Eloquent Images by Gary Hart
Insight, information, and inspiration for the inquisitive nature photographer
More Than a Pretty Picture
Posted on April 26, 2026
Morning Light, Half Dome and Merced River, Yosemite
Sony a7R V
Sony 24-105 G
1/25 seconds
F/11
ISO 100
Before exploring for the scene that ultimately delivered the image in my prior blog post, I got my February group set up at what I’ve always felt was the primary view at this location. With Half Dome framed on the left by towering evergreens, on the right by a long diagonal ridge, and the tree-lined Merced River in the foreground, this spot has all the landscape ingredients a beautiful image needs. Stir in fresh snow, translucent clouds, and warm sunlight, and the beauty is ratcheted off the charts.
I interrupt this photo blog to share a little about what’s been disrupting my life this week: a “minor” home remodel. In the grand scheme of things you can do to improve a house, upgrading kitchen cabinets (completely new exteriors, all new drawers, pull-out shelves) is no big deal. But anything that requires my wife and me to completely pack up the kitchen and basically camp out in our living room at least feels quite major.
Before the installers even started, our preparation included emptying the original cabinets into boxes, relocating our refrigerator to the dining room, removing the above-range microwave, and expanding the dining room table enough to host our kitchen essentials—convection oven, microwave, espresso machine, and Vitamix—while somehow leaving just enough remaining space for meal prep and dining for two.
Suddenly, our entire downstairs was a an obstacle course of boxes and countertop items (who knew a relatively small kitchen could hold so much?). My wife and I both work from home, but while I could retreat to my upstairs office, her workspace was downstairs amidst the mayhem. To get any work done amidst the din of power saws and sanders, each of us had to resort to noise-cancelling headphones at multiple points.
I’m happy to report that the just-completed cabinets exceed our lofty expectations, and the cars are back in the garage where they belong. On the other hand, at least half of our stuff is still in boxes as we meticulously unpack and reorganize our “new” kitchen.
Since every hardship is a learning opportunity, here are the things this experience taught us to never take for granted again: a kitchen sink, a dishwasher, parking inside, on-demand filtered water straight from the fridge, and not having to rummage through boxes to find that thing we never imagined we should leave out (cheese grater, coffee filters, 1/4 measuring cup, and on, and on…).
Next up? Hmmm, this 20-year old interior paint is starting to look a little dated…
So, anyway…
Finding the confluence of all these landscape and atmospheric elements is the stuff landscape photographers dream of. But I think far too many, when gifted this opportunity, simply settle for capturing the beautiful scene. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.) In so doing, they miss an opportunity to elevate their images something extraordinary.
I see examples of this kind of settling everywhere. Whether it’s social media, hotel room “art,” screensavers, calendars, postcards, or any other medium that displays beautiful landscape photography, I can’t help shaking my head at clearly beautiful scenes that could have made much better images had the photographer taken a few simple steps.
It seems almost as if they said, “Wow, this is so beautiful, all I have to do is click my shutter before it goes away.” And if your only goal is to save the moment, read no further. But to my mind, the more beautiful a scene, the more important it is to squeeze every ounce of beauty from it. I could probably go on for hours on this topic, but I’ll try to distill my thoughts down to a few basic points.
Foremost is the need to be aware of the way the viewer’s eye moves through the frame. When I decide a scene is worth photographing, I start by identifying what I want the image to be about—a spectacular view, a specific subject, a collection of subjects, beautiful light, and so on (or some combination of these)—then identify the best way to guide my viewers’ eyes there.
With the “about” decided, I survey the scene to identify elements that possess “visual weight”—objects or features that pull the eye like gravity pulls celestial objects. Qualities that give an object visual weight include size, brightness, contrast, color, position in the scene, or any other characteristic that makes something stand out from its surroundings.
The value (in an image) of an object possessing visual weight isn’t necessarily a function of the object’s aesthetic appeal. A very ordinary feature in the right position qualifies as a desirable VW feature when it serves a scene’s most striking element, either by creating a balance point, by completing a virtual line that connects to the primary subject or other VW object, or through some combination of these. On the other hand, a beautiful but poorly positioned feature could actually work against the scene’s primary subject.
Undesirable objects with visual weight draw the eye away from the focal point of the image. I try to compose these out of the scene, or deemphasize them in the composition—for example, putting them in a less prominent location, burying them in the foreground of a silhouette, or deemphasizing them with soft focus. When none of those options are available, burning (darkening) the offending object in processing often works wonders.
Viewers subconsciously draw virtual lines connecting objects with visual weight. Desirable objects with visual weight can be “connected” virtually by creating appealing positional relationships. I’m especially drawn to diagonal connections between these objects, and look to create them whenever possible.
Another frequently overlooked aspect of “pretty scene” pictures that fall short of their potential is distracting elements that pull the eye from whatever the scene is supposed to be about. In addition to, and often even worse than, misplaced visual weight objects in the main part of the scene, is messy borders. Since the visual weight of objects seems to increase on the border of the frame (this is just a personal observation that feel pretty strongly about), I always strive for clean borders by avoiding cutting things off (most of it in the frame, but just a little piece missing), or having them jut in (most of an object outside the frame, with just a small piece visible).
But since we’re photographing the natural world, scenes usually don’t cooperate, often making it impossible to avoid objects cut off or jutting in at the edges of the frame. In that case, it’s most important to make cutting your border objects a conscious choice, rather than not checking at all and placing the border wherever it happens to fall while you concentrate on the main part of the scene. This border awareness includes clouds at the top of the frame, which I find to be an especially overlooked flaw that’s usually a pretty easy to fix—if you make the effort to look.
In the Half Dome image above, in a very general sense this was the first composition I saw when I arrived here. But not wanting to settle for the (undeniably) pretty scene, I went to work finding my about and visual weight objects and overall framing. Half Dome was the obvious “about” choice, but I also wanted to feature the snow and morning light in the clouds.
The first thing I noticed when I framed up something that featured these elements while composing wide enough to include the river too, was the log jutting in on the lower left. Eliminating it completely also eliminated the best part of the river, so I went with Plan B: composing wide enough to make the log one of my VW objects, taking it off the border and far enough into the scene to create a nice diagonal connection with Half Dome.
Including all of the rock (from which the log emerges) meant going much wider than I wanted to, and introduced other undesirable elements, like other workshop students (I know what you’re thinking: no, the students were not undesirable, I just didn’t want them in my frame). But I got enough of the rock so it didn’t appear to be an afterthought, making sure not cut off that small, horizontal patch of snow beneath the (unavoidable) snowy cap.
The right side of my frame was determined by a protruding branch that I didn’t want to include. With the left and right setting my focal length, I just had to aim my camera up and down until I found the right combination of foreground snow below, and translucent clouds above.
Assembly Required
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Who’s Counting?
Posted on April 18, 2026
Winter Morning, Half Dome and Merced River, Yosemite
Sony a7R V
Sony 24-105 G
1/25 seconds
F/11
ISO 100
I get a lot of questions during a photo workshop, but about 80% of them are some version of, “Should I do it this way or that way?”:
- “Should I shoot this with a wide or telephoto lens?”
- “Should I shoot this horizontal or vertical?”
- “Should I include that rock or leave it out?”
- “Should I polarize this or not?”
- “Should I freeze or blur the waterfall?”
- “Should I…?”
Some photographers are so paralyzed by these choices, they choose to do nothing rather than make a “mistake.” They forget that, as with every other artistic endeavor, in photography there’s no universal right or wrong, no consensus on the best way to render a scene.
Other photographers are inhibited by the subconscious need to conserve resources at all costs. That need to conservative probably started way back in our childhood, when we were constantly warned not to waste: clean your plate, turn off the light when you leave the room, don’t leave the water running, and a host of other waste-related proclamations are a right of passage for American (and likely everywhere else) youth.
Adding to our formative-years’ “don’t waste” anxiety, when film shooters graduated to our first “grown-up” camera (one that didn’t involve a film cartridge and pop-on flash cube—I’m looking at you, Kodak 104), after being rendered destitute by our complex new equipment, we were suddenly punched in the wallet again (and again, and again…) by the perpetual expense of film and processing. It’s no wonder we grew accustomed to sparing every frame, an inclination that for most became ingrained.
Conserving resources is certainly important, but that parsimony shouldn’t come at the expense of your photographic success. In the immortal words of Michael Scott:
Still not convinced? Here’s a paradigm bending insight that might help: While every click with a film camera costs money (film and processing), every click with a digital camera increases the return on your investment. That’s right: each time you take a picture with your digital camera, your cost per click drops. So click freely and stop counting—there’s no limit to the number of pictures it takes to get to the one you’re hoping for.
I’m not suggesting that you put your camera in continuous shooting mode and fire away*. But I am encouraging you to shoot liberally, the more the better—albeit with a purpose. And there’s no law saying that purpose must be a successful image.
A shutter click can just be a way to get in the mood, or to determine whether there really is a shot there (I don’t always know whether a scene is worth shooting until I’ve clicked a couple of frames), or simply an experiment.
Following that mindset, I frequently play “what-if?” games with my camera: “What if I do this?” I’d be mortified if people saw some of these what-if? images, but I do usually learn something from even the worst of them. Often that learning is simply what not to do, because a failure is at least a way to understand why something didn’t work, and often leads to ideas for how it might work the next time.
Even when a scene is so beautiful that a successful picture feels inevitable, I always consider my first click a draft: rather than a completed masterpiece, my goal for the first few clicks of a scene is to establish a foundation that I can incrementally improve until I’m satisfied the finished product is as “perfect” as it can be.
When I’m not sure of the best way to handle a scene, I shoot it multiple ways, deferring the decision until I view the images on a large monitor. Not only using a variety of compositions, but a variety of depth, exposure, and motion effects as well.
And never settle for just one excellent image. When photographing a scene that truly thrills you, slow down and shoot it with as much variety as possible: horizontal/vertical, wide/tight, as well as multiple foregrounds, backgrounds, and framing—as many variations as you can come up with. I mean, you never know when a magazine might want to put a vertical version of that horizontal Half Dome in the snow image on their cover—even if it’s not obvious at first, most great horizontal scenes have great vertical scenes as well (and vice-versa).
Which brings me to today’s image of, not coincidentally, Half Dome in the snow.
This was the first morning of the workshop formerly known as “Yosemite Horsetail Fall.” Click the images below to read more (I’ll still be here when you get back):
Circling Yosemite Valley, we feasted our eyes on the new snow covering every exposed surface. My job was to find the best views to put with all that still pristine snow. Beauty surrounded us, but with filling the bowl of Yosemite Valley, views beyond 100 yards had disappeared.
Approaching Sentinel Bridge, I glimpsed Half Dome peeking through the clouds; my instant inclination was to pull into the Sentinel Bridge parking lot, but we found the lot covered with a foot of overnight snow still waiting for the day’s first snowplow. I was pretty sure my Outback could handle it, but I was less confident about the other two cars in our caravan. So I crossed my fingers that Half Dome would hang in a little longer and continued toward another favorite, and less known, view of Half Dome.
We found the parking at this next spot, about a mile beyond Yosemite Lodge, a little less problematic. The downside here was that getting to the view requires a (roughly) quarter mile “hike” on a flat and normally well-worn riverside trail. But of course that trail was now obscured by at least a foot of fresh powder. Since I was the only one who knew where we were going, it fell to me to blaze a new trail. Concerned about missing the window to photograph Half Dome before it disappeared again, I quickly grabbed my camera bag and headed through the forest as fast as the snow allowed, my group in tow.
At first the going was pretty manageable, but whenever we exited the evergreen canopy into a more open stretch, the powder doubled and I sunk in above my knees with each step. Normally when leading a group to a new spot, I need to take care not to walk too fast, lest those not familiar with the route lose track of me. But battling through the snow slowed me enough to allow everyone drafting behind me to keep up—and even if someone did fall a little behind, they’d have no problem following the path cut by the rest of us.
Needless to say, bundled for winter and hurrying as quickly as I could, I worked up a real sweat in that quarter mile. The rest of the group wasn’t far behind, and we shared the thrill of the workshop’s first peek at Half Dome, never a certainty in stormy weather. We photographed here for nearly an hour, watching Half Dome disappear and emerge from the clouds many times, creating new opportunities every minute, and also a constant reminder Half Dome could disappear for good any second.
To my eye, the obvious composition was horizontal, with a foreground that included the river (with a partial reflection) and lots of snow-draped trees and rocks. But after working on many versions of that scene, including some vertical versions, I went exploring to see what else I could find.
Less than 20 feet from my original spot, I found this view of Half Dome framed by snowy trees and the graceful curves of drifting snow. I tried many versions of this scene as well, both horizontal and vertical, before landing on this one that was a little tighter than most of the other frames I’d come up with.
In the dozens of photos I came away with are probably more clunkers than classics, but I don’t care. And honestly, this was one of those extra frames that I forced myself to shoot because the scene was too nice to quit, not because I saw something special—it wasn’t until I reviewed my images on my big monitor at home that I realized it was an image worth processing and sharing. (And I know there are probably more keepers in this morning’s folder, just waiting for me to uncover.)
Photography often requires instantaneous choices, and Nature doesn’t usually wait until you’re ready. Just because you’re not sure what you’ll end up with, or don’t have a pro photographer whispering guidance and reassurance in your ear, doesn’t mean you should stop shooting. Even if you don’t see any winners at the time, at the very least you’ll learn something—and who knows, you might just surprise yourself later.
* True story: I once had a woman in a workshop put her Nikon D4 in continuous shooting mode, hold the camera in front of her, depress the shutter button, and spin. When I asked her what in the world she was doing, she replied, “It’s Yosemite—there’s bound to be something good in there.”
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Half Dome Views
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Yosemite at its Best
Posted on April 5, 2026
White Gold, El Capitan and the Three Brothers, Yosemite
Sony α1
Sony 16-35 GM II
1/100 second
F/10
ISO 100
If anyone had told me that my annual Yosemite Horsetail Fall photo workshop would get no opportunity to photograph the molten sunset light on El Capitan; that many of my go-to locations, including Tunnel View, would be inaccessible for the entire workshop; that Half Dome would be shrouded in clouds for all but a few hours; that the park would actually shut down the afternoon before our final day, I’d have started preparing to placate a lot of disappointed photographers. Instead, though all of that did in fact come true, this group got to see Yosemite at its absolute best.
Rather than the clear skies and sunset fire every Horsetail chaser prays for, the day before the workshop a series of cold winter storms descended on Yosemite, obscuring the sun and delivering more snow than I’ve ever had to deal with in 20 years of Yosemite photo workshops. In fact, I can’t think of any workshop at any location, including Iceland and New Zealand in winter, that had this much snow.
With all this white stuff came all the inconveniences you might imagine (and some you might not): challenging driving, difficult (to impossible) access to many photo sites, chilly photography conditions, wet clothes and gear, and vanishing Yosemite icons. Not only were some of my favorite views inaccessible, the views that were accessible aren’t much use when the featured monolith or waterfall isn’t visible.
Some of my workshops locations are so spread out, I don’t have a lot of location timing flexibility. But Yosemite Valley’s compactness enables me to change plans on the fly. I start each workshop with a mental list of must-see locations, plus a list of secondary and tertiary locations to augment the prime spots as schedule permits—exactly when we get to these locations depends on the conditions. But all this workshop’s snow really forced me to dig deep into my (lifetime’s worth) bag of location tricks.
One of my favorite locations to take my groups is a riverside view of El Capitan that has been unofficially, and affectionately, dubbed “Tahiti Beach.” Though no secret to photographers, being a little bit off the road with no obvious trail to the river makes Tahiti Beach relatively free of tourists. But if you’ve been in one of my Yosemite workshops, you’ve been here. Not just a great El Capitan view, it’s hands-down the best Yosemite Valley view of the Three Brothers. And if that’s not enough, Tahiti Beach’s proximity to an especially flat stretch of the Merced River means great reflections. (Continued below)
“Tahiti Beach”
Throughout Yosemite, the best Merced River reflections are possible when the spring snowmelt has subsided and the rushing Merced has slowed to a more leisurely pace—that’s usually from mid-summer through early the following spring. That’s the case at Tahiti Beach too, but if you’re especially lucky, you’ll find yourself here at peak spring runoff following a wet winter, usually sometime in May, when the river rises enough to leave its banks and flood the meadow and form a shallow, perfectly still reflective pool.
Tahiti Beach can be very nice in late afternoon light, but I’m especially fond of the morning’s first sun on El Capitan, and the opportunity to add a reflection makes this one of my favorite spots for that. In a normal Yosemite workshop, conditions are predictable enough that I can get my group to each of my prime locations in the best conditions, and Tahiti beach is often on the menu for our second morning.
This year, a look at the forecast was enough to know that the conventional location rules would be completely different for this workshop, and I emphasized in the orientation that we’d need to be quick on our feet to adjust to rapidly changing conditions. That reality became immediately clear from the instant we set out for our first shoot, and was further reinforced the following morning, when my plans were immediately thwarted by closed roads and low clouds at several of my first-choice locations.
Refusing to be defeated, we slowly circled the valley, waiting for the inevitable clearing. I eventually took everyone on a short but sweet hike to an off-the-beaten-path spot where we enjoyed a brief but beautiful view of Half Dome before the clouds lowered again. Leaving there in very limited visibility, my plan was to circle back to the Lower Yosemite Fall trail, hoping that we might be able to get close enough to the fall to photograph it through the low clouds. I was afraid that this driving and waiting for openings was frustrating my group, but took heart in their unbridled awe for the beauty surrounding us.
Most of Yosemite Valley is navigated via a pair one-way roads: eastbound Southside Drive for those entering the park; westbound Northside Drive for those exiting; and a mid-point crossover to shortcut the loop. As we navigated the crossover and headed back east on Southside Drive, I saw hints that El Capitan might soon emerge and made a quick decision to pull over at the parking area for Tahiti Beach. Tahiti Beach wasn’t part of my plan for this morning, but I knew there were no more good views of El Capitan beyond here.
I parked and exited my car, and told everyone to stay put while I surveyed the scene. Though access to Tahiti Beach isn’t treacherous, even in good conditions it can be a little problematic for people with mobility problems—fortunately, multiple routes down to the river that range from short-but-steep to long-but-gradual allow me to offer my group multiple choice. But this morning I also had to factor in all this fresh snow that meant whichever route we chose, we’d be blazing a new trail.
About the time I decided I probably could get everyone down to the river, El Capitan and the Three Brothers popped out of the clouds. Though this roadside parking area provides nice views of El Capitan and the Three Brothers, its foreground—a scrubby meadow filled with similarly scrubby shrubs and small trees—can’t compete with the reflections possible at the river. But the snow had erased all of the negatives, replacing it with an undulating carpet of pristine white. Since there was no telling how long the increasingly spectacular El Capitan and Three Brothers view would last, I made a snap decision to not attempt to get to the river and just shoot from here.
Within minutes a shaft of warm sunlight split the swirling clouds to spotlight El Capitan, and I knew I’d made the right call. That was further validated when the direct light disappeared for good within a few minutes. Fortunately, the clouds stayed open long enough for everyone to get a wonderful assortment of beautiful and truly unique images of two Yosemite icons.
This workshop was filled with stories like this: frustrating disappearances, surprise appearances, sudden adjustments to plans, and ubiquitous beauty. Through it all, my group responded with euphoric enthusiasm, ignoring minor discomfort and inconvenience. Despite ending a day early, we all came away with memory cards filled with one-of-a-kind Yosemite images—no small feat in one of the most photographed places on Earth.
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The Many Faces of El Capitan
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Too Much of a Good Thing
Posted on March 10, 2026
Snowfall, Upper Cascade Fall, Yosemite
Sony a7R V
Sony 24-105 G
2.5 seconds
F/11
ISO 100
Greetings from Iceland! And no, despite appearances to the contrary, this image is not Iceland (or even Snowland), it’s Yosemite. (Actually, if you know Iceland, the “not Iceland” giveaway would be all the trees.)
People ask me all the time, what’s the best season to be in Yosemite? While I honestly can’t pick a “best” Yosemite season, I can say that each season in Yosemite offers its own set of good things that distinguish it from the other seasons. Even my least favorite season—yes, I can give you a least favorite Yosemite season—has many good things that I feel fortunate to have witnessed.
My least favorite is easy: summer. Summer is when the crowds swarm every square inch of Yosemite Valley, the waterfalls and meadows dry up, and the sky is chronically blank. But summer is also the only time Yosemite’s high country—Tuolumne Meadows, Olmsted Point, Glacier Point, Sentinel Dome, Taft Point, and the breathtaking High Sierra backcountry—is easily accessible.
While spring is when the tourists start returning to the park after their winter hiatus, it has enough booming waterfalls, fresh green meadows, reflective vernal pools, and ubiquitous dogwood blooms to make the increasing crowds (more than) tolerable. Spring is the Yosemite of postcards and calendar pictures, and probably the best season for first-timers.
In autumn, the now depleted snowpack has completely dried, or at least slowed to a trickle, Yosemite’s heralded waterfalls. But that diminished flow means the low and slow Merced River splits the length of Yosemite Valley like a twisting, reflective ribbon. Adding to these reflections a surprising abundance and variety of fall reds and golds elevates autumn to my personal favorite Yosemite season for creative photography.
That brings me to Yosemite’s most variable of seasons: winter. Come to Yosemite during a dry winter and you’ll find lots of dirt, bare deciduous trees, dry meadows, and unimpressive to nonexistent waterfalls. On the other hand, with the exception of the last couple of weeks in February, Yosemite in winter is refreshingly serene—and even late February’s Horsetail Fall mayhem doesn’t compare to the summer swarms. And even at its worst, winter reflections are quite nice, and it’s still Yosemite (El Capitan, Half Dome, et al haven’t gone anywhere), so I’ll take even the driest Yosemite winter without people over the nicest summer day.
But a Yosemite winter at its best is a sight to behold. Winter is Yosemite’s wet season, making it the best season for capturing a clearing storm. Most of the precipitation in Yosemite Valley falls as rain, but if you’re fortunate enough for your Yosemite visit to coincide with a cold storm that smothers Yosemite Valley in white, you’ll see it at its hands-down most beautiful. And while you may find yourself sharing this beauty with other ecstatic photographers, even the slightest threat of inclement weather seems to repel virtually all tourists.
Falling snow does introduce a host of difficulties that include: limited to impossible access to certain locations, treacherous driving, the potential for chain requirements (usually limited to vehicles without 4WD/AWD), and clouds temporarily shrouding Yosemite’s soaring monoliths and waterfalls. Not to mention the difficulties inherent to photographing in snowy conditions. But if you can overcome these hardships, the payoff is worth it.
The thing is, to witness Yosemite’s fresh-snow majesty, you need to be present among the falling flakes, no matter how cold the temperature or poor the photography. That’s because swirling clouds of a clearing storm vanish so quickly, and the trees start shedding their white coats almost the instant the sun comes out—if you wait until you hear it snowed in Yosemite Valley before rushing to the park, you’re too late. In fact, even if you’re actually present in the park and simply retreat to the shelter of your hotel room or a valley restaurant until the clearing starts, you risk missing some or all of the best stuff.
Living less than four hours from Yosemite Valley, monitoring the Yosemite forecast gives me enough advance notice to get to the park while the snow is still falling. In other words, it’s not by accident that my galleries are filled with so many Yosemite snow images.
But sometimes I just get lucky. Scheduling workshops a year or more in advance means no clue what the conditions will be—the best I can do is try to maximize the chances for something. Horsetail Fall happens in mid to late February, but all the tumblers clicking into place is never guaranteed. Similarly, while I know February is one of the most likely months for snow in Yosemite Valley, no snow is always more likely—but that doesn’t keep me from wishing. (As much as I hope for ideal Horsetail Fall conditions for my workshop—lots of water in the fall and unobstructed sunlight at sunset—I’ll take snow any day.)
This year’s Yosemite Horsetail Fall workshop, which wrapped up just a week before I departed for Iceland, fulfilled those snow dreams many times over. How much snow did we get? Look at the picture above, and consider that it came on our first day, at our second photo location, and that at least two more feet above what you see here fell before the workshop finished.
The compactness of Yosemite Valley, combined with lifetime of Yosemite visits, enables me to adjust my plans on the fly in rapidly changing conditions. On that first afternoon, with a moderate snow falling in the valley I expected poor visibility, so my original plan was to start at Bridalveil Creek, where we could photograph nearby scenes. But when I saw that Bridalveil Fall and El Capitan were still visible despite the falling snow, I headed straight to Valley View.
We enjoyed about 30 minutes of quality photography there before the ceiling dropped and erased everything more than a few hundred yards away. I quickly collected the troops and we beelined up Big Oak Flat Road to Upper Cascade Fall, which I was confident would provide the best combination of photogenic scene that was close enough to still be visible.
I was actually a little surprised to find the top segment of this multitiered waterfall (upper left corner of the image) slightly obscured by the falling snow—fortunately it was visible enough to still be worth photographing. Our biggest challenge turned out to be a strong breeze blowing snow straight down the mountainside and directly onto the front element of any lens trained on the scene.
Normally I shield my camera with an umbrella in rain and snow, but the wind made using an umbrella problematic, so I switched to Plan B and pulled out the large microfiber cloth that lives in my camera bag. While composing, metering, and focusing, I just ignored the snowflakes accumulating on the front of my lens. When everything was ready, I wiped the lens clean, then draped the cloth over it while waiting for my 2-second timer to count down (have I mentioned lately how much I hate Sony’s cable and Bluetooth remotes?), whipping the cloth away at the latest possible instant before the shutter clicked. I continued this way through a series of compositions, until I was confident I’d captured something worthy of processing.
Turns out, this was just the first of many spectacular shoots my group enjoyed. As the workshop continued and we handled every single discomfort and inconvenience the storms served up, all while watching the photography just keep getting better and better, I became more and more convinced that there was no such thing as too much snow in Yosemite, and just kept hoping for more. And more, and more, and more…
On the afternoon before our final day, just as I started believing nothing could go wrong, the National Park Service said, “That’s enough,” and closed the park. I was stunned, and for some reason recalled the time my college baseball team, while on a roadtrip to a distant city, was gorging at an “all you can eat” buffet—until the manager came out and informed us, “That’s all you can eat.”
Even though we were shut out of the park for the workshop’s final day, we still gathered for one last image review on that final day. Based on the images shared, and the excitement everyone had with all of their captures, no one was too disappointed. It was almost as if we all felt that, given what we’d seen so far, to expecting more might just be a little greedy.
I couldn’t agree more. And honestly, despite missing a day and not having access to every location, I have to say this turned out to be one of the most photographically successful workshops in my 20 years leading photo workshops.
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Yosemite Snow
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Ripping Off the Band-Aid
Posted on April 3, 2024
Frosted, Cathedral Rocks from El Capitan Bridge, Yosemite
Sony a7R V
Sony 24-105 f/4 G
ISO 100
f/13
1/10 second
We were in the midst of a beautiful Yosemite Tunnel View clearing storm when I told my group it was time to pull up stakes and move on. Some thought they’d misheard, others thought I was joking. Since we’d only started the previous afternoon, I hadn’t even really had a chance to gain the group’s trust. When one or two in the group hesitated, I assured everyone it’s like ripping off a Band-Aid, that it will only hurt for a minute and they’ll soon be glad they did it.
Many factors go into creating a good landscape image. Of course the actual in the field part is essential—things like photogenic conditions, a strong composition, and finding the ideal camera settings for exposure, focus, and depth of field. You could also cite processing that gets the most of the captured photons without taking them over the top. But an under-appreciated part of creating a good landscape image is the decision making that happens before the camera even comes out.
Some of this decision making is a simple matter of applying location knowledge. Other factors include the ability to read the weather and light, and doing the research to anticipate celestial and atmospheric phenomena (such as the sun, moon, stars, aurora, rainbows, and lightning). All of these decisions are intended to get to the right place at the right time.
A photo workshop group relies on me to do this heavy lifting in advance, and while I can’t guarantee the conditions we’ll find in a workshop scheduled at least a year in advance, my decisions should at least maximize their odds. These decisions don’t end when the workshop is scheduled—in fact, they’re much more visible (and subject to second guessing) after the workshop starts. Case in point: This morning in February.
Though the overnight forecast had promised a few rain showers followed by clearing that would last all day (yuck), before we’d even made the turn in the dark toward our Tunnel View sunrise, it was apparent the forecast had been wrong. Snow glazed all the trees, patches of fog swirled overhead, and I knew my plan to start at Tunnel View would give me the illusion of genius. At this point, my morning seemed easy.
For the next hour or so it was easy and my “genius” status remained intact as my group was treated to the Holy Grail of Yosemite photography: a continuously changing Tunnel View clearing storm, made even better by fresh snow. And if easy were my prime objective, I’d have just kept them there to blissfully bask in the morning’s beauty.
But the secret to photographing Yosemite in the snow is to keep moving, because when the conditions are beautiful in one spot, they’re just as beautiful at others. Since Yosemite’s snow, especially the relatively light dusting we enjoyed this morning, doesn’t last long once the sun hits the valley floor, our window for images of snowy Yosemite Valley was closing fast. I took comfort in the knowledge that it was virtually impossible that everyone in my group didn’t already have something truly spectacular. But, grumpy as they might have been about leaving (no one really showed it on the outside), I also knew I’d be doing them a disservice not giving them the opportunity for more great Yosemite images elsewhere in the park.
So I made the call: we’re leaving. Our next stop was El Capitan Bridge. The obvious view here is El Capitan and its reflection, visible from the bridge, but best just upstream along the south bank (actually, this bank is more east here, but since the Merced River, despite its many twists and turns, overall runs east/west through Yosemite Valley, that’s the way I’ll refer to it), but before everyone scattered I made sure they all knew about the Cathedral Rocks view and reflection from the downstream side of the bridge. Good thing.
As lovely as El Capitan was this morning, it was the downstream view that stole the show. By departing Tunnel View when we did, we were in place on the bridge when the sun broke through the diminishing clouds and poured into the valley, illuminating the recently glazed trees as if they’d been plugged in. I’d hoped that we’d make it here in time for this light, but I’d be lying if I said I expected it to be this spectacular. I hadn’t been shooting when the light hit, but when I saw what was happening I alerted everyone and rushed to capture the display before the sunlight reached the river and washed out the reflection. Some were already shooting it, but soon the rest of the group had positioned themselves somewhere along the rail to capture their own version.
Assessing the scene, I called out to no one in particular (everyone) that we shouldn’t just settle for the spot where we’d initially set up because the relationships between all the scene’s many elements—Cathedral Rocks, snow-covered trees, reflection, floating logs, etc.—was entirely a function of where they stood. With the entire bridge to ourselves, we all had ample space to move around and create our own shot.
I was especially drawn to the moss-covered tree tilting over the river on the bridge’s north (west) side. With a few quick stops on the way, I decided to go all-in on this striking tree and ended up on the far right end of the bridge. Being this far down meant losing some of the snowy trees and their reflection, but I decided I had enough of that great stuff and really liked the tree’s outline and color, not to mention the way this position emphasized the sideways “V” created by the tree and its reflection.
In general, I love the shear face of Cathedral Rocks from El Capitan Bridge (it’s a very popular Yosemite subject, especially among photographers looking for something that’s clearly Yosemite without resorting to its frequently photographed icons), but featuring the granite in this image would mean including blank sky that I felt would be a distraction. And I was also concerned that the sunlit rock just above the top of this frame would be too bright. So I composed as tightly as I could, eliminating the sky and sunlit rock, getting just enough of Cathedral Rocks to create a background for the illuminated evergreens. I was pleased that composing this way still allowed me to get more of the granite in my reflection.
At f/13 with my fairly wide focal length, getting front-to-back sharpness wasn’t a big problem, so I just focused on the featured tree. The greater concern was exposure. Sunlit snow is ridiculously bright, which meant that with much of my scene still in full shade, the dynamic range was off the charts. So I took great care not to blow-out the brightest trees, which of course resulted in the rest of my image looking extremely dark. But a quick check of my histogram told me I’d captured enough shadow info that brightening it later in Lightroom/Photoshop would be difficult.
By the time we were done here, I’m pretty sure everyone’s skepticism of my early exit had vanished, and that the brief sting from ripping off the Tunnel View band-aid was more than assuaged by the images we got after we left. By late morning, the snow was gone.
Yosemite in the Snow
Perfect Timing
Posted on March 14, 2023
Big Moon, Mt. Williamson, California
Sony α1
Sony 200-600 G
Sony 2x teleconverter
ISO 800
f/13
1/500 second
In the Alabama Hills to photograph sunrise in neck-craning proximity to the Sierra Crest, I knew precisely what time, on this date, the sun’s first rays would color the towering granite, and exactly when a 98% moon would would disappear behind the left flank of Mt. Williamson, California’s second highest peak.
Clocks and calendars enable us to time some aspects of our lives, like sunrises and moonsets, to within microseconds. But when I scheduled this sunrise moonset more than a year ago, I had no idea whether the sky would be clear, perhaps feature a few clouds that would catch the sunrise hues, or be completely filled with overcast that would block sunlight and hide the moon. I didn’t know how much snow would drape the peaks, or whether the peaks even would be visible at all.
Clocks and calendars are essential, but as a self-employed landscape photographer, I’m beholden to far more fundamental constructs than the bustling majority is. I work when there’s work to be worked, and play when (fingers crossed) there’s play to be played. The business side of my life sometimes requires a clock and calendar, but the actual photography part is governed by fundamental laws of nature that transcend the rest of the world’s clocks and calendars.
The irrelevance of conventional time measurement is never more clear than immediately following a time change. On the second Sunday of each March, when “normal” people moan about lost sleep and having to rise an hour earlier, the sun thumbs its nose at Daylight Saving Time and rises a mere minute (or so) earlier than it did the day before. So do I. And on the first Sunday of November, as others bask in their extra hour of sleep, I’ll get to sleep an entire minute longer. Yippee.
The immutable natural laws that are the foundation of our clocks and calendars, that keep the world on schedule and enable us to precisely predict events like sunrise/sunset, the moon’s phase and position, as well as countless other celestial phenomena, are also solely responsible for the uncertainty that torments the lives of landscape photographers. While I can’t tell you what thrills me more, the impeccably punctual appearance (or disappearance) of a full moon, or the unpredictable explosion of a lightning bolt, I find it ironic that the precision of a moonset and the (apparent) randomness of a lightning strike are ultimately the product of the same celestial choreography.
Earth’s rotation on its inclined axis and revolution about the Sun, the Moon’s monthly journey around Earth, are are timed to microseconds. But this celestial dance also drives the atmospheric and tidal machinations that generate weather, stir oceans, and make every day unique and unpredictable.
This year the mercurial photography gods smiled on me and my Death Valley workshop group. For our 3 days in Death Valley, instead of the blank blue sky that often greets me here, we had a wonderful mix of clouds and sky—enough clouds to make the sky interesting, but enough sky to allow the sun to color the clouds at sunrise and sunset.
On the workshop’s penultimate day we drove to Lone Pine to wrap up with a sunset and sunrise shoot in the Alabama Hills. The highlight of this trip is always the Alabama Hills sunrise that I try to accent with the moon, just a day past full, setting behind the Sierra Crest. But this is winter, and these are the Sierra Mountains, so success is far from guaranteed.
A few years ago I drove to Yosemite on New Year’s Eve (because what else is there to do on New Year’s Eve?) to photograph a full moon rising between El Capitan and Half Dome. After a successful shoot (nearly thwarted by clouds), I hopped in my car and made the 6 1/2 hour drive to Lone Pine to photograph the moon setting behind Mt. Whitney.
