed, or to point out a different area of the sky that had ramped up.
The WhatsAp notice had gone out to everyone, but I soon realized it had only been a fluke that I’d noticed, so after a few minutes I decided to take attendance. Easier said than done in the extreme darkness, especially since there were a few people out there who weren’t in our group, and everyone was bundled head-to-toe. But I did determine that Don wasn’t out there, and one other person in the group (turns out there was a second person missing, but we didn’t realize it until the next morning). I called the missing workshop participant first, but that call went straight to voicemail—then another person in the group said she’d called him and he’d decided to pass (apparently he’d been asleep and regrettably wasn’t thinking rationally when he got that call). Don, on the other hand, was especially grateful for the call and made it out in record time.
An aurora show is special anytime, but it wouldn’t be an understatement to say this one truly shocked me by its unexpected splendor that ranks right up there with the very best I’ve seen in my half dozen years of photographing Iceland in winter. It was very bright, covered most of the sky, and was infused with lots of red, but what stood out most for me this evening was the dancing waves and shafts that twisted and fold right before our awestruck eyes.
Join Don and me for a very special Iceland photo workshop in 2026
Iceland Aurora Collection, 2019 – 2025
Click any image to scroll through the gallery LARGE
Iceland, Weather or Not
Posted on February 14, 2025
The Green Night, Aurora Above Kirkjufell, Iceland
Sony α1
Sony 16-35 GM
10 seconds
f/2.8
ISO 3200
As I’ve probably said a million times before, and likely will say a million more times, the best weather for photography is the worst weather to be outside. I mean, why else would Don Smith and I schedule a workshop for Iceland in January?
Of course our number one reason for an Iceland winter trip is the northern lights, which means winter clouds aren’t always our friend. But when I’m not waiting for the aurora to fire up, I love the way Iceland’s storm clouds are illuminated (all day) by beautiful low-angle sunlight (the sun never rises above 10 degrees during our visits). There are Iceland’s 2-hour winter sunrises and sunsets, its storm-churned surf, and ocean to mountaintop snow-covered landscape. And a surprising truth I’ve come to appreciate over the years is that, while Iceland in January is indeed quite cold, it really isn’t as cold as most people expect. (I swear.)
In this year’s workshop, that “not as cold as you expect” claim was challenged on our very first day of shooting, when we piled out of the bus at our first stop into 5°F air. Fortunately, that’s the coldest we experienced all workshop, and great photography creates an inexplicable warming factor that seems to make even the harshest conditions more tolerable. And regardless of the quality of the photography, even temperatures as low as 5°, (especially without wind) are quite tolerable with the right clothing.
My first year I attacked Iceland’s cold with copious layers of conventional California cold-weather gear. That worked well enough, but following each subsequent visit, I refined my non-California winter-wear (warmest) to the point where I’m now armed with an entire Iceland ensemble that rarely comes out for my domestic trips.
For example, a few years ago I decided that I was tired of having to layer a rain-shell on top of my (extremely warm but not waterproof) puffy down jacket, not to mention having to deal with a chronically cold butt exposed by a jacket that barely hung below my belt (yes, I was still wearing pants). So I sprung for LL Bean’s warmest waterproof down parka that covers me all the way down to mid-thigh. I still travel to Iceland with a lightweight, waterproof down jacket that’s compact enough to stuff in my camera bag and is ideal for milder days and short jaunts from the bus to a restaurant or hotel.
This two-way system—one heavy-duty option for the coldest, windiest conditions; another that’s lightweight but still warm enough for normal daily activity—works really well for me in Iceland. In addition to two jackets, I also have a couple of hats, pairs of gloves, and boots, that I can choose between, depending on the conditions. And, unlike many in this year’s group, I managd to pack everything into one (large) suitcase that I (barely) keep below Icelandair’s 23 kg (50-ish pounds) weight limit.
This year’s difference-maker upgrade was my new warm boots. I’m a cold feet (and fingers) kind of person, cursed with digits that never seem to be warm enough. Where my boots are concerned, it’s not so much the walking that’s a problem, but photography requires a lot of standing around in frigid cold (especially at night, when the aurora is dancing). In previous years I’ve gone more conventional, trying an assortment of insulated hiking boots and thick wool socks, upgrading to something warmer after almost every trip, vowing that next year will be better. The result has been persistently cold toes, and a boot-graveyard in my garage that rivals Imelda Marcos’ closet.
This year I tried something different, switching to super-warm, waterproof, lined Sorel work boots. But that was just the start. In New Zealand last July, I stocked up on (wait for it) possum fur socks. Possum fur (it’s actually a possum/merino blend) is absolutely the warmest material I’ve ever worn (also soft and lightweight), and it’s everywhere in New Zealand. But before you start visualizing acres of bred possums, caged and awaiting slaughter, and imagine that I’m supporting the heartless New Zealand possum-breeding industry, you need to know New Zealand’s possums (which are quite different from American possums) are a non-native scourge that’s decimating the country’s native bird population (among other things). A massive effort is underway throughout the country to eliminate possums by 2050—the only possum fur apparel I purchase in New Zealand is a byproduct of possums trapped for eradication (they were doomed anyway). But anyway…
And as if new boots and socks weren’t enough, I also sprung for a few thin merino wool liner socks from REI, to wear under my possum socks (no, possum don’t wear socks—you know what I mean). After returning last week following nearly two weeks in Iceland’s winter cold. After that first morning, I exited the 5° chill confident that my popsicle toes days were behind me.
Though the temperature warmed slightly throughout the day, by afternoon the wind had picked up and we started to see a few clouds heralding the approach of the storm that would batter us the following day. Nevertheless, after dinner we drove out to Kirkjufell hoping for some northern lights because in Iceland in winter, you always have a northern lights plan.
Seeing clouds from the Kirkjufell parking area, it would have been easy to pack it in and return to our warm hotel. But a few breaks were enough to give us pause, and when quick test snaps revealed green sky behind the broken clouds, we decided to stay and shoot for a while. We shot from the parking area, using our bus as a windbreak.
What started as a low expectation, “What the heck, we’re here anyway” shoot, turned into a very productive evening of photography, and a harbinger of the great stuff in store. It also gave us an opportunity to get the group up to speed with night photography—some had never done it before, while others were pretty rusty.
It’s especially fun when a group gets to witnesses something exciting. Many in this group had never seen an aurora, and though the color wasn’t bright enough to see with our eyes, everyone was pretty thrilled to capture images that featured Iceland’s most iconic mountain. But the real star this evening was the clouds, which built and raced behind Kirkjufell, but never completely filled in the window to the sky and aurora behind the peak.
After we’d finished, Don and I talked about the relief we felt getting at least enough aurora to please people, but agreed that more would be better, because those who’d never seen a good display didn’t really understand what they were missing. It turns out we didn’t need to wait long, but I’ll get to that in a future post.
Join Don Smith and Me in Iceland
Weather or Not
Click any image to scroll through the gallery LARGE
Grand Finale
Posted on February 6, 2025
Lunar Lift Off, El Capitan, Yosemite
Sony α1
Sony 200-600 G
Sony 1.4x teleconverter
ISO 800
f/13
1/25 second
For most of my full moon workshops, I try to schedule the moonrise main event for the workshop’s final sunset. Sometimes other factors prevent this (for example, in Yosemite I try to avoid weekends), but when the schedule works, a nice moonrise gives the group something exciting to anticipate throughout the workshop. This becomes especially important when some or all of the workshop’s hoped-for conditions fail to materialize.
Last month’s Yosemite Winter Moon workshop lacked to winter snow and cloudy skies we hope for in a Yosemite winter workshop, but the moon (among other things) saved the day for us by not only giving us something to look forward to, but also by photobombing an earlier sunset. The true star of that prior sunset was the clouds and color, and as nice as it was to accent the scene with the moon, it was the final night moonrise that I most looked forward to.
As I’ve written before, despite all the unjustified “supermoon” hype, the key to photographing a big moon is focal length—the longer the better. Period. If you don’t care about what’s in the foreground, or for that matter choose not to include any foreground at all, any location where the moon is visible will do. But if you want to complement your legitimate big moon (a moon image that happens in one click) with a striking landscape feature, the farther you position yourself from your landscape subject, the longer the focal length you can use, and the bigger the moon will be. Of course if you make the moon bigger with a longer focal length, the less of your foreground you can include, and the more precise the moon/foreground alignment must be.
In Yosemite, the best place to set up for a telephoto moonrise that also includes photo-worthy foreground features, is Tunnel View. At Tunnel View, the prime moonrise subjects are El Capitan and Half Dome, three and eight miles distant. From there, I can include all of Half Dome with a focal length up to 400mm; with a longer lens, I can enlarge the moon further, while still including some of Half Dome—if the alignment is right.
The most important part of photographing a moonrise from Tunnel View is to align it with a desirable foreground subject. Most of the year, the moon rises much too far south to include in a Tunnel View scene, but for 2 or 3 months each winter, the full moon rises far enough north to align beautifully with Tunnel View’s magnificent monoliths.
But success is not simply a matter of showing up at Tunnel View the night of the full moon. Each winter the solar/lunar choreography is different, which is why the moon is all over the place in my many Tunnel View moonrise images in the gallery below: left of Half Dome, right of Half Dome, directly aligned with Half Dome, and occasionally closer to El Capitan than Half Dome.
This winter’s geometry was especially exciting to me when I realized the January moon would rise farther north, and therefore closer to El Capitan, than I’d ever photographed it. I have photographed the moon arriving from behind El Capitan’s vertical face, but I’d never seen it come up from behind the top of El Capitan. Always up for photographing something new (especially in Yosemite), I scheduled a workshop for it.
Which is how my workshop group and I ended up at my favorite Tunnel View vantage point on a Sunday evening last month. Sunset that evening was 5:05, and my calculations said the moon would at just about the same time—pretty much perfect timing for a moonrise, because you want the sky dark enough for the moon to stand out in contrast, while still bright enough that the landscape has enough light to reveal detail without blowing out the moon.
I’d set up with two tripods and cameras, one with my 200-600 lens, the other my 24-205 lens. The long telephoto was for the moon’s arrival; the wider lens was for when the moon elevated enough to separate from El Capitan. I’d planned to increase the magnification of the telephoto with my 2x teleconverter, but trying to attach the teleconverter to the lens, I fumbled it and helplessly watched it roll down the steep granite toward a vertical drop of several hundred feet. Fortunately, it lodged in small crack just before taking the plunge, but when I put it on the view was completely blurred, so I switched to my 1.4X teleconverter, giving me a focal range of 280-840.
As the sun dropped and the time approached, I became aware that a thin film of clouds had drifted across the eastern horizon above El Capitan—so thin that they weren’t visible at all in daylight brightness, but just substantial enough to reflect some color as sunset approached.
The moon arrived right on schedule, and we immediately started clicking. My earliest shots were almost entirely long telephotos, like this one at 840mm. It’s always shocking to see how fast the moon moves across a long telephoto frame, but I soon started mixing in a few wider frames (that required less frequent adjustments) as the moon started separating from El Capitan. By this time sky had pinked up beautifully, adding an element of color I hadn’t expected.
We all come to a workshop with expectations, students and leaders alike, but rarely are all of them met. And while the January group’s hopes for snowy winter scenes were dashed, I think that loss was more than made up for by other things we witnessed, some complete surprises, and some just a little better than our already high expectations—like this sunset moonrise to finish the workshop.
Join me in a Yosemite photo workshop
Workshop Schedule || Purchase Prints || Instagram
Yosemite Moonrise Collection
Click any image to scroll through the gallery LARGE
Ten Reasons to Take Up Nature Photography
Posted on January 16, 2025
Lunar Peek, Zabriskie Point, Death Valley
Sony a7R V
Sony 24-105 f/4 G
ISO 125
f/11
1/4 second
Recently I was talking to a friend on the cusp of retirement, and while she was looking forward to her impending freedom, she wasn’t sure what she was going to do with all her free time. I instantly blurted, “Nature photography!,” then started listing reasons. I surprised even myself with everything I came up with, and how quickly it came, which got me thinking the subject would make a good blog post. So here are my (very biased) thoughts on why nature/landscape photography makes the ideal pastime. (After reviewing the list, it turns out that most of my points apply to many other kinds of photography as well.)
- Save experiences: Ours is a beautiful, dynamic world. Over my lifetime, I’ve been fortunate to have witnessed Nature at its very best, more times than I can count. Though he’s no longer here to thank, for this I’m most grateful to my father—a serious amateur photographer who wouldn’t dream of traveling without a camera—for modeling the importance of recording these moments. It’s no wonder that, almost as soon as I was old enough to make my own major financial decisions, I purchased a 35mm SLR system of my own—mostly because (thanks to my dad) I thought that’s just what adults do. Thanks to my camera, the knowledge that I can revisit Nature’s ephemeral moments any time I want to is a source of great comfort.
- Share experiences: I think my father got as much pleasure sharing his travel experiences as he did recording them. Back in Dad’s time, most non-professional photographers’ images only reached other eyes when (captive?) visitors were sequestered in front a projection screen in a darkened living room (because there was really only one answer to the dreaded question, “Hey, do you want to see the pictures from our vacation?”). And while I won’t pretend Dad never subjected our visitors to the occasional slide show, as a United Methodist minister, he had a whole congregation filled with potential viewers, not to mention access to a large space ideal for sharing. Given the number of people who attended his shows without being compelled or held hostage, I’d say his images were well received. Today, the thrill of taking pictures that please others is as great as it’s ever been, but the opportunities to share them in our digitally connected world have increased exponentially.
- Low start-up cost: Camera gear can be ridiculously expensive, but it doesn’t need to be. Your smartphone will take surprisingly good pictures—good enough to reap most of the benefits listed here long enough to determine whether a bigger investment is justified. And when you do decide you want more serious dedicated photo gear, you can find quality equipment at pretty much any price point. In other words, expense should not be a reason not to pursue photography.
- Flexible income potential: I encounter many people who would like to make a living with their photography. And while there is still excellent money to be made with a camera, nature photography is not among the more lucrative options—not by a long shot (sorry). Fortunately, earning money with a camera doesn’t require you to quit your day job. You can pursue photography as an avocation, reaping the many personal benefits while dipping your toes into selling images (for publication), prints, and services until it grows into something lucrative. That was my path: More than 20 years ago I started doing weekend art shows while keeping my adult job, then gradually segued into workshops, training, and photography-related writing, until I felt confident pursuing photography as a profession. For a while after going fulltime I continued with the art shows, which were both lucrative and fun, but doing art shows and workshops felt like working two different jobs, and the path to a fulltime income with workshops was much clearer, so I dropped the art shows. On the other hand, I know photographers who earn a good living through art and gallery shows. And today, social media has increased the money-making opportunities far beyond what was available when I started.
- See the world (large): Need an excuse, or maybe just a catalyst, to travel? Try photography. It’s easy to get so locked into a day-to-day comfort zone that our dreams of visiting yearned-for locations are never fulfilled. I’m afraid that would probably describe my life were it not for photography. But, going all the way back to when photography was just a hobby, my camera and I have visited remote corners of the globe, enjoyed river rafting adventures in Grand Canyon, and witnessed more celestial and meteorological sights than I ever imagined possible.
- See the world (small): More than just visiting exotic locations, viewing the world with a photographer’s eye enables me to see beauty everywhere, from the distant horizon to right at my feet. I can say with absolute certainty that my own photographer-eyes have become hyperaware of my surroundings, noticing colors, textures, relationships, and minute detail everywhere—not just when I’m actively taking pictures, but pretty much as long as I’m awake: driving, walking, running, or simply sitting still. Not only that, to this day, the more time I spend taking pictures, the more this heightened vision improves.
- Commune with Nature: For many people, myself included, few things are more soothing than quiet time with Nature. This enhanced relationship with the natural world can be active or passive. When I’m immersed in a natural environment, away from the din of “civilization,” all of my senses intensify and seem to work in synergy, providing peace I don’t feel at any other time. But there’s more—even when I’m stuck inside, my life as a photographer inspires me to pursue deeper understanding of my subjects that helps me appreciate them even more.
- Ideal solitary activity: Are you an introvert who recharges by being alone? Nature photography has you covered. I think most of us have times when we just need to dial down the pressures and sensory dissonance of daily life. I can think of no better way than full immersion in the serene sights and sounds of the natural world, completely absent the need to please, impress, or in any other way interact with the rest of the world. When I’m alone in Nature, time seems to stand still, my senses amplify, and my connection to my surrounding is never stronger.
- Ideal group activity: Are you an extrovert who recharges by being around others? Nature photography has you covered. Some of the most memorable experiences of my photography life were made that way because I was able to share them with other like-minded individuals. The joy of these moments is contagious, at times amplified enough by the presence of others to move me to tears.
- Cultivate your creative and analytical brains: I can think of few endeavors that more perfectly blend the right and left brain than photography. Some photographers are drawn by photography’s creative opportunities to view and express the world; others love the technical aspects of managing exposure and focus with their camera’s many controls. While it’s possible to take pictures with just one side of the brain or the other engaged, most people who take up photography are surprised to learn that there is indeed life on the other side of the brain.
About this image
Lunar Peek, Zabriskie Point, Death Valley
The Zabriskie Point moonset is always a highlight of my Death Valley Winter Moon photo workshop. Often we get no clouds, making this sunrise moonset a no-stress event for me. This time (January 2024), when clouds threatened to wash out the shoot entirely, was not one of those events.
The moon was visible above the clouds when we arrived, but the sky was much too dark to capture lunar and foreground detail with one click (my personal requirement). When the moon dropped into the clouds and disappeared completely, I tried to rationalize that at least we’d have nice clouds for our moonless sunrise, but I used all the positive energy I could muster to will the clouds into parting.
Though it lasted for only a couple of minutes, the moon did indeed slip into a small opening long enough for everyone in the group to get a few frames before being swallowed for good. Though only had time for a handful of frames with enough moon to be worthwhile, I think most photographers would take quality over quantity any time.
Workshop Schedule || Purchase Prints || Instagram
The Joy of Nature
Click any image to scroll through the gallery LARGE
Eloquent Images by Gary Hart 