Eloquent Images by Gary Hart
Insight, information, and inspiration for the inquisitive nature photographer
It ain’t over till it’s over
Posted on January 26, 2017
After Twilight, Valley View, Yosemite
Sony a7R II
Sony/Zeiss 24-70 f4
30 seconds
F/8
ISO 800
(How many photography blogs out there quote Yogi Berra? Just sayin’….) During the 1973 baseball season, Yogi Berra was asked about his last place Mets’ chances in the pennant race. His reply, “It ain’t over till it’s over,” was greeted with chuckles, but Yogi got the last laugh when the Mets rallied to make it all the way to the World Series. I couldn’t help thinking of Yogi’s quote on my drive home Monday night with this image, my final click of the day, still fresh in my mind.
When the weatherman promised snow down to 2500 feet on Monday, I drove to Yosemite late Sunday night so I could beat sunrise and have an entire day to play. And snow I found, lots and lots of it, and still falling. The snowfall continued throughout morning, so heavy that my first few hours were limited to photographing close scenes, interspersed with lots of waiting for conditions to improve. But a little before noon the clouds started to thin and the snow became more showery and I was in business.
When the clearing started in earnest I was at Valley View (but it didn’t look anything like this). The rest of the day I spent dashing around Yosemite Valley, chasing the clouds’ parting and the light that came with it. It’s so much fun watching a storm clear in Yosemite, poised beneath Yosemite Falls or Half Dome or El Capitan, and wait for the big reveal when the clouds to pull back.
For sunset I ended up trudging through about 18 inches of virgin snow to a favorite Half Dome reflection spot by the Merced River, recently rendered much less accessible by major roadwork underway in the valley. Throughout the day I’d crossed paths several times with good friend Don Smith who had driven up for the day with our mutual friends Scott and Mike, and they eventually joined me at sunset. As we shot we shared stories of the day—for example, how they had just missed getting crushed by a falling tree (true story). After a half hour of really nice photography, a large cloud set up shop atop Half Dome right around sunset, completely obscuring the scene’s main attraction. Satisfied with a tremendous day of photography, we declared the day, “Over.”
It wasn’t until I was back at my car that fully appreciated how wet everything was—my gear, my car, and even me (a day of plunging through snowdrifts had been enough for the snow to find its way over the top my waterproof boots and underneath my waterproof outer pants). I decided I’d swing into Valley View on my way out of the valley to use the bathroom and change into drier clothes. In the back of my mind was possibility of a parting shot of El Capitan in the late, blue twilight.
The west end of Yosemite Valley gets much less winter sunlight, so while trees had already started shedding the snow on the east side (where I’d photographed sunset), I pulled in at Valley View to find virtually every exposed surface still glistening white. Bridalveil Fall and Cathedral Rocks clearly visible in the fading light, but El Capitan was cloud-shrouded from top to bottom. Still quite cold, tired, and more than a little hungry, this would have been a perfect excuse to beeline home. But the scene was so beautiful, and the light so perfect, that after changing my clothes I just sat in my car, peeled an orange, and waited for El Capitan to show itself.
I didn’t have to wait long. At the first sign of clearing I hopped out and was completely set up by the river before El Capitan appeared. Bumping my ISO to 800, I composed the standard horizontal frame with El Capitan on the left, Leaning Tower on the right, and the Merced River in the foreground. Often the most difficult thing about shooting in low light like this is finding focus, but despite the fact that it was more 30 minutes after sunset, my Sony a7RII was able to autofocus on Cathedral Rocks. I spent a several clicks refining that original composition and was about to call the day “Over” one more time when something moved me to shift my view to the right. As soon as the image popped up on my LCD I knew I was onto something. I refined for about a half dozen more frames, culminating with the one you see here, until I was satisfied that a great day truly was over.
The lesson here, one I learned many years ago but I see many photographers struggle to grasp, is that the camera can still do fantastic things long after your eyes tell you the show is over. Another satisfying reminder from this day is that it’s still possible to enjoy Yosemite in glorious peace. As someone who has seen Yosemite at its congested worst, I relish the solitude possible when I choose times that the average person (tourists, fair weather photographers) won’t venture out: miserable weather, late at night, before sunrise. The entire time I was out there at Valley View that evening I was alone, and only two cars drove by. As Yogi would say, “Nobody goes there anymore—it’s too crowded.”