I’d picked out a location along Highway 136 where I could align the moon and Mt. Whitney, and far enough back to allow an extreme telephoto big moon while still including all of Whitney. I went to bed really looking forward to this opportunity to get an image I’d thought about for years, and woke to clouds that completely obscured the moon and Sierra Crest. With nothing better to do, I still drove out to my spot, and even caught a very brief glimpse of the moon about 1/2 hour before zero-hour, but ended up not clicking a single frame. Such are the travails of anyone who pins their hopes on Nature’s fickle whims.
My plan this morning was far less grand. Since I was leading a workshop group, the goal was to get everyone in place for the best possible photography, not to assuage my own failed moonset wounds. And the good fortune that blessed us in Death Valley followed us to Lone Pine. (You can read more about this morning here.) In addition to a clear view of the moon and mountains, I was especially grateful to find the entire Sierra Crest frosted top-to-bottom with snow.
My photography day began in near darkness with my Sony a7R V and Sony 100-400 GM lens, photographing the descending moon throughout the morning’s many stages of advancing light. My starting focal length was 100mm, wide enough to include some of the Alabama Hills, then went progressively tighter as the moon dropped.
My favorite big moon images don’t usually happen until the moon is within a moon-width of the horizon, but I like to give myself a little wiggle room to get the composition balanced and focus just right. So when the moon got about 3 diameters from Mt. Williamson, I turned to my Sony α1, which was standing by with my Sony 200-600 G lens and Sony 2X Teleconverter already attached. And while 3 moon diameters might sound like a reasonable cushion, if you want to appreciate the speed at which the moon transits the sky, try pointing 1200mm at it and keeping it in your frame.
I love my Really Right Stuff Ascend tripod, but because the camera-shake margin of error is microscopic at 1200mm, I had the α1 pre-mounted on my (much more robust) RRS 24L Tripod with the RRS BH-55 ball head (carrying 2 tripods is a luxury I allow myself when I don’t have to fly to my location). I bumped to ISO 800 for a 1/500 second shutter speed, and switched from my standard 2-second timer (beep, beep, beep, BEEEEEEP—the Sony mating call) to a 5-second timer (I’m not crazy about any of Sony’s remote options, wired or wireless), to give the whole setup plenty of time to settle down—probably overkill, but I was taking no chances.
With my composition ready and focused, I just let the moon slide through my frame and started clicking. The alpenglow on Mt. Williamson was just about peaking when to moon first touched it. Perfect timing.
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More Massive Moons
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Transcending the Trophy
Posted on February 7, 2023
Wonderland, Golden Circle, IcelandSony a7R V
Sony 12-24 GM
1/40 second
F/11
ISO 200
With the digital-fueled photography renaissance, it seems that the number of trophy destinations has grown proportionally. For example, once no more than an anonymous trickle on El Capitan’s southeast flank, Horsetail Fall now draws thousands of photographers to Yosemite at sunset each February. And long gone are the days of a peaceful midday walk in the quiet coolness of Antelope Canyon.
Because I’ve photographed all of these scenes, and no doubt will continue doing so, I completely understand the urge to bag the trophy shot. They’re trophies because they’re beautiful, and (usually) relatively easy to access. But what puzzles me is why so many photographers pursue trophies to the exclusion of opportunities to create something uniquely their own. To me, the greatest joy of photography isn’t duplicating what others have already done, it’s the search for something new—especially at frequently photographed locations.
That said, I can’t deny that the opportunity to capture a trophy draws many photographers to my workshops. But while I do love helping my workshop students land their trophy, my job doesn’t end there—a significant part of my responsibility is challenging them to not make the trophy shot their goal, make it their starting point. Chances are, I tell them, if a shot is special enough to achieve trophy status, there are lots of other special views and subjects nearby.
Transcending the trophy is a mindset. Once you’ve bagged your trophy, see if you can identify a unique foreground or background, or approach the scene from a different angle. And if the standard view is horizontal, look for something vertical; if it’s wide, try a telephoto—and vice-versa.
And don’t forget that there might be great stuff happening behind you—you’ll never know if you don’t turn around. I try to make a point of checking behind me, but sometimes I need a reminder. For example…
Don Smith and I wrapped up the last day of this year’s back-to-back Iceland photo workshops with an afternoon in the Golden Circle. A recent storm had dumped loads of fresh snow everywhere, a great way to wrap up two fantastic workshops. After spending a couple of hours at massive Gullfoss waterfall, we took the group to Strokkur geyser for our final sunset.
Strokkur is a towering geyser in a beautiful setting. Erupting up to 125 feet every 5 to 10 minutes, Strokkur’s frequency allows many do-overs if you don’t get it right the first (or second, or…) time. This year fast-changing clouds and fresh snow added a new visual dimension I was especially excited to take advantage of.
I think the best shot here is getting the geyser backlit by the setting sun, so I positioned myself accordingly and waited, adjusting my position and composition after each eruption. As the sun set and I prepared for the next eruption, I noticed that our guide Albert Dros was on the other side of the geyser, pointing the exact opposite direction my camera pointed. Normally when I see another photographer not taking what I think is the best shot, I don’t think much of it. But since Albert is such a fantastic photographer, I glanced over my shoulder to see what I was missing. Yikes.
I instantly forgot the geyser, grabbed my gear, and “raced” toward the snow-glazed trees that were now framed by electric pink clouds, and garnished with a dollop of moon. Much to my frustration, the trail was completely coated with ice—since I’d decided to forego the crampons, to avoid falling I could only move about as fast as I do in those dreams when I’m trying to run for my life in a normal speed world, but find I can only move in slow motion (I’m not the only one who has those dreams, right?).
Fortunately, Iceland twilight is slower than any slow-motion dream, and I covered the 50 feet over to this scene with plenty of time to work the composition. I already had my Sony 12 – 24 f/2.8 GM lens mounted on my Sony a7R V, which turned out to be perfect for emphasizing the snowy scene in my immediate foreground, while still maximizing the colorful clouds. Of course this shrunk the moon to almost microscopic proportions—some may disagree, but I kind of love the small moon as a delicate accent to this already magic scene.
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Transcending the Trophy
Doing the Scene Justice
Posted on January 19, 2022
Falling Snow, El Capitan, Yosemite
Sony a7RIV
Sony 12-24 f/2.8 GM
1/250 second
F/9
ISO 800
Woe is me
I just returned from nearly a week in Death Valley, where I had virtually no connectivity (wifi at my hotel made the Grand Canyon North Rim feel like a Silicon Valley Starbucks). Workshop or not, I try to post something on social media every day, and a new blog article each Sunday, but with no wifi and spotty 3G cellular that struggled just to send or load a text-only e-mail, I felt virtually cut off from civilization (there was a tsunami?!). I know in the grand scheme of things these are small problems, and that I probably missed the world more than it missed me, but still….
So anyway…
Last week I wrote about creating unique perspectives of familiar scenes, and offered some ideas for achieving this. As admirable as it is to make unique images, sometimes Mother Nature delivers something so magnificent that best thing to do is just get out of the way and let the scene stand on its own.
For example
Though last month’s Yosemite Winter Moon workshop wasn’t scheduled to start until the afternoon I took this picture, I drove to Yosemite the evening before the workshop to get a few hours of morning one-on-one time with the multiple inches of snow forecast to fall overnight. And as hoped, I arrived that morning to find every square inch of exposed surface glazed white—and the snow was still falling.
The paradox of photographing Yosemite during a storm is that all of the features you came to photograph are most likely obliterated by clouds. Sometimes visibility is so poor, it’s difficult to imagine the obscured features ever existed—and quite easy to imagine the comfort and warmth of your hotel room. The key Yosemite storm success is to be there when the storm clears—but job-one for catching the clearing part of a Yosemite clearing storm, is first enduring the storm part.
So, rather than succumb to the temptation of comfort and warmth, I armored up and went to work in near zero visibility. After an hour or so of driving around, interrupted by a stop or two (or three) to photograph some of the more intimate nearby beauty, I pulled up to El Capitan Bridge and noticed the clouds starting to lift (fingers crossed). In the still-falling snow, I quickly set up my tripod, grabbed my Sony a7RIV, attached my Sony 12-24 f/2.8 GM lens, and hoped.
I digress
Without getting too preachy, let me just say that if you ever want to piss off a photographer, look at one of their images and say, “Ooooh, you must have a great camera.” While that may very well be true, the photographer’s unavoidable inference will be that the questioner means the beautiful image is a product of the photographer’s equipment, not his or her photographic vision and skill.
But…. As much as I’d like to say my equipment is irrelevant and I could achieve the same results with a pinhole camera, I’ll admit that I have images I couldn’t have created without the right camera or lens. And this is one of them.
Back on point
I’ve written before about Sony’s 12-24 lenses, and how they feel specifically designed for Yosemite’s ultra-close views of massive monoliths. El Capitan Bridge is one of those views, so close that I’ve always felt that even a 16-35 wasn’t wide enough to do the scene justice. So when Sony released its 12-24 f/4 G lens, this was one of my very first stops. My excitement was validated when I discovered that at 12mm I could indeed get all of El Capitan, plus its entire reflection, in a single vertical frame. I became so enamored of my new top-to-bottom-reflection power that pretty much every subsequent 12-24 El Capitan composition here (both with the original Sony 12-24 f/4 G, and the newer Sony 12-24 f/2.8 GM) had been vertical. My goal this morning was to change that.
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- Winter Storm, El Capitan in the Snow, Yosemite
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- Autumn and Winter, El Capitan Reflection, Yosemite
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- Storm Clouds, El Capitan, Yosemite
While the clouds didn’t completely part for several more hours, during this stop at El Capitan Bridge they did lift just enough to reveal all of El Capitan for about 15 minutes. During that time, their swirling vestiges careened across the granite face so rapidly that the scene seemed to change by the second.
Photographically, there wasn’t really a lot I could do for this scene besides not mess it up. Mounting my camera horizontally, I widened my lens all the way out to 12mm, put the top of the frame slightly above El Capitan (to maximize the amount of reflection below it—more sky would have meant less reflection), and used the snow-covered trees on both sides to frame the scene.
Depth of field wasn’t a factor, and very little contrast made metering easy. Wanting a fast enough shutter speed to freeze the falling snowflakes, I dialed to ISO 800 and f/9, which I quickly determined centered my (pre-capture) histogram at a more than adequate 1/250 second. Then I clicked a dozen or so images to ensure a wide variety of cloud formations and falling snowflake patterns, pausing occasionally to appreciate the moment.
This scene felt like a gift that I really didn’t want to overthink. I’m just grateful for the opportunity to photograph it (and the equipment that allowed me to do it justice).
An El Capitan Gallery
Click an image for a closer look, and to view a slide show.
Dare To Be Different
Posted on January 9, 2022
Snowfall, Tunnel View, Yosemite
Sony a7RIV
Sony 16-35 f/2.8 GM
1/15 second
F/9
ISO 100
What does it take to make a great landscape image? The answer to that question could fill volumes (so I hope you don’t expect the final word in one blog post), but for starters, it seems pretty obvious that a great landscape image should involve some combination of beautiful scene and compelling composition. Of course it’s possible for one side of that scale to tilt so strongly that it renders the other side all but irrelevant: I’m thinking about the masterful composition that manages to extract beauty from the most ordinary scene, or the scene that’s so spectacular that it would be virtually impossible to not return with a beautiful image.
But as much as photographers should strive for the former, I’m afraid ubiquitous cameras and information have given us too much of the latter—because it’s easier. Not only can today’s photographers learn where to be and when to be there with the tap of an app (or the click of a mouse), even when unexpected beauty suddenly materializes before our eyes, we’re almost certainly armed with a tool to capture it. Add to this the power of today’s computers and software to actually manufacture beauty (don’t get me started…), and I’m concerned that the world is becoming numbed to the appreciation of photography as a craft—the ability to see the less obvious beauty and convey it by deftly controlling the scene’s framing, motion, depth, and light.
This is especially relevant to me because I make my living serving people who dream of getting “the” shot at my workshop locations. Usually they’ve seen some other photographer’s version of their “dream” shot and simply want one of their own to display and share. Whether it’s sunset light on Horsetail Fall, a lightning strike at the Grand Canyon, or fresh snow at Tunnel View, I completely understand their motivation and I do everything in my power to make it happen (I love photographing these things too). But still…
In addition to helping my workshop student get their dream image, I also encourage them to make these shots their starting point, not their goal. Photograph the icons without shame, but don’t stop there, also find your own perspective on the scene’s beauty. That could be identifying a foreground element that complements a glorious background, going vertical when the obvious composition is horizontal, introducing motion or focus blur to part of the scene, or any number of large or small compositional twists.
My own approach when photographing a scene imbued with obvious inherent beauty—such as a spectacular sunset, vivid rainbow, or breathtaking vista—is to remind myself not to settle for something I’ve already done, no matter how beautiful it might be. While that’s a relatively small challenge at new or less familiar scenes, this approach makes familiar places like Tunnel View in Yosemite (arguably the most beautiful vista on Earth, and one that I’ve photographed more times than I can count) a much higher photographic bar to clear. So high, in fact, that I rarely take out my camera at Tunnel View anymore. (Well, at least that’s the mindset when I get there—I’m a sucker for this scene and sometimes can’t resist photographing a beautiful moment here because some scenes are too beautiful to ignore—but you get the point.) Even still, these days I pretty much only photograph Tunnel View when I can include some a scecial, transient element, like the moon or a rainbow. Or fresh snow.
Last month my Yosemite Winter Moon workshop group had the immense good fortune to start just as a cold winter storm finished dropping 8 inches of snow on Yosemite Valley. For a couple of reasons, we started at Tunnel View—first, because it’s the best place to introduce first-timers to Yosemite’s majesty; second, it’s probably the best place in Yosemite to view a clearing storm. The scene that greeted us was as spectacular as you might imagine—and as also you might imagine, it wasn’t something I hadn’t seen before.
My original plan was to keep my camera in the car, but once I got everyone settled into their spots and was confident they were content (and wanted to be left alone), I couldn’t resist the beauty, no matter how familiar. Oh—and before I go any farther, let me make clear that I am not trying to say, nor do I in any way believe, that this image is more special than thousands of other Tunnel View images that preceded it (or even that were captured that day). I just want to use it to illustrate my approach, and the decisions that got me to something that turned out to be a little different for me. But anyway…
The first thing I usually I preach about photographing Tunnel View is to not go too wide. As beautiful as the entire view is, the real (permanent) visual action is between El Capitan on the left, and Leaning Tower (the diagonal, flat granite face angling up from Bridalveil Fall) on the right. Another problem at Tunnel View is that the sky in Yosemite is usually boring (cloudless), and the foreground trees are nothing special. So not only does the real estate left of El Capitan and right of Leaning Tower pale in comparison to the primary scene it bookends, composing wide enough to include that extra granite also means shrinking the best stuff (from left to right: El Capitan, Cloud’s Rest, Half Dome, Cathedral Rocks, Bridalveil Fall, Leaning Tower) while including more bland sky and trees. Therefore, my go-to lens for Tunnel View is my Sony 24-105 f/4 G lens. And when I want to isolate one or two of the primary features, I’ll switch to my Sony 100-400 GM lens.
But this afternoon, with the entire landscape glazed white, those scruffy foreground trees were suddenly a feature worthy of inclusion. So, rather than starting with the 24-105 on my Sony a7RIV, I reached for my Sony 16-35 f/2.8 GM lens. Going wider created another problem: that large tree on the left is a usually an obstacle, a potential distraction always that must be dealt with. My standard approach is to move to the right to completely eliminate the tree from my composition, but this afternoon the vista was so packed with gawkers and photographers that moving around without encroaching on someone else’s space was difficult-to-impossible. Because I got my group setup before grabbing a spot for myself, I’d found myself stuck farther to the left than I like, making my plan to shoot the scene extra-wide while eliminating the tree even more problematic. So, grateful once again for the snowy glaze, I decided to use my arboreal nemesis to frame the left side of my composition (if you can’t beat ’em…). For the right side of my frame, I chose to go wide enough to include a couple of more prominent trees in the middle distance, as well as the interesting clouds swirling near the rim behind them.
In any composition, the decision between sky and foreground always comes down to which is more interesting—in this case, despite some fairly interesting clouds overhead, those clouds couldn’t compete with the snowy foreground. To maximize the snowy foreground, I put the bottom of my frame in the homogeneous white snowbank at the base of the shrub line just a few feet below me—just low enough to allow me to include only the most interesting clouds.
And finally, because I know someone will ask, even with so much detail from near-to-far, at 20mm and f/9, my focus point was pretty much irrelevant (hyperfocal distance was 5 feet). As something of a control freak in my photography life (understatement), I’ve always been a manual focus evangelist, but I’m getting lazy in my old age and in this case I just hit my back-button focus button to autofocus somewhere in the scene (wherever the focus point happened to be), then clicked with the knowledge I’d be sharp throughout.
More Tunnel View Magic: One Spot, Many Takes
Click an image for a closer look, and to view a slide show.
COVID Reflections
Posted on March 14, 2021
Autumn Snow and Reflection, Half Dome, Yosemite
Sony a7RIV
Sony 16-35 f/2.8 GM
2 seconds
F/16
ISO 50
Last week marked the one year anniversary of the COVID shutdown. WOW. One year.
In hindsight I realize that I might have been a little naive when this thing started because of the way I’d spent the two weeks prior to the shutdown: first in Scottsdale, Arizona for my annual MLB Spring Training trip (go Giants!), followed immediately by a week in Anchorage, Alaska to visit my daughter. In Arizona at the beginning of March I noticed very little difference in people’s behavior (though I did have to search long and hard for hand sanitizer), but winging my way to Alaska, I was struck by how empty the airports and flights were. Hmmm….
Alaska is where I was when it started to dawn on me that a couple of my upcoming workshops might be threatened. When that realization hit, I remember thinking I’ll be fine as long as I don’t lose the New Zealand trip at the end of June. Ha! I ended up losing 12 workshops, including New Zealand in both 2020 and 2021. And the workshops I have managed to pull off (three so far since last March) have been impacted as well, both in terms of group size and COVID protocol.
But this isn’t a woe is me post, I promise. I have so much to be grateful for, starting with the flexibility of being self-employed and working from home. And of course continued good health of my family and me. Oh, and the fact that I’m still in business.
And just like that, here’s 2021, I’m fully vaccinated, with two workshops in the mirror and six queued up over the next eight weeks (maybe I should be careful what I wish for). Life’s good.
But anyway…
I started this blog with the idea of a sentence or two reflecting on the COVID anniversary before diving into some thoughts on this just-processed image from last November. But here I am, nearly 500 words later….
I don’t need to gush any more about this day, a highlight of my pandemic year—you can just go back through the many blogs I’ve already posted about it (7—I counted). What I wanted to say about this image is how it underscores the importance of not merely settling for a beautiful scene, no matter how beautiful it is (something this one irrefutably was). Creating an image that stands out from all the other pictures of inherently beautiful scenes requires understanding the difference between the way your camera sees a scene and the way you see it. Unlike your experience of the world, a still image is devoid of motion and depth, has limited dynamic range and depth of field, and is constrained by a rectangular box. Managing these differences requires the ability to control your camera’s exposure variables (f-stop, shutter speed, ISO, focal length) to create the illusion of depth and motion.
The clouds had just started to part when I arrived at this reflective bend in the Merced River. It’s easy to get walloped by the beauty of a scene like this, frame up something nice, and click. But after indulging the creative side of my brain (camera or not, this scene really was gorgeous), I forced myself to set my awe aside for a few beats to work out the best way to convey the beauty.
My first step in most scenes is to identify the most important thing—what I want the scene to be “about.” If that important thing is in the foreground, I look for a complementary background; if my subject is in the background, I try to identify a complementary foreground.
In this case my “most important thing” was the entire scene across the river, anchored of course by Half Dome, but supported by the snow-covered trees and the reflection. I wandered the riverbank and found a few things to put in my foreground. I started with a mini cove rimmed with leaves that I used to frame a horizontal composition. Then, looking for something that would be better for a vertical composition, I moved on to these floating leaves and partially submerged log just a few feet upstream. Framing everything up at eye-level, I didn’t like the empty gap between the leaves/log and Half Dome’s reflection, so I dropped my tripod as low as it would go and went to work.
While there was a fair amount of dynamic range, I knew it was well within the capabilities of my Sony a7RIV—if I exposed carefully. But exposing carefully means more than just getting the light right—it means getting the light right with a shutter speed that handles the motion, and with an f-stop that handles the depth.
With a few ripples disturbing the reflection, I wanted shutter speed long enough to smooth the water and twisted my Breakthrough 6-stop Dark Circular Polarizer onto my Sony 16-35 f/2.8 GM lens. And since sharpness from the closest leaf to Half Dome’s summit was important, I selected f/16 and focused on the log. (My hyperfocal app assured me that this would give me more than enough depth-of-field for front-to-back sharpness.) Next, with my eye on the viewfinder, I slowly turned my polarizer far enough to remove the reflection from the leaves, but not so much that I erased the primary reflection.
Finally, I was ready to meter and select the shutter speed the gave me a good histogram. At my a7RIV’s native ISO (100), the shutter speed I needed was 1-second. To double that and ensure better smoothing of the ripples, I dialed down to ISO 50. Click.
A COVID Compilation
(Images from the last 12 months)
Click an image for a closer look, and to view a slide show.
Eloquent Images by Gary Hart 