Eloquent Images by Gary Hart
Insight, information, and inspiration for the inquisitive nature photographer
Greetings from Down Under
Posted on June 19, 2023
Milky Way Reflection, Lake Wakatipu, New Zealand
Sony a7R V
Sony 14mm f/1.8 GM
ISO 6400
f/1.8
15 seconds
It’s hard enough sticking to my (self-imposed) weekly blog schedule when I’m home and just doing the daily stuff necessary to keep my business running. But for the last week Don Smith and I have been cavorting about the New Zealand countryside with a dozen awestruck photographers. So I’ve dusted off a still relevant blog post from 4 years ago, updated it, and added a brand new image (from this trip) and description.
What’s my problem?
I share a lot of Milky Way images (and when I say Milky Way, I’m referring to the brilliant core of our home galaxy). But then it seems does everyone else. And when I look at some of the other visually dazzling Milky Way images posted online, I realize I’m working at something of a disadvantage—not because of deficient equipment (not even close), a physical or mental handicap (though as the years spin by…), or even because I think the world is unfair (maybe it is, but it’s been pretty good to me). No, my disadvantage is solely the result of self-imposed “rules” that prevent me from photographing anything that can’t be captured with a single click.
Single-click shooting means no focus stacking, no HDR, no blending separately captured foreground and sky. In other words, if I can’t get what I want in one frame, I don’t get it. It’s not that I think there’s anything wrong with combining images—image blending is a tremendous tool that allows digital photographers to transcend the limitations of film photography. And it’s not because blending is “too technical” for me—having spent 20 years working in the tech industry, I know my way around a computer and have actually played a fair amount with blending images (it’s not rocket science). No, I don’t blend images simply because, as beautiful as they might be, I get no personal satisfaction from results that feel artificial to me. And if photography doesn’t make you happy, what’s the point?
Every time I bring this up, someone gets defensive, feeling like I’m saying that there’s something wrong with blending images. There isn’t!* I enjoy viewing the work of photographers who blend images to elevate their art. So if you blend and enjoy it, please go forth and blend to your heart’s content (and keep those defensive comments to yourself). This is about me, and what makes me happy.
*As long as it’s not used to deceive.
Milky Way capture
I’m frequently asked about my processing for Milky Way images, and I’ve always been a little reluctant to share a lot because I’m not an expert, I don’t blend, and my Milky Way workflow is always a work in process. Nevertheless, I’m asked enough that I’ve decided it might nevertheless help for me to share my overall processing mindset and approach. (Plus, it might help others to understand why my images aren’t as “stunning” as the images of those who blend.)
In many ways I still consider myself a film shooter, albeit with an upgrade to a digital camera. Processing, though not my favorite part of photography, is an essential digital windfall that enables me to extract results from the photons I capture, results that were never possible with film (especially for those of us who shot only color film/transparencies). Like most digital photographers, I couldn’t succeed without processing—the alternative is to let the camera or computer make processing decisions, and that’s control I don’t want to relinquish. And given the challenges of minimal light photography, processing is doubly important for Milky Way images.
Given that I don’t blend images (for Milky Way photography that’s usually one exposure for the foreground and another for the sky), I start with a raw file that needs help. A lot of help. I like foreground detail in my night images, which requires me to compromise with a less than ideal f-stop, shutter speed, and (especially) ISO to gather enough light. And even with these compromises, the image straight from the camera is still far darker and noisier than ideal.
The right gear
First, even with all the skill and processing software you can muster, if you’re going to photograph the Milky Way with one click, you need to have the camera and lens to do it. On a moonless night light capture is king, which means using a camera able to return relatively clean results at extreme ISOs (up to 12,800) with a very fast, wide lens—24mm and f/2.8 is okay, but wider and faster is better.
For years my Milky Way body has been some version of the Sony a7S series (a7S, a7S II, a7S III)—most recently the Sony a7S III (a truly remarkable low light camera), while my night lens has been one of the following: Sony 24mm f/1.4 GM, Sony 20mm f/1.8 G, or Sony 14mm f/1.8 GM. But an equipment change may be afoot—details below.
Exposure compromise
My processing choices depend a lot on my exposure choices, which as I said earlier, are all compromises. For example, with my 14mm at f/1.8 wide open, I can usually keep the ISO in the 3200 to 6400, and my shutter speed to 15 seconds—quality compromises for sure (high ISO means high noise, longer shutter speeds mean star motion), but the results are certainly acceptable. It might help to know that when I photograph the Milky Way, I usually give each composition a variety of exposure settings and choice the best one later, when I can see the images on my computer.
It starts with noise reduction
For all of my images, my standard noise processing is Topaz DeNoise AI Photoshop plugin. I used to run my Milky Way images through DxO PhotoLab 2, but later versions of DeNoise have been so good that I now skip the DXO step.
In Topaz I magnify the view to 100% (and sometimes 200%) and play with the Noise Reduction and Recover Detail sliders until I’m confident I’ve found the combination that maximizes noise reduction without muddying the detail. I’ve had the most success with the Low Light, Standard, and Severe Noise panels (in that order), but your results may vary so experiment with all the options to find the panels that work for you.
The method behind my madness
Processing is where things start to get more vague because my approach is less an explicit series of steps than it is searching for the best way to achieve the results I want, steps that can vary a lot from image to image. Sometimes I can achieve most of what I want in Lightroom, other times I lean more heavily on Photoshop—usually it’s a fairly even balance of the two.
Given my hit-and-miss approach, it’s probably most important to explain what makes a successful Milky Way image. Here’s what I’m going for:
- Minimal noise: Asked and answered (Topaz DeNoise AI)
- The right sky color: As far as I’m concerned, the color of the sky in a Milky Way image the photographer’s creative choice because at night the human eye doesn’t capture enough light to discern color. If you look at my recent Milky Way images, you’ll see that I tend to avoid a blue/cyan sky in favor of something more blue/purple. It just feels more night-like to me. But that’s just my opinion and I empower you to go with whatever color makes you happy (more on that below). And lately I’ve been skewing away from blue and toward black with just a hint of blue—and no cyan.
- Foreground detail: The amount varies with the foreground, and how much light I can give it without too much noise.
- Uniform sky tone and hue (as much as possible): I don’t like a huge difference between the sky near the horizon and up toward the top of the frame
- The stars should pop: I want the sky to be fairly dark, but the stars to stand out.
- No part of the Milky Way should be blown out: While I want the stars bright, I don’t want them too bright.
- And the final result still needs to look like night (even though it will be brighter than the human eye sees).
I make extensive use of Lightroom and Photoshop’s History panels. There’s no single best way to do anything in Lightroom and Photoshop, so I make a lot of what-if?, trial-and-error adjustments that I only keep if I’m satisfied. So you’re not going to get specific steps from me as much as you’ll get things to try and accept/reject. The other thing I want to emphasize is to magnify the image to 100% (1:1) when you’re trying to decide whether or not to accept an adjustment.
I always play with the Highlights/Whites/Shadows/Blacks sliders—lots of up/down trial-and-error adjustments to find the right balance (gotta love that History panel). The Lightroom Clarity and Texture sliders will make the stars pop (and sometimes the foreground), but be especially gentle with these to avoid exaggerating the noise and making the stars look crispy). And Dehaze will add contrast to the sky that really enhances the Milky Way, but it also might darken parts of the scene too much. As with Clarity and Texture, Dehaze moderation is key.
I use lots of techniques to get the color I want—often just one or two adjustments are enough, and sometimes it requires a lot of adjustments. In Lightroom, I play with Color Temperature and Tint. That usually means cooling the temperature to somewhere in the 3000-4000 range, and nudging the Tint slider slightly to the right—less cyan, more red (which creates a blue with hints of purple). When those things don’t do the job, I’ll play with Lightroom’s HSL sliders. And now that Lightroom’s masking capability makes separating sky and foreground a snap, I usually process each independently of the other.
To tweak the color in Photoshop, I usually select the area I want to adjust, Feather it fairly loosely (large Feather Radius), and create a Color Balance and/or Saturation layer, doing lots of trial-and-error moves with each. And when using Saturation, I almost always work on specific colors, adjusting some combination of Hue, Saturation, and Lightness until I’m satisfied. Also, I find that some of the other adjustments I make in Lightroom and Photoshop tend to pump up the color too much, so I usually desaturate the sky a fair amount in Photoshop.
To make the Milky Way more prominent, a few passes with the Dodge brush set to Highlights can do wonders by brightening the stars without affecting the sky. But don’t overdo it—I prefer multiple passes at low Opacity (less than 20).
Probably the trickiest thing to contend with is a different hue near the horizon than I get in the rest of the sky. I can usually mitigate this somewhat with a feather selection and a Color Balance or Saturation layer, described above. And sometimes, if I’m really brave, I’ll select the offending area, Feather it, use the Eyedropper tool to pick the color I want, and the Paint Bucket tool to apply the color to the selected area. I usually get better results with Tolerance set fairly high (>50) and Opacity fairly low (<30). If you do this, don’t expect it to work every time, and always examine the results at 100% because it can introduce some pretty nasty blotchiness that doesn’t jump right out at you on first glance at lower magnification.
With most of my images, the last thing I do before saving is sharpen. But since night images are rarely about fine detail, and sharpening exacerbates noise and creates crispy-looking stars, I usually don’t sharpen my Milky Way images.
These tips are not intended to be the final word on Milky Way processing—I just wanted to give you some insight into my approach, both my goals and the steps I take to achieve them. I’ve been using Photoshop for a long time, but don’t consider myself a Photoshop expert, not even close. There may be (probably are) better ways to do many of these things. But I’ve always been a simple-first photographer: Do things the simplest possible way until you find some way that’s better, or until you encounter something you just can’t do without upping the complexity. And if you take nothing else away from this, I hope you at least feel empowered to experiment until you achieve results that make you happy.
About this image
Milky Way Reflection, Lake Wakatipu, New Zealand
New Zealand is hands down my favorite place to photograph the Milky Way. Better even than my previous favorite, the ultra-dark Colorado River at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, because: 1) the skies in New Zealand are almost as dark as the bottom of the Grand Canyon 2) the New Zealand air is usually cleaner (less dust and pollution) 3) New Zealand’s winter matches the Milky Way core’s prime months, so in June (when we do our workshop) the galactic center is photographable from about 7 p.m. until 7 a.m. 4) the Milky Way is higher in the sky down here.
Milky Way photography is a priority in the New Zealand workshop—not just for the people who sign up, but for Don and me as well. But since it’s winter, we often battle clouds, so the Milky Way on any given night is never a sure thing. To maximize our chances, over the years we’ve been doing this workshop Don and I have identified a handful of prime Milky Way locations at various points along the workshop’s 10-day journey.
A Milky Way location needs a good view of the sky in the direction of the Milky Way (in the first hours after sunset, that would be southeast), a compelling foreground, and minimal light pollution. It took us a couple of years, but we finally found a nice Milky Way spot on beautiful (and large) Lake Wakatipu near Queenstown. Since the workshop begins and ends in Queenstown, this spot allows us to check off the Milky Way box at the start of the trip (fingers crossed), and also gives us one last resort shot at it at the end of the trip.
This year we lucked out with clear skies on our very first night. So after a nice sunset farther up the lake toward Glenorchy, we drove back toward town and pulled into “our” spot. After waiting about 30 minutes for the sky to darken, we went to work. At first Don and I concentrated on getting everyone up to speed with Milky Way photography, but eventually we were able to get to work on a few images of our own.
On this New Zealand trip I’d decided to try my Sony a7R V at night—but because I’ve never tried this camera at night, to hedge my bets I also packed the trusty a7S III. The lens I chose for this trip was my Sony 14mm f/1.8 GM—almost as fast as the 24mm f/1.4, the Milky Way’s elevation in the New Zealand sky makes opting for the extra width of the 14mm a no brainer.
I started with the a7S III, but after a half dozen or so images switched to the a7R V. I haven’t looked at the a7S III images yet, but I have to say that I’m blown away by the results I got with my a7R V. Blown away enough that my days of packing a body just for night photography might very well be over. To get an image as clean as this one with 61 megapixel everyday camera truly is a (cliché warning) game changer.
I’ve photographed here several times before, each in slightly different conditions. This year the fact that there wasn’t as much snow on the peaks as previous years was more than compensated by the still, reflective lake surface.
We still have three more workshop nights, and I have cautious hopes for our planned Milky Way shoot at Tasman Lake in Mt. Cook / Aoraki National Park in a couple of nights. But if the clouds take us down, there’s no stress because we already have a great Milky Way shoot in the bank. Add that to our very special day cruising on Doubtful Sound, yesterday’s excellent Wanaka Tree shoot, and today’s spectacular Fox Glacier helicopter ride and hike, not to mention lots of fun with a bunch of great people, and I’m already declaring this trip an unforgettable success.
A Milky Way Gallery
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Connections (It’s Personal)
Posted on June 6, 2023
Afloat, Raindrops on Dogwood, Yosemite
Sony a7R V
Sony 100-400 GM
2 extension tubes (26mm total)
ISO 800
f/8
1/200 second
Once upon a time, whenever I heard a photographer say, “That’s exactly what I saw when I was there,” I’d cringe (because that’s impossible). Today, given the proliferation of AI generated and enhanced images, maybe I should rethink my perspective and just be glad that the photographer was there at all.
There’s a lot of buzz in the photography world about AI and its ability to manufacture images. I can’t deny AI’s benefits for many legitimate uses, but creating a landscape image from the comfort of your office chair with just a few words of description? Count me out.
Of course we’ve all seen landscape and nature images that were clearly faked, either through Photoshop manipulation (jumbo moon anyone?) or more recently with the help of AI. Somehow these images manage to fool enough people to generate a host of social media Likes, comments (“stunning!”), and shares, which tells me there’s a subset of photographers whose prime motivation is acclaim. Photography needs to make you happy, so if this makes them happy, I can’t begrudge these photographers the attention they need—my concern is the damage this inclination to solicit attention at any cost does to the credibility of the real photographers.
This is not a rant against image processing. In fact, in today’s world of digital capture, effective processing is an essential part of the creative process (as it has always been for B&W photography). But while the computer is important to digital capture, it’s there to serve the image, not generate it. Because I always want my creativity to happen in my camera, not my computer, I have to start thinking about processing long before I click the shutter. (The digital-capture equivalent of Ansel Adams’ “visualization” approach.)
Of course photography appeals to different people for different reasons. As much as I appreciate the processing power digital capture has brought to photography (especially to color photography—processing wasn’t a practical option for color film/transparency shooters), processing is probably my least favorite part of photography. And I know many excellent photographers who love processing and are far more masterful at it than I am.
Speaking only for myself as a creator and consumer, my photography is motivated by connection. When I create an image, I need to feel a personal connection with my subject before moving on the seeking to convey that connection in an image. This desire for connection also drives my need to write about my images—I pretty much never share a new image until I’ve written about its capture and what the image means to me (hence this blog).
When I view the photography of others, I want to feel like they’re conveying their own connection with the scene, not just trying to show me something pretty—and in so doing, they’re offering me a connection to their world. While every image from every photographer is processed (either by the photographer, by the camera, or both), the best processing is done in a way that allows me to ignore the processing so I can simply connect with the scene.
I realize that “connection” in this context is rather nebulous, but I do think connection helps explain why different images resonate more or less with different people. If you’re a photographer who hasn’t identified your own connections to the world, a good place to start would be to consider the things in your world that ignite that unsuppressible (reflexive?) urge to nudge a friend or loved one, point, and excitedly exclaim, “Look at that!”
“That” could be a dazzling city skyline, a happy dog stretching its head out the window of a passing car, a small child devouring an ice cream cone, a crisp mountain reflection, or an infinite number of other scenes you might encounter in your daily life. My own nudge-and-point (and raise my camera) triggers are almost always something in Nature—anyone spending time with my images (I hope) has a pretty good idea what they are. (Spoiler alert: rainbows, reflections, poppies, dogwood, anything celestial, and much more.) And speaking only for myself, writing about an image is as important as the capture and processing—not only does writing help me distill the feelings the scene provoked, it helps me understand my overall relationships with my subjects.
Even more important to me than the image I create is the in-Nature creation process where the connection actually starts. I’m not saying that I wander the woods with a camera consciously thinking about connections—it’s more a state I naturally fall into while in Nature that compels me to stop and make an image, or to patiently wait for the image to happen.
I know the subjects that resonate with me, and being as active on social media (as I have to be) gives me pretty good insight into the images that do and don’t resonate with others. So before posting a new image, I have a pretty good idea how many Likes, shares, and comments it will generate, but I never let that dictate the subjects I choose, or the images I share.
Just as I don’t share images that don’t thrill me, even when I know they’d be received enthusiastically, I also don’t hesitate to share personal favorites that will most likely generate crickets from the masses. But that’s okay—even though those personal favorites don’t elicit the volume of enthusiasm I’d like, the intensity of the enthusiasm I do receive from these images tells me connections were indeed made.
Today’s dogwood image is one of my potential “cricket” shares. It likely won’t thrill as many people as some of my more colorful, in-your-face-beauty landscapes do, but I also suspect there will be a few people with whom it connects intensely. It’s one of several I captured and processed on last month’s quick Yosemite overnighter with my brother (click the link for the full story).
Speaking of connection, few things in photography make me happier than exploring a forest like this, searching for intimate scenes that can only be revealed by a camera. When I get into a scene like this, with no one else requiring my attention and knowing I can be there as long as I need to be, time loses all meaning.
What I enjoy most about working these scenes is how different the world looks through my viewfinder than it looks to my eye. For example, the backgrounds in all of these forest dogwood images are almost always busier than what the image conveys. Through careful positioning, framing, depth management, and exposure, I’ve learned how to eliminate, simplify, complement, and disguise busy backgrounds.
My process starts with identifying a dogwood (or whatever the scene’s subject is) that I can isolate from its nearby surroundings, then moving around until I find a complementary background to be rendered as detail-less color and shape. This is almost always achieved by focusing close on a carefully chosen spot, usually using a telephoto zoomed to near the maximum focal length (or occasionally with my 90 macro), often with extension tubes to focus even closer (further limiting depth of field). I usually shoot these wide open (widest aperture for minimal DOF), but in this case I stopped down slightly to get a little more definition in the background dogwood.
Could I have stayed home and done something like this on my computer? Perhaps, but why rob myself of all that joy?
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Personal Connections
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Eulogy for an Icon
Posted on May 29, 2023
Solitary Tree, McGee Creek, Eastern Sierra
Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II
Canon 70 – 200 f/4 L
1/40 second
F/7.1
ISO 400
This week I’m mourning the demise of “Outdoor Photographer” magazine. While the patient may still have a faint pulse (the website remains up, and I’ve seen no official announcement), it appears to be on life support, with no sign of brain activity, just waiting for the plug to be pulled: The OP staff has been let go, there has been no social media activity in a week, and visitors to the website are greeted with a solicitation to purchase the assets of the magazine and its sister photo publications. (Tip: Don’t.)
Starting as a fairly niche publication in 1985, OP built slowly through the end of the 20th century, then rode the digital wave that began swelling in the early 2000s—until it smashed into the rocks of digital content in the 2010s.
For the boomers who cut their teeth photographing nature with film and transparencies (slides), only to closet their cameras in favor of family and work priorities, digital photography caught fire at exactly the right time: just as nests emptied and careers had either run their course or at least stabilized enough to permit outside distractions. This confluence made digital photography the catalyst for a wave of maturing boomers with time on their hands and a longing for the great outdoors. Conveniently, “Outdoor Photographer” magazine, the best of many landscape/nature photo magazine offerings at the time, became the rejuvenated boomers’ goto photography info source.
While I’d never completely mothballed my beloved Olympus OM-2, the transition to digital did breathe new life into my own photography as well. So not long after replacing my Olympus SLR film system with a Canon 10D DSLR and an assortment of compatible lenses, I re-subscribed to OP.
Each month I devoured OP’s articles, columns, reviews, and even ads to get up to speed on the new world of digital landscape photography. My photography forays into Nature increased, and I soon started considering leaving my life in technical communications (tech writing, training, and support) to pursue landscape photography.
Keeping my day job at first, I focused on galleries and weekend art shows with enough success to consider the next step—an actual career change. Based partially on info gleaned from OP, I honed in on photo workshops as the best path to fulltime income with my camera, and Yosemite seemed the best place to start (intimate familiarity and relatively near home). Soon I had a workshop format in mind and a couple of workshops scheduled.
As I tried to identify the best path to filling these nascent workshops, I recognized that OP’s subscribers were a perfect match for my workshop demographic. And even though I couldn’t afford to advertise, I couldn’t afford not to advertise even more, so in 2006 I closed my eyes and jumped with both feet. I can now say absolutely that without those monthly ads in the (still small) Workshops and Classes section at the back of OP, I’d have been back in the 9-5 tech world grind in less than a year.
Within a couple of years I was submitting articles to OP—difficult to be noticed at first, but once the first one was published, subsequent articles came fairly regularly. My first “Outdoor Photographer” cover came in 2015, and while it wasn’t my first ever cover image, it was the cover I was most proud of. Three more OP covers followed.
My Outdoor Photographer Covers
Once it started, OP’s decline was steep and relentless. I can’t say that I’m surprised, or even particularly saddened by the loss of this version of a magazine that had shrunk to a shell of its former self. Frustrated by dwindling content and (what I perceived as) lower quality paper stock and image resolution, I actually cancelled my subscription at least 5 years ago, and stopped advertising my workshops on OP at the start of last year (with no noticeable decline in interest in my workshops). But either by circulation error or simply to keep their circulation numbers up, OP still kept sending me an issue each month, so I’ve been able to monitor the magazine’s downfall.
Nevertheless, though I continued providing content, in recent years payment came slower and slower. At one point I actually refused to pay for my advertising until I received a many-month overdue payment for an article (that got their attention). I’m still waiting to be paid for my March cover and article, but am not holding my breath (despite a recent promise that it would only be late, and perhaps come in increments).
I’m not even sure how much we should blame OP’s original management for the magazine’s shrinking content and diminished printing quality—faced with an exodus of readers to digital content, and an aging demographic exacerbated by younger audiences more drawn to mobile phone snaps and video, I imagine each decision to deliver less was motivated by the imperative to cut costs enough to stay above water for one more issue. Maybe different decisions would have saved it, or at least slowed the decline, but I suspect these changes would ultimately prove to be insurmountable.
Given the amount of online resources available, it’s likely that most OP readers will have no problem replacing the information they were getting from OP. Unfortunately, Internet information is not always reliable (perhaps you noticed?). While there’s lots of great stuff out there, there’s also a lot of (mostly well-intentioned) garbage that ranges from fairly harmless to just plain wrong. (At least with a magazine as credible and respected as “Outdoor Photographer,” you could read it fairly confident that the info is reliable.)
If you’ll permit a shameless plug, let me suggest myself as an alternate source of reliable landscape photography insight. Posting weekly blogs here for more than 12 years (!), I’ve created (many) hundreds of articles designed to aid photographers and Nature enthusiasts, ranging from stories of image captures, photography how-to, and the natural science underlying my subjects. And the vast majority of images I share are paired with a blog post describing their capture, as well as a few thoughts they inspire. Because I don’t allow advertising on my blog, I don’t make a penny from all this content—my goal is simply to raise my own exposure by providing value to other photographers. So if you like what you read, please return often, and tell your friends.
About this image
I fired up the Wayback Machine for this image that dates all the way back to my early digital days and OP’s heyday. This was before I left my job at Intel, but after I’d made the wholehearted plunge into digital that would lead me to now. Having recently acquired the new Canon 1DS Mark II (an “impossible” 16 megapixels!), an absolute brick of a camera that was state-of-the-art at the time (with a price-tag to prove it), I was quite anxious to start getting a little return on my investment. But since I had a regular job that expected me to show up and produce, roadtrips back then weren’t quite as easy as they are today. But my brother Jay and I managed to set aside enough time to travel over to the Eastern Sierra for a fall color weekend.
This tree is on the unpaved road to McGee Creek, a favorite hiking and fall color spot between Bishop and Lee Vining. It had been on my radar for several years, but I’d never found the conditions suitable to photograph it. But following an afternoon fall color shoot at the creek, the late sunlight lit these tilde-shaped clouds and I could see that conditions were right for even more color as the sun dropped. Jay and I had been photographing a little down the road—I knew exactly where I wanted to be, but wasn’t sure we had time to get there. We quickly loaded into my truck and bounced over rocks and ruts for about a mile, pulling up to the spot with just seconds to spare.
Bolting from my truck, I raced to a spot that enabled me to juxtapose the tree with the just peaking sunset pink, setting up with barely enough time to fire off a small handful of frames before the color faded.
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Eastern Sierra Magic
No Camera, No Regrets (and No Problem)
Posted on May 23, 2023
Inner Beauty, Japanese Maple, Portland Japanese Garden
Apple iPhone 14 Pro
14mm full frame focal length equivalent
ISO 40
f/2.2
1/180 second
I’m not going to pretend that my version of this beautiful Japanese maple tree is unique. Just Google Portland Japanese Garden and you’ll see dozens of similar images of this very tree. And a search for “most photographed tree in the world” will surely include this tree somewhere on the list. But the story of its capture—which includes elements of discovery, insight, surprise, awe, and even a little resourcefulness—is different than the story of any of my other images, making it one of my favorite images of the year despite its lack of uniqueness.
As anyone who has tried to combine a family vacation with a photography trip can tell you, the best time for photography is pretty much the worst time to be outside: sunrise happens when most people would rather be asleep; sunset almost always interferes with dinner; night photography is cold and keeps you up too late; and wild weather (snow, rain, fog) can make pretty much everyone cranky. Conversely, a warm and sunny afternoon, when everyone (without a camera) is awake, fed, and longing to enjoy the outdoors, is just about the worst time to take (good) pictures.
I’ve learned (and observed) that trying to mix serious photography with a family/friend vacation leaves everyone dissatisfied. That’s why, before departing on any trip, I decide whether I’m going to be a photographer or a tourist—one or the other, never both. On trips when I’m a tourist, with the prime goal to relax and and enjoy the sights with the people I love, I just leave my camera home and simply bask in Nature’s splendor. My lights-out and rise times are determined by comfort and enjoyment—my own and those with me—while my forays into Nature consider only convenience, and are timed for the most pleasant conditions to be outside. Following this approach keeps my body and mind fresh, my loved ones happy, and gives me a relaxed perspective that ultimately benefits my photography.
Last week my wife and I drove to Portland to visit friends, taking the long way to enjoy a three-day scenic drive up the California and Oregon coasts. Despite the undeniable beauty I knew we’d find on our route, my camera bag stayed home, and we enjoyed a truly great trip—relaxing, rejuvenating, absolutely gorgeous, and lots of fun. I think I can add enlightening as well, because whatever I lost in images was more than made up for in insight and perspective that’s only possible with no camera between me and Nature. (Photographers: try this sometime.)
One of the many highlights of our trip was Friday’s visit to the Portland Japanese Garden, a location I’ve long known of but never visited. The entire garden is beautiful and worthy of photographing, but its Japanese maple is probably the most recognizable specimen there. This beautiful tree has been featured in National Geographic magazine, and, as a classic “trophy shot” in every sense of the word, graces the portfolios, walls, books, and galleries of many (many) nature photographers.
Like most landscape icons, this maple’s beauty completely justifies the attention it receives, so even without my camera I was anxious to put my own eyes on it. Fully embracing vacation mode, before our visit I did zero research on the tree, and knew only that it was in the Portland Japanese Garden. Strolling the garden late Friday morning, I scanned for what I imagined, from the many photos I’d seen, what the tree must look like: maybe 20 feet tall with a symmetrical 25-foot spread, alone and dominating a grassy hill, and likely surrounded by gawking, selfie-seeking tourists.
When I found nothing of the sort, I was mildly disappointed, but simply shrugged and prepared to exit the garden for lunch and the rest of the day’s activities elsewhere in this beautiful city. But when my wife detoured into the garden’s gift shop before our departure, I opted to take one more shot at finding the tree. And for the first time all week, I set aside my tourist perspective and allowed myself to start thinking like a photographer, trying to see each tree the way a camera might see it. That’s when it occurred to me (duh) that a wide angle lens positioned low could create an illusion of size that doesn’t exist, and the object of my quest may in fact not look anything like I’d imagined it. Armed with that mental reset, I retraced my steps through the garden, reevaluating the trees I’d previously walked right past.
I’d only made it a couple hundred yards (on a trail I’d already traveled a couple of times) when I came across a smallish red maple on a grassy slope, protected by a (very) short wood fence, sharing its space with a few nondescript shrubs, and sporting a dense canopy that dropped to just a couple of feet above the ground. At first glance there was nothing to distinguish this tree from any other maple in the garden, a fact underscored by the scores of tourists walking right past it without so much as a glance.
But something about this tree tweaked my photographic Spidey-sense, so I approached the fence and ducked under the leafy canopy. Instantly I experienced something akin to what Harry Potter must have felt when he slipped into the Weasley’s tent in “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.”
Quite simply, this was a different world. And even though at first glance it didn’t look at all like the pictures of the tree I’d seen, as soon as I saw it through the wide angle lens in my brain, everything fit into place. At this point, now hopelessly in my photographer-mind, I registered the tiny leaves, illuminated by sunlight gently filtered by thin clouds, and the way they radiated a diaphanous glow that emphasized their rich red. Next my eyes landed on the spiderweb shadow pattern cast on the lawn by the tree’s twisted branches.
Some things are just so beautiful they must be preserved, but instead of being frustrated that I didn’t have my “professional” camera, I whipped out my iPhone (14 Pro), switched its camera to the widest lens, dropped to ground level, and clicked one frame. At that point I had no plan to do anything more with my image than share it with my wife and save it as a keepsake of our trip. But when I showed the picture to my wife, she was especially excited and wanted to see the tree with her own eyes. So back we went.
In the 2 minutes it took us to return to the tree, I mentally critiqued my original capture and identified a few things I’d like to do differently. Then it occurred to me that this might be a great time to try out my iPhone’s raw capture feature for the first time (a raw image is unprocessed image data that requires a little more processing, but offers more flexibility and creates a better quality image). Back at the tree I took 6 more pictures, each in raw mode, each from a slightly different perspective. In the process, I used a variety of canopy/shadows ratios (lots of canopy, lots of shadow, and equal amounts canopy and shadow).
Importing and processing the Apple ProRAW images was no more difficult than with my regular cameras’ raw images—I simply AirDropped the files onto my computer, imported them into Lightroom, then processed them as I would any other image. And I’ve got to say that I was blown away by the image quality—both the detail (some of which is lost in the jpeg and web upload compression of the image I share here), and the dynamic range.
My final thought on this experience goes to something I write about a lot: the differences between human vision and the camera’s vision, and how to leverage those differences to create an image. Often my thoughts emphasize framing, subject relationships, and what I call photography’s “Creative Triad”—motion, light, and depth—that can be controlled with the exposure variables. But one more creative tool that can enable photographers to create something vastly different than the human experience is focal length.
A long focal length can compress the distance separating near and far objects, while a wide focal length can open up a small space to make it look much larger than it is (a feature used without shame by just about every real estate photographer). To illustrate how much the 13mm full-frame equivalent focal length of my iPhone exaggerated the size of this tree, I commissioned a lovely 5′ 3″ model (aka, my wife) to stand in front of the tree and allow me to photograph her using the phone’s 24mm full frame equivalent focal length. Hard to believe they’re the same tree, but I promise they are.
This trip was an excellent reminder that you don’t need a camera to be happy on vacation. I’m not saying I’m ready to throw away my professional cameras, but there’s peace of mind knowing that I can go out sans camera and tripod and still capture something I can share and print without apology.
The World of Trees
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The Dogwood Days of Spring
Posted on May 8, 2023
Dogwood Blooms, Yosemite
Sony a7R V
Sony 100-400 GM
2 extension tubes (26mm total)
ISO 800
f/5.6
1/250 second
In my first 14 years leading photo workshops, I never had to cancel a workshop. I have had to scramble a bit thanks to government shutdowns, hurricanes (really), closed roads, and power outages, but no cancellations. That record changed abruptly in spring 2020 when COVID-19 shut down the world, eventually costing me 14 workshops. Then, just as things started to reopen during the pandemic, extreme fire danger in the Eastern Sierra forced me to shut down another workshop.
By doubling up on workshops, and thanks to the patience and understanding of my affected customers, over the subsequent couple of years I was ultimately able to weather the cancellation storm with minimal (manageable) long term damage. In fact, this year’s second Iceland workshop in January was the final COVID make-up workshop—with clear sailing ahead, what could possibly go wrong?
Well…. First, a historically wet and cold winter delivered a historically deep Sierra snowpack. Then, after a cool spring, unseasonably warm temperatures last week goosed the dormant Sierra snowmelt, much of which had nowhere to go but Yosemite Valley, which forced closure of Yosemite Valley, flushing my May Yosemite Moonbow and Wildflowers photo workshop along with it. Not only was this bad news for my customers (not to mention my business), spring happens to be a personal favorite time to be in Yosemite. And this year I was particularly looking forward to all the water in Yosemite’s waterfalls and vernal pools.
For those keeping score at home, that’s 16 workshops lost in 3 years: 1 to fire, 1 to flood, and 14 to pestilence—clearly (as my wife pointed out), famine can’t be far behind. (Anyone who has endured a dinner at the Yosemite Valley Lodge cafeteria knows that’s not as much of a stretch as it sounds.) But seriously, unpredictability is a prime risk of pursuing profession so dependent on the fickle whims of Mother Nature. Still...
This month’s lost workshop was especially frustrating because the National Park Service, looking at the record Sierra snowpack and forecast hot temperatures, preemptively announced the closure of most of Yosemite Valley on the Wednesday before my workshop, which was scheduled to start the following Monday. The closure, they said, would begin at 10 p.m. Friday and continue until Wednesday at the earliest (their words), and possibly longer. Since my spring workshop is set entirely in Yosemite Valley (this year the high country will closed by snow until at least June), and was scheduled to span Monday through Thursday, I had no choice but to cancel. Immediately upon receiving the news, I scrambled to notify the workshop participants, cancel my lodging, and start the process of rescheduling everyone.
So imagine my surprise when, on Saturday, the NPS announced that Yosemite Valley would reopen Sunday, 3 days sooner than their promised “earliest.” Sigh. I instantly contacted my workshop hotel to see if it was too late to reinstate my group’s lodging (it wasn’t), then reached out to the cancelled group to find out who was still able to attend. I told them that even if only half were still available, I’d go ahead with the workshop as originally planned (but also that I’d still honor my cancellation policy for those who could no longer make it). Turns out all but 3 had already cancelled flights or made other plans, sadly confirming that my cancelled workshop count would officially hit 16.
As frustrating as this experience has been, I can’t really fault the NPS. The current Yosemite snowpack is truly unprecedented, and with no upstream dams on the Merced River or its tributaries, there’s absolutely no control over the runoff—the snowpack will send as much water as it wants to, whenever it wants to, and we downstream humans just need to deal with it. Which is exactly what the NPS did: In an abundance of (justifiable) caution, they decided to act proactively by clearing Yosemite Valley before the forecast extreme heat put them in react and evacuate mode. So while I appreciated the advance warning, since the snowmelt wasn’t as extreme as predicted, they soon reversed course—unfortunately too late to save my workshop.
All this got me thinking about how difficult it must be to manage Yosemite. With around 4 million visitors per year, Yosemite is one of the most visited national parks in the United States (the world?). Keeping all these people both safe and happy, while simultaneously protecting the wellbeing and beauty of this most special resource seems like an impossible task.
Yosemite’s total footprint is nearly 1200 square miles (slightly smaller than Rhode Island), but most of this area is remote backcountry that’s accessible only on foot. And instead delighting in the joys of High Sierra hiking and backpacking, virtually every one of Yosemite’s annual visitors tries to cram into the (slightly less than) 6 square miles of Yosemite Valley.
The result is, on a typical summer day, literally more cars in Yosemite Valley than parking places. Those lucky enough to score a parking spot are wise to leave their car there for the duration of their stay and navigate the park on foot, bicycle, or shuttle. In such a compact area teeming with pedestrians, cyclists, and vehicles, each with their own agenda—picture the occupants of Car 1 (including the driver) craning to admire the waterfalls and monoliths overhead, as the driver of Car 2 in front of them spies a pedestrian (or or cyclist, or deer) and slams on the brakes (SMASH!)—it’s a miracle there isn’t even more mayhem than there is.
Another problem the NPS constantly fights is the people who believe the rules only apply to everyone else and decide it’s okay to traipse through a clearly off-limits meadow, or climb over a protective guardrail: “I’m just one person and I’ll be quick”(photographers are especially frequent offenders). And then there are the people who treat Yosemite’s wildlife like personal pets who they need to feed and pose with for selfies.
Witnessing all this bedlam has caused me to realize that, despite my love for Yosemite and the care I take to follow the rules (and to ensure that my workshop students do as well), my mere presence in Yosemite risks making me part of the problem. As a result, I no longer schedule workshops for weekends, or during Yosemite’s most crowded months. In fact, I now refuse to visit Yosemite for any reason from mid-May through mid-October—even when someone offers to pay me for a private tour.
Though I generally resist doing anything in Yosemite in May, this month’s just-cancelled workshop was right on the cusp my self-imposed workshop curfew. But because the May full moon (necessary for a moonbow) fell in the first week the month, the dogwood bloom usually peaks the first week of May, and by starting May 1 I could completely avoid a weekend, I went ahead and scheduled it. I worried a little about the crowds, but never dreamed flooding would be my downfall.
On the other hand, the Yosemite Valley shutdown wasn’t without a small personal upside. Because I schedule my Yosemite workshops only for the times I’d most want to be there myself, I don’t get a lot of opportunity to photograph Yosemite on my own, during my favorite times to be there. But thanks to the cancellation, I was able to make two (!) personal trips to Yosemite—the first, when I’d normally have been doing last-minute workshop prep, was nice but turned out to be a complete photographic dud; the second, on what would have been the workshop’s final two days, was much more photographically successful.
Anxious to see Yosemite at peak water before Yosemite Valley closed, my brother Jay and I departed early on the Friday morning of the 10 p.m. closure day. Though the forecast called for nothing but blue skies, I hoped flooded meadows, blooming dogwood, and relatively few people would compensate. We struck out on all three fronts: while there was definitely a lot of water in the falls and meadows, the Merced wasn’t nearly as high as I’d seen it in prior wet springs; the dogwood were just starting, still quite tiny and mostly green; and the place was absolutely packed with people, to the point where parking was a real challenge. So we circled the valley a couple of times and drove home.
By the following week (the week my workshop had been scheduled for), the weather had cooled significantly and rain and snow had returned to the Sierra. Not only were these cloudy/stormy conditions better for photography, I figured (hoped) by then the dogwood would be really starting to pop. So on Wednesday afternoon Jay and I drove back to Yosemite, checked-in to our hotel, then made it into the park with about an hour to photograph before sunset.
With the dogwood blooming as hoped, we stopped for about 30 minutes to photograph the flowers (yes, I know they’re technically bracts, not flowers) in a light rain near the Pohono Bridge, then made it to the east side of the valley in time to catch a couple of reflections of Yosemite Falls before dark. We waited in the car for complete darkness, hoping the moon would pop out and give us a moonbow at the base of Upper Yosemite Fall, but the clouds seemed pretty committed, so we retreated to the hotel.
The next day was all about the dogwood, one of my absolute favorite things in the world to photograph. We stopped at most of my favorite dogwood spots, photographing a lot of close selective focus scenes like this one, but also some scenes with dogwood in the foreground and Bridalveil Fall or El Capitan in the background. A persistent light rain only made things better. In short, photography heaven.
Dogwood Blooms, Yosemite
This beautiful specimen I found across the road from Valley View, where we ended up photographing for almost an hour-and-a-half. Jay started up the road, while I settled in across from the parking lot and slowly made my way up the road, working both sides as I went. Using my 100-400 exclusively, mostly with extension tubes as well, I started with dogwood that allowed me to include Bridalveil Fall in the background, then the Merced River, and finally simply concentrated on individual flowers, or groups of flowers.
As always, my objective in these close focus scenes is to find a flower or flowers with a complementary background: other flowers, parallel trunks, dark shade, water, and so on. After an hour or so I came across a large tree bursting with large, fresh dogwood blooms and went to work.
It wasn’t long before I found this flower with everything I wanted: it was in perfect shape, with a fully intact central flower cluster and none of the spots or taters that mar older blooms; it glistened with rain; in the background was a similarly flawless specimen; and everything was surrounded by splashes of bright green embedded in dark shade.
I composed as tightly as I could while still including all of both flowers and the arcing branch supporting the nearest one. Even though the breeze was minimal, given limited light I set my ISO to 800 to guard against subtle motion blur. I knew I couldn’t get the entire bloom sharp, so I took special care to focus on the center, then magnified my capture to doublecheck focus after each click.
It’s never a good thing to cancel a workshop, for many reasons, but sometimes good things can come from bad situations if you simply maintain an open mind and keep moving forward.
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A Dogwood Gallery (including a few new ones from this trip)
Image Building (the old fashioned way)
Posted on May 1, 2023
Sun and Surf, Dyrhólaey, Iceland
Sony a7R V
Sony 24-105 f/4 G
ISO 100
f/20
1/20 second
Today it’s possible to open an app on your computer, type in a few descriptive terms, and faster than you can take a sip of coffee your very own beautiful image will appear. No frozen extremities, missed meals, or sleep deprivation required. What could possibly be better than that?
I’ll tell you what’s better: the frozen extremities, missed meals, and sleep deprivation necessary to witness Nature at its best, and to remind me that the best things in life are even better when a little sacrifice is involved. There’s simply no substitute for the multi-sensory opportunity to worship with nature—coming away with a beautiful image is just icing on the cake of the experience of simply being there.
Icing this winter morning’s cake involved more than a little effort, as well as a good degree of physical discomfort. Dyrhólaey, on Iceland’s South Coast, has a network of short but steep trails leading to broad vistas of rugged lava cliffs, a long black sand beach, several sea stacks (including distant Reynisdrangar), and lots of open sea. (It’s also the location of a truly epic aurora show about 10 days earlier, but that’s a different story.)
Since this was a week or so into a workshop (the second of two Iceland workshops Don Smith and I did this past January), and Dyrhólaey is so spread out, after the brief location orientation everyone had scattered quickly to search out their own scene, leaving me to my own devices. Iceland’s interminable gray winter twilight was already underway when we arrived, but actual sunrise was still an hour away, so there was no real rush.
This morning’s temperature (F) and wind (MPH) were both in the teens, but I was bolstered by multiple layers covering virtually every square inch of delicate California skin. Not immediately drawn to any one scene, I was quite content to wander the trails, taking in the view. On my travels I connected with as many in the group as possible, keeping my eyes open for potential images along the way. Eventually I found myself atop the highest point, enjoying a bird’s eye view of the violent surf’s relentless pounding. I stood there at least 15 minutes, completely mesmerized by waves arriving from all possible directions, each one reacting to the rocks a little differently than the waves preceding it.
This surf was on a different scale than anything I’d seen in California or Hawaii—more violent, and clearly more determined to punish anything in its path. Each wave exploded impressively onto the rocks, but occasionally just the right combination of size and direction resulted in a nuclear explosion that mushroomed far enough skyward to obscure some of the sky.
While the sky lacked clouds to add visual interest and catch sunrise color, I recognized the potential for a sunstar when the sun finally crested the horizon. With this thought in mind, I managed to pull myself away from my perch and move along the cliff’s edge, identifying and organizing the various elements for a possible composition.
I knew the sun would be the strongest background element, and decided that putting it on the right of my frame would provide the best foreground. Widening my frame to 27mm allowed me to balance the sun with Reynisdrangar (the 3 sea stacks in the distance). With that framework in place, I moved around looking for the best combination of close foreground that would also allow me to include the large rock with the greatest potential for a big wave. Since the sky wasn’t especially compelling, and I really liked the surf and rocks below me, I minimized the sky in favor of the much more interesting foreground.
Hoping for a sunstar, I stopped down to f/20, which had the added benefit of extra depth of field cushion. I focused on the large grassy patch. With my composition in place, I just stood back and waited for big waves, clicking each time one reached its apex. The biggest waves were few and far between, but I crossed my fingers for one to land while the sun was still on the horizon.
Turns out I got one really big wave—not the biggest I’d seen, but big enough. And as you can see, haze on the horizon meant the sunstar never materialized, but it also kept the sun from washing out the sky’s rich gold sunrise hues. (I actually think I like it better without the sunstar, which might have overpowered the rest of the scene.)
This is probably not a picture that will make me rich, but I like it not only for whatever aesthetic value it might possess, but also for the reminder of this beautiful Iceland morning, the sacrifices we nature photographers make in pursuit of our passion, and for the way my effort to assemble the scene’s disparate elements into a coherent scene actually came together (never a sure thing).
Assembly Required
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Tunnel Vision
Posted on April 24, 2023
Spring Rainbow, Bridalveil Fall, Yosemite
Sony a7R V
Sony 24-105 f/4 G
ISO 100
f/10
1/250 second
For everyone who woke up today thinking, “Gee, I sure wish there were more Yosemite pictures from Tunnel View,” you’ve come to the right place. Okay, seriously, the world probably doesn’t actually need any more Tunnel View pictures, but that’s not going to stop me.
Visitors who burst from the darkness of the Wawona Tunnel like Dorothy stepping from her monochrome farmhouse into the color of Oz, are greeted by a veritable who’s who of Yosemite icons: El Capitan, Cloud’s Rest, Half Dome, Sentinel Rock, Sentinel Dome, Cathedral Rocks, Bridalveil Fall, and Leaning Tower.
Yosemite Tunnel View subjects
Camera or not, that’s a lot to take in. First-time visitors might just just snap a picture of the whole thing and call it good. For more seasoned visitors like me, the challenge at Tunnel View is creating unique (or at least less common) images. But that’s not enough to keep me from returning, over and over.
Many people’s mental image of Yosemite was formed by the numerous Ansel Adams prints of this view. And while it’s quite possible those images were indeed captured at Tunnel View, many Adams prints assumed to be Tunnel View were actually captured from nearby Inspiration Point, 1,000 feet higher.
Before Wawona Tunnel’s opening in 1933 completed the current Wawona Road into Yosemite Valley, the vista we now know as Tunnel View was just an anonymous granite slope on the side of a mountain. Before 1933, visitors entering Yosemite from the south navigated Old Wawona Road, a steep, winding track more suited to horses and wagons than motorized vehicles. Inspiration Point was the Tunnel View equivalent on this old road.
To complicate matters further, there are actually three Inspiration Points in Yosemite. The original Inspiration Point is the location where the first non-Native eyes feasted on Yosemite Valley in the mid-19th century. Decades later, Old Wawona Road was carved into the forest and granite to provide an “easier” (relatively speaking) route between Wawona and Yosemite Valley. The valley vista that was established on this route and labeled Inspiration Point is the one popularized by Ansel Adams. But today that version of Inspiration Point has become so overgrown that hikers hardy enough to complete the steep climb up to the Ansel Adams Inspiration Point, must make their way a short distance down the slope to a spot where the view opens up, forming the New Inspiration Point. But I digress…
Almost certainly not my first visit
My total visits to Tunnel View, which predate my oldest memories, by now have to exceed 1,000. At first I had no say in the matter, having simply been a passenger on family trips since infancy. But when I became old enough to drive myself, my Tunnel View visits increased—most Yosemite trips included multiple visits.
The Tunnel View counter started clicking even faster as my interest in photography grew. More than just a one-of-a-kind scene to photograph, Tunnel View is also the best place in Yosemite to survey Yosemite Valley for a read on the current conditions elsewhere in the valley.
And as I’ve mentioned (ad nauseam), the view at Tunnel View is beautiful by any standard. And as it turns out, beauty is a pretty essential quality for a landscape image. Unfortunately, another essential landscape image criterion, especially for landscape photographers who pay the bills with their photography, is a unique image—ideally (aspirationally), but not necessarily, a one-of-a-kind image. So Tunnel View’s combination of unparalleled beauty and easy access means million of visitors each year, which makes finding something literally unique (one-of-a-kind) here virtually impossible.
But there are a few things I do to increase my chances of capturing something special enough to at least stand out—things you can do at any popular photo spot. Here are three:
- Experiment with focal length — At Tunnel View usually means using a telephoto to isolate individual elements, or combinations of elements: just El Capitan, or El Capitan and Half Dome; just Half Dome, or Half Dome and Bridalveil Fall; and so on. And an extreme telephoto allows me to zero in on just one aspect of a Tunnel View icon: Half Dome’s summit draped by clouds, El Capitan’s bold diagonals, the mist explosion at Bridalveil’s base, to name just three.
- Look behind you — Even though the granite walls outside Tunnel View’s classic view can’t compete with the money shot, failure to keep an eye on the surrounding walls risks missing light and clouds that can at times be spectacular. And even though I don’t photograph manmade objects, I’ve seen some great images by others using Wawona Tunnel to frame Yosemite Valley, or with the tunnel itself as the subject.
- Include special conditions — My favorite Tunnel View approach is to pair this already beautiful scene with one of the many ephemeral natural events possible here. Not only does the east-facing view mean warm late light on all the granite features, it also makes Tunnel View ideally situated for rising crescent (sunrise) and full (sunset) moons, and afternoon rainbows. And its position on Yosemite Valley’s west end means it’s usually the first place in Yosemite Valley that storms clear. Few sights in Nature more spectacular than a Tunnel View clearing storm, and no two are exactly the same.
The image I’m sharing today combines a couple of these approaches: a tighter than typical focal length, and special conditions. Though the Bridalveil Fall rainbow isn’t exactly unique, its combination of beauty and relative rarity keeps me coming back. And because the sun’s angle at any given moment, as well as the angle of view to Bridalveil Fall, are precisely known, I can predict the rainbow’s appearance each spring afternoon to within a few minutes (it varies slightly with the amount of water in the fall).
This rainbow makes a fantastic first shoot for my spring workshops. Usually I’m content to just stand and watch—and listen to the exclamations from my workshop students—but sometimes it’s to beautiful to resist. This year, with beautiful clouds overhead, dappled sunlight below, and a strong breeze to spread the rainbow’s palette, was one of those times.
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A Tunnel View Gallery
Relationship Building
Posted on April 17, 2023
Lunar Reflection, Half Dome and Cook’s Meadow, Yosemite
Sony a7R V
Sony 24-105 f/4 G
ISO 100
f/10
1/8 second
It’s all about relationships
I write a lot about relationships in photography. Often I’m referring relationships with my subjects, which could mean gaining better understanding of a location—not just the where and when of its photo opportunities, but its weather and geology (especially), as well as its flora, fauna, and history. (Of course I love visiting new places too, but I’ve never felt particularly driven to expand my portfolio through relentless pursuit of new locations.)
As important as location relationships are my relationships with the natural phenomena that inspire me understand the science behind the ephemeral phenomena that fascinate me enough to photograph them. Things like lightning, rainbows, reflections, sunrise/sunset color, fall color, and anything celestial simply fascinate me and it never feels like work to study them.
But there’s another side to photography’s relationship coin that takes place within the frame of an image. I’m talking about the visual relationships between disparate subjects—juxtaposing one subject with another physical subject (nearby or distant), or elevating a favorite location by photographing it under the spell of a favorite natural phenomenon.
However these relationships happen, it’s only logical that the best photography takes place when intimate knowledge of location and natural phenomena are combined to create the intra-image relationships that make an image sing.
Sometimes this seems so obvious the we make these connections without realizing we’re doing it. when we visit a vista that includes multiple features, or travel to a favorite location to photograph it with sunset light or fall color. Other times we’re beneficiaries of happy accidents, when something unexpected just happens to manifest while we’re there. And while I love happy accidents as much as anyone, we should never count on them.
In general, the more deliberate we can be about consciously combining the things we love in our photography, the better our images will be. Of course some of my favorite images are happy accidents—something unexpected that just happened to take place while I was there to witness it—but the vast majority were more strategic.
So I guess in a way that would make me a photographic matchmaker, aggressively seeking to create relationships, not just with, but for the things I love most. Whether it’s fresh snow in Yosemite, lightning at Grand Canyon, the northern lights in Iceland, or the Milky Way in New Zealand, it’s usually not an accident that I was there. Of course there are no guarantee any of these things will happen as planned, but I always do my best to maximize my odds.
As much as I’d love to claim that creating these matches makes me some kind of photographic savant, I’m afraid it’s far simpler than that. (Like most people) I can read a weather report and get a few days advance notice of snow in Yosemite Valley; I know that the ingredients for a rainbow are sunlight and airborne water droplets (like rain and waterfall mist), and that my shadow always points in the direction of the rainbow’s center; the time window for any location’s fall color peak is generally common knowledge; and the moon and Milky Way follow precise schedules, and there are plenty of resources that reveal their position in the sky at any time, from any location. All I need to do is act on this information.
Tying it all together
Usually all you need to do to understand the relationships I’m seeking in a workshop is to look at the workshop’s name. The image I’m sharing in this blog post was captured during my Yosemite Moonbow and Wildflowers photo workshop earlier this month—but, as you can see, there is in fact (and fortunately) more to Yosemite in spring than moonbows and wildflowers.
When I scheduled this workshop more than a year ago, I knew for a fact that it would take place during the full moon that’s necessary for the Lower Yosemite Fall moonbow, and that the angle of the rising moon relative to the fall would be just right. And I knew from experience that the odds of wildflowers in April were extremely high. What I didn’t know was whether we’d have clear or cloudy skies, nor could I have anticipated California’s unprecedented wet and cold winter and how it might threaten to throw a wrench in my plans.
This is where the location familiarity part of relationship building comes in handy, as I was able to adjust enough that we ended up with some wonderful photography, albeit something that was much closer to a winter workshop than a spring workshop. This group had chilly temperatures, clouds, a little rain, and lots of snow (mostly on the ground, but a few flakes as well). Nevertheless, as you no doubt know if you read my previous blog post, we were able to catch the very beginning of what has turned out to be a very late (but potentially spectacular) wildflower bloom, so I was able to deliver something as advertised.
The moonbow part of my plan was a little more problematic. While Yosemite Falls is fed entirely by snowmelt, and the Sierra received record snowfall this winter boded well for our chances, the temperatures hadn’t warmed enough yet for the fall to deliver the explosion of mist at its base necessary for the moonbow. (There was nice flow in the fall, just not enough for the moonbow.) We tried, but ended up with a moonlight shoot sans moonbow.
On to Plan B
From the moon to the Milky Way, regular readers of my blog know of my fascination with all things celestial. Orbital geometry aligns Yosemite’s moon with different features as the seasons change, and I try to be there for as many moonrises as possible. Since the full moon happens during this workshop, photographing it is always part of my plan. On the other hand, because the moon doesn’t align as perfectly with Half Dome or El Capitan as it does in winter, it’s more of a bonus than it is something I advertise.
The first night clouds that threatened my moonrise made for great photography, and we kicked off with a nice Tunnel View shoot. Since the wet winter also meant reflective vernal pools in Yosemite Valley’s meadows, to create a sunset match for my workshop students on that cloudy first evening, I opted for the vernal pool in Cook’s Meadow. (For good reason, Cook’s Meadow itself is closed to visitors to allow the meadow to recover from years of pedestrian abuse—we approached the pool from behind, via the trail from the Sentinel Bridge parking lot, and never actually entered the meadow.)
I was actually thinking about multiple matches this evening: not only does this location have a great view of Half Dome, the vernal pool is ideally positioned for a Half Dome reflection. And I knew (but kept to myself for fear of jinxing us) that in the off-chance that the clouds parted, this would be the best location to add the moon to our Half Dome reflection scene.
Between Half Dome, the reflection, and clouds kissed by warm light, I almost forgot about the moon. But about 20 minutes before sunset the clouds opened and there it was. I’d already been strategically moving about to manage the reflection’s relationship to the various features dotting the water’s surface, taking care to frame Half Dome rather than obscure it. So the biggest obstacle I had to overcome was making sure that everyone else had their shot before I got mine.
Since most of us were set up within a few feet of each other, I was able to provide impromptu coaching on how to expose bright enough to capture the shadows without blowing out the moon (read more here). Another (counterintuitive) learning point was to point out that the focus point for a reflection is the same as the focus point for the reflective subject, not the reflective surface (read more here).
One more thing
People ask me if I ever tire of Yosemite, and I can honestly answer, no. Part of keeping Yosemite fresh for me is the infectious excitement that happens when the people I’m with witness something like what we saw this evening. Even without the moon, this Half Dome scene provided a great Yosemite introduction for everyone. But when the clouds lit up and the moon popped out, it elevated to one of those truly special Yosemite moments that I’ll never tire of sharing.
Photographic Matchmaking
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Leveraging Light
Posted on April 11, 2023
Glow, California Golden Poppy, Merced River Canyon
Sony a7R V
Sony 100-400 GM
2 extension tubes (26mm total)
ISO 100
f/5.6
1/400 second
In last week’s post I wrote about the importance of distilling a scene to its essence. I suggested that the best way to achieve this is to eliminate all but the scene’s most essential elements, and emphasized using precise cropping to banish unwanted objects to the world outside the frame. And while it could be argued that this careful cropping might be the most essential part of the scene-distilling process (or at least the foundation upon which to build), it’s often not enough.
Many (most?) scenes, even after the most surgical cropping, can remain filled with distractions that dilute the image’s impact. Areas of brightness, distinctive but irrelevant features, and objects cut off or intruding at the sides of the frame are just a few examples of visual elements that can distract the eye and confuse viewers looking for clues about the image’s purpose.
But take heart, all is not lost for photographers able to jettison the urge to “reproduce the world just the way I saw it.” The truth is, reproducing the world as we see it is literally impossible, and the sooner you come to terms with that truth, the better off you’ll be.
Setting aside our own reality to leverage our camera’s reality starts with understanding that “reality” is in fact a moving target defined by the medium interpreting it. Humans’ definition of “real” is founded on the three-dimensional, 360 degree, continuous-motion, multi-sense input delivered to our eye/brain collaboration. A camera, on the other hand, captures a two-dimensional, static, mono-sensory version of our very dynamic world.
But before lamenting your camera’s limitations, pause to consider that, in the grand scheme of perpetual electromagnetic energy that surrounds us, what you and I see is an tiny fraction of the infinite continuum of electromagnetic wavelengths continuously (and ubiquitously) careening about the Universe.
For example, X-ray machines peer into the world of electromagnetic waves in the one nanometer (one billionth of a meter); TVs and radios “see” waves that are measured in centimeters; humans, on the other hand, see only the waves in a very narrow band between (about) 400 and 750 nanometers. Understanding all allows doctors to expose subcutaneous secrets, astronomers to explore our galaxy and beyond, and the military and law enforcement to view “invisible” (to us) infrared signatures that reveal people and objects in complete darkness. In other words, there’s no single absolute visual standard—it’s all relative to the frame of reference.
The photographer’s job is to embrace his or her camera’s unique frame of reference, and to understand the power they possess to convey aspects of the world missed by the human experience. That “instant” a still photo is limited to can actually be stretched with a long exposure that compresses a potentially infinite number of instants to reveal, in a single frame, patterns of motion and flow. And the information a camera can’t see gives photographers incredible power to hide or minimize distractions, to control the world inside their frame, and to emphasize select elements over other elements.
All this might explain why I’ve always considered myself a film photographer with a digital camera. That doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate and use the incredible processing power digital photography brings, but it does mean that the images I process are limited to the photons captured in a single click. I just find no joy in adding information through focus or exposure blending of multiple images. Rather, I prefer leaning into my camera’s visual shortcomings by subtracting the aspects of the scene that don’t serve the image. (There’s nothing wrong with honest image blending, it just doesn’t give me joy.)
The image I share today, a brand new one from last week’s Yosemite Moonbow and Wildflowers photo workshop, got me thinking about the importance of subtracting distractions, and the power of my camera’s relatively narrow (compared to human vision) dynamic range to emphasize the most important qualities my subject. I’ve always loved the way sunlit poppies seem to radiate from within, as if illuminated by their own internal light source, and am always looking for ways to highlight it.
Based on my observations last month (normally a reliable start to the poppy season in Northern California), and the persistence of California’s incredibly chilly spring (by our standards), I wasn’t even sure I’d have a chance do any poppy photography this year. But scouting my poppy spots near Yosemite for last week’s workshop, I was thrilled to see that the poppies were just starting to erupt. They were still quite small, and rather thinly distributed, but were already plentiful enough to photograph. I reasoned (hoped) that a few days of sun might really kick them into gear, so I planned the workshop wildflower shoot for our final afternoon. It turns out I’d reasoned right, and a few days of sunlight was indeed exactly what the doctor ordered.
I found this solitary poppy jutting from a rocky wall in the Merced River Canyon, about 10 miles west of Yosemite Valley. I was especially drawn to the flower’s warm glow, but no matter how I framed it, the rest of the scene was ugly rock, brown dirt, and scraggly weeds.
I’d armed myself this afternoon with my Sony a7R V camera and Sony 100-400 GM lens; to focus closer, I’d also added two extension tubes totaling 26mm. Though it was only mid-afternoon, with the sun well into its daily descent, the shadows were already stretching deep into nearby nooks and crannies.
After studying the scene, I lowered my tripod and positioned my camera beneath the flower for the best view of its backlit, glowing petals. Instead of trying to make the scene look the way I saw it, I took advantage of my camera’s “limited” dynamic range and underexposed enough to blacken the superfluous background detail. The result is this simple image (which required very little processing, BTW) that, while nothing like what my eyes saw, contains only the elements of the scene I was interested in: the glowing poppy and its softly lit stem on a canvas of black shadow.
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Leveraging Light
Distilling the Essence
Posted on April 2, 2023
Frozen, Skógafoss, Iceland
Sony a7R V
Sony 100-400 GM
ISO 100
f/10
1/13 second
The art of subtraction
Presented with a complex world, the nature photographer’s job is to identify a scene’s visually interesting elements and figure out how to use them in an image. While most photographers have no problem seeing what to include in their images, many struggle with what to leave out. But the best pictures usually work at least as much for what’s not in them as for what’s in them.
That’s because, as much as we seek beauty to add to our images, photography is ultimately an art of subtraction. Our ability to ruthlessly subtract elements that, despite their inherent visual appeal, don’t serve the image is an important skill that’s worth cultivating.
When I look back at old images that somehow ended up pleasing me less than the scene excited me when I photographed it (we’ve all been there, right?), I see now that often the problem was that I included too much. The product of my failure was an image with visual busyness that distracted from the main point, or that completely lacked a point, and confused viewers: “What am I supposed to be looking at here?”
As my photography evolved, I started identifying ways to distill complex scenes. One approach is through careful use of exposure variables to manage what I call photography’s “creative triad”: motion, depth, and light—motion blur to smooth turbulent or choppy water; focus blur to soften background and foreground distractions; and silhouette or high key exposure to erase unwanted elements and simplify the scene to just color and shape.
But even before working the creative triad, distilling a scene to its essence requires ruthless (there’s that word again) cropping—simply knowing what to put in, what to leave out, and the confidence (courage) to do it. Start by identifying the elements in the scene that draw the eye. Think in terms of implicit connecting lines that define their relationship to each other. Move around—forward/backward, left/right, up/down—until your prime elements feel organized.
If you’re still not feeling a connection between all of your prime elements, it’s time to start eliminating things—you can always return to that beautiful subject you composed out and feature it in another composition. And if you’re still not finding visual coherence, don’t be afraid to just click an image, stand back and evaluate it on your camera’s LCD screen, and adjust. Then repeat as necessary.
Try this
One simple way to exercise this skill is with the Crop tool in Photoshop or Lightroom. Start with any image (your own or someone else’s—the goal is to train your eye, not to create an image you’ll use), open it in your image processing software of choice (I use Photoshop for this exercise), set the Crop tool to 2/3 aspect ratio (or whatever your camera uses), and see how many new images you can find in the original. Whether the source image was horizontal or vertical, use both orientations of the Crop tool. Again, this is an exercise to train your eye, not to create a usable image, but I’m confident that you’ll find this new vision translates to your viewfinder when you’re in the field.
You can do the same thing on location with a telephoto lens. After you feel like you’ve exhausted all of a scene’s wide options, remove the camera from the tripod, increase your focal length by zooming tighter or switching to a longer lens, and slowly pan with your eye to the viewfinder. Closely monitor your reaction to what you see and honor any urge to stop. The goal isn’t to forgo wide angle compositions, it’s to help identify the scene’s essence, those visual aspects of the scene that matter most. I think you’ll be surprised by what you find (what your eyes originally missed).
For example
Winter Rainbow, Skógafoss, Iceland
Too often we get so caught up in a scene’s grandeur and miss the details that make it special. Most nature photographers when presented with a grand scene go straight to a wide angle lens—a perfectly valid way to start. The problem is, once we feel like we’ve nailed the wide shot, we move on—even if not physically, then at least mentally.
After a long drive from Iceland’s Snæfellsnes Peninsula, still basking in the thrill of the previous night’s aurora show (and oblivious to the show we’d enjoy that night), the Iceland workshop group wasn’t really thinking about much but getting comfortable at our hotel in Vik. But anyone arriving at Skógafoss near Iceland’s South Coast on this January afternoon couldn’t help being excited by the scene’s beauty.
Always an impressive waterfall for the massive amounts of water it dispenses, recent extreme cold (even for Iceland) had turned the abundant mist saturating the surrounding rocks into an icicle convention. But the real eye candy that grabbed everyone’s instant attention was the rainbow ebbing and flowing with the wind above the fall—one second it was there, the next it was gone.
Reinvigorated, we all charged from the bus and “rushed” as fast as our crampons could navigate the frozen path. Wanting to capture all this scene’s beauty, I instantly reached for my Sony α1 which was preloaded with my Sony 16 – 35 f/2.8 GM lens. Each time the rainbow appeared I clicked like crazy, trying a variety of wide compositions and continuing until shadow overtook the fall and the rainbow disappeared for good.
It would have been so easy to be satisfied with my bounty and retreat to the comfortable warmth of the bus. But before leaving I took a few seconds to scrutinize the surrounding ice more closely. And the longer I looked, the more I realized that I was seeing something truly special. I grabbed my Sony a7R V, attached my Sony 100-400 GM lens, and started panning the scene, finally stopping on this beautiful natural ice sculpture.
After attaching my camera to my tripod, I spent the next 20 minutes repositioning, then deliberately clicking and refining, until I was satisfied that I’d found the right location and framing. In the wider image with the rainbow, this section of ice was still illuminated by low, warm sunlight that created deep shadows and bright highlights. But by the time I landed on this composition, the sunlight was gone and all the ice was bathed in cool, soft shadow with minimal contrast.
This is another one of those simple images that probably won’t generate a swarm of social media attention, but it makes me happy because it taps one of the prime reasons I’m a photographer: to reveal Nature’s exquisite intricacies that are often overlooked in favor of more in-your-face beauty.
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Essence Distilled
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Eloquent Images by Gary Hart 