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A Twilight Gallery
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Winter is coming
Posted on October 20, 2016
Elm in Blizzard, Cook’s Meadow, Yosemite (2007)
Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II
Canon 70-200 f/4L
1/4 second
F/11.0
ISO 100
Photographing snow-covered Yosemite requires planning and patience: planning to ensure your arrival before the snow stops; patience to wait out the storm when visibility is so poor that you can barely see the nearest tree.
Planning
When the snow stops, Yosemite’s relatively mild temperatures (usually in the 30s when it snows) conspire with sunshine, wind, and gravity to clear the trees in a matter of hours. Meanwhile, park visitors driven inside by the storm, swarm outdoors to gape, quickly adding footprints and spreading mud with their boots, bikes, and cars. In other words, if you delay your departure for Yosemite until you hear that it snowed there, you’re too late. The key is being in the park during the storm.
All winter I monitor the National Weather Service Yosemite forecast and discussion (in-depth forecast analysis) pages for hints of a cold storm. I know there are lots of weather forecast options out there, but most either lack the resources of the NWS, or simply use the NWS data. The NWS may not always nail the forecast, but they’re more consistent and reliable than all the other options.
Sometimes the weather can change at the last minute, but I’m always ready. (It doesn’t hurt that I live less than four hours by car from Yosemite Valley.) In the back of my AWD Subaru Outback all winter are chains (required to be carried in Yosemite in winter, even with AWD/4WD), a portable charger that can recharge a car battery (among other things) in a pinch, and a duffle bag with all my cold weather gear (waterproof pants and upper shell, hat, gloves, umbrella, and ice grips for my shoes).
Patience
Once I decide I’m in, I’m all in. That usually means getting a room in or near Yosemite Valley, driving to the park a day early, and waiting for the snow to start. Once the snow arrives, I don’t hole up in my room, I’m out shooting. Even though Yosemite’s storms often erase all signs of its most recognizable features, stormy weather is a great time to photograph swirling clouds and accumulating snow in glorious (and rare!) solitude.
As much as I love photographing Yosemite in near white-out conditions, I sometimes get too cold, wet, or worn out to continue. But even when I reach that point, I don’t go in. Instead, I park at Tunnel View and wait for the weather to clear. Tunnel View is the perfect place to wait out a Yosemite storm because it’s on the west side of Yosemite Valley (where the clearing usually starts), provides an elevated vantage point with a view all the way down to Half Dome on the valley’s east side, and is spectacular to photograph when the storm clears. It even has decent cell service. And if I’m looking for an excuse to turn on the engine and warm things up, I drive through the tunnel for a view to the west, a preview of coming weather.
My final advice for anyone waiting out a storm at Tunnel View is when the storm clears, don’t spend so much time there that you miss opportunities elsewhere. This is easy to do because the photography will remain spectacular long after you should have moved on to other scenes.
Today’s image
Among my many snowy-Yosemite go-to spots is Cook’s Meadow. On this trip several years ago, until the snow arrived, the meadow was a field of lumpy brown grass, its sentinel elm a bare skeleton in the shadow of Half Dome. But a few inches of overnight snow transformed the bland meadow into an undulating sea of frozen white waves and etched the tree in white.
The snow was still falling when I arrived, wet and fast, slanted by a stiff breeze. Half Dome was gone. I positioned my tripod so the elm stood by itself, balanced in the frame by a stand of evergreens. The falling snow added an interesting dynamic to the otherwise static scene and I chose a 1/4 shutter speed that would blur its motion to streaks of white.
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Snowy Yosemite
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Doing the math
Posted on January 13, 2016
Autumn Snow, El Capitan, Yosemite
Sony a7R II
Sony/Zeiss 16-35 f4
1/160 second
F/11
ISO 800
A few days ago Sony asked me to write a couple of small pieces on “my favorite landscape lenses.” Hmmm. My answer?
My favorite lens is the lens that allows me to do what I need to do at that moment. In fact, to avoid biasing my creativity, I consciously avoid approaching a scene with a preconceived notion of the lens to use.
What I mean is, when I charge into a scene too committed to a lens, I miss things. And “favorite” tends to become a self-fulfilling label that inhibits creativity and growth. Rather than picking a favorite, I’m all about keeping my mind open and maximizing options.
I went on to say:
Because the focal range I want to cover whenever I’m photographing landscapes is 20-200mm, the three lenses I never leave home without are my Sony/Zeiss 16-35 f4, Sony/Zeiss 24-70 f4, and Sony 70-200 f4.
I have other, “specialty” lenses that I bring out when I have a particular objective in mind. For example, my Tamron 150-600 when I’m after a moonrise or moonset, or my Rokinon 24mm f1.4 when the Milky Way is my target. And even though I have a bag that will handle all of these (plus three bodies, thank you very much Sony mirrorless), I need to weigh the value of lugging lenses I probably won’t use against inhibited mobility in the field.
Ruminating on this favorite lens thing kindled my curiosity about which lenses I really do favor—so I did the math. (Okay, I let Lightroom Filters do the math.) Of the 10,395 times I clicked my shutter in 2015, here’s the breakdown:
Primary lenses (always in my bag)
- Sony/Zeiss 16-35mm f4: 3064
- Sony/Zeiss 24-70mm f4: 3529
- Sony 70-200mm f4: 1566
Specialty lenses
- Rokinon 24mm f1.4 (night only): 189
- Zeiss Distagon 28mm f2* (night only): 161
- Tamron 150-600mm* (mostly moon and extreme close focus): 1886
*Canon Mount with Metabones IV adapter
There are a lot of qualifiers for these numbers—for example, the total may be skewed a bit for the 24-70 as it is the lens I use most for lightning photography, and when my Lightning Trigger is attached and an active storm is nearby, it can go through hundreds of fames in a relatively short time (even when I’m not seeing lightning). Also, since getting the Tamron 150-600, I sometimes used that lens as a substitute for the 70-200, something I virtually never did with Canon and my 100-400 (which I didn’t particularly like). And I haven’t used the Zeiss since getting the Rokinon, so I really could lump those two together.
What does all this mean? I don’t know, except that I have a fairly even distribution between wide, midrange, and telephoto. That’s encouraging, because I never want to feel like I’m too locked into a single lens. But two things in particular stand out for me: the high number of 16-35 images, and the low number of 70-200 images.
The 16-35 number is significant only in comparison to my Canon 17-40 and 16-35 numbers from previous years, which were much lower (especially for the 17-40). Wide angle clicks went up quite a bit when I replaced my Canon 17-40 (which I was never thrilled with) with the Canon 16-35 f2.8 (which I liked a lot more). But I don’t think they were as high as they are with my Sony/Zeiss 16-35, which is probably a reflection of how pleased I am with the quality of those images, combined with that lens’s compactness. The jury is out on whether it signals a transition in my style, but it’ll be worth monitoring.
The most telling statistic to me is how few 70-200 images I took. I really like the lens, so it’s not a quality thing. And as I said earlier, some of that is an indication of how much I enjoyed shooting with the big Tamron, but that’s not the entire answer. My Canon 70-200 f4 was one of my favorite lenses, and I always enjoyed using it to isolate aspects of a scene, and maybe I’m not doing that so much since my switch to Sony. So here’s a goal for 2016: Don’t forget the 70-200. Stay tuned….
About this image
This is another image from my recent Yosemite snow day. It’s just another example of how much I enjoy photographing Yosemite when its seasons are changing—either snow with autumn leaves, or snow with spring dogwood and waterfalls.
On this chilly, wet morning, during one of the breaks when the clouds lifted enough to expose Yosemite’s icons, I was at a spot above the Merced River with a nice view of El Capitan. I like this spot for the dogwood tree I can align with El Capitan, and because it’s not particularly well known. I found it about ten years ago while wandering the bank of the Merced River looking for views (something I encourage anyone who wants to get serious about photographing Yosemite to do).
I tried a few different things here, starting with closer compositions using my 70-200 and 24-70 to highlight the snow on the leaves with El Capitan in the background. I eventually landed on this wide angle view that used the snow-dusted dogwood tree to balance a more prominent El Capitan. Because the opening is narrow here, I struggled with how to handle the tree on the left. I eventually decided, rather than featuring it or eliminating it, to just let its textured trunk frame the scene’s left side.
Sharpness throughout the frame was essential. With the trunk less than three feet away, the depth of field benefit of shooting at 16mm was a life-saver, giving me front-to-back sharpness at my preferred f11 (the best balance of DOF, lens sharpness, and minimimal diffraction)—as long as I focused about five feet away. Focus handled, my next concern was the breeze jiggling the leaves. At ISO 100, my shutter speed in the overcast, shaded light was 1/20 second; increasing my ISO to 800 allowed a much more manageable 1/160 second. Click.
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Yosemite in transition
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Think before you shoot
Posted on January 5, 2016
Winter Arrives, El Capitan, Yosemite
Sony a7R II
Sony/Zeiss 16-35 f4
1/8 second
F/11
ISO 125
True story: I once had a woman in a workshop who put her camera in Continuous mode and every time she clicked her shutter, she held it down and waved her camera in the general direction of a scene until the buffer was full. When I asked what she was doing, she said, “There’s bound to be a good one in there somewhere.” We were in Yosemite, so I couldn’t really disagree with her. But I’m guessing she wasn’t seeing a lot of growth as a photographer.
I tend to fall on the other end of the photography spectrum. Rather than a high volume of low-effort images, much of my photography style carries over from my film days—back then, a photographer who wasn’t careful might return from Europe to find that the photographs cost more than the trip. With our wallets forcing us to be more calculated and discriminating with our captures, we took our time, checked and double-checked our compositions and settings, and relied much more on our tripods.
Times have changed. While every film click costs money, every digital click increases the return on our investment. So far, so good: Combined with a histogram and instant review, digital shooters can click liberally, secure in the knowledge that each shot can be better than the one preceding. But I fear that this great benefit digital has bestowed, combined with powerful processing capabilities, has engendered a “shoot now, think later” mentality among many photographers. Rather than taking advantage of digital’s instant feedback to ensure that everything’s perfect at capture, these photographer adopt a high volume approach that sometimes hits a bullseye, but does nothing to improve their aim.
While there’s nothing wrong with lots of clicks, to advance your photography, each click needs a purpose. That purpose doesn’t even need to be a great image, it can simply be an I-wonder-what-happens-if-I-do-this experiment. Or it can be an incremental approach that begins with a “draft” and works toward perfection.
For example
On my recent snow day in Yosemite, I tried to highlight locations a little off the beaten path (as much as that’s possible in Yosemite). One of my stops was along Southside Drive, a little west of the crossover (to Northside Drive). Traipsing through wet snow, I made my way through the trees down to the Merced River. Bounding El Capitan Meadow, here the river widens and slows, as if gathering strength for its headlong charge down the Merced River Canyon.
The relatively open views and leisurely pace of the Merced River at this spot makes this one of my favorite place for full reflections of El Capitan. Ever on the lookout for juxtaposed disparate elements, I didn’t have to venture too far upstream before the collision of autumn leaves and winter snow stopped me. Parallel yellow and white, El Capitan reflection, towering evergreens, snow-etched oaks, swirling clouds, all against a granite background: I knew there was a shot in here somewhere, and I was going to work these elements until I found it.
To identify the shot, I started with an initial, “rough draft” click, then stood back and critiqued my result. With that frame as a foundation, I made incremental refinements, adjusting individual aspects rather than trying to fix everything at once: My horizontal orientation became vertical to highlight the (more or less) parallel snow and leaves; I determined the lowest f-stop that would ensure front-to-back sharpness and carefully refined my focus point, selecting leaves about a quarter of the way into the frame; I shifted slightly left to avoid merging the snowy log with El Capitan’s reflection; and finally, I tweaked the borders slightly (micro-zooming and -widening) to ensure that no significant visual elements were cut off. With everything set, I watched the shifting clouds and clicked when they did something interesting.
I was satisfied after about a dozen frames—far more than I could have afforded in my film days, but a far cry from my workshop student’s machine gun approach. No doubt she’d have gotten something I didn’t get, but I like this one. I bet I had more fun, too.
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An El Capitan gallery
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Who needs vacations?
Posted on January 1, 2016
Moonlight Magic, El Capitan and Clearing Storm, Yosemite
Sony a7R II
Sony/Zeiss 16-35 f4
30 seconds
F/11
ISO 3200
I was hungry, wet, and cold. With the blacktop obscured by a slippery white veneer, I carefully followed my headlights and a faint set of parallel tire tracks through the Northside Drive tree tunnel. Though the storm that had lured me to Yosemite was finally clearing, that show was lost to the night and dense forest canopy. But even without another clearing storm to add to my Yosemite portfolio, I was quite content with what I’d photographed that day.
Just as my heated seats started to work their magic and visions of dinner filled my head, I rounded a curve and reflexively hit the brakes, sliding not so gracefully into the empty Valley View parking lot. With no forethought I bolted from the car, then had to grab the door to keep from losing my footing on the icy pavement.
Always a beautiful place for photography, Valley View this time was quite literally one of the most beautiful sights I’d ever witnessed. I inhaled cold air and held it. Instead of racing for my gear, I exhaled slowly and gaped through my vaporized breath at ice-coated trees and granite, moonlight infused clouds draping El Capitan, and the glassy Merced River spreading before me like a luminous carpet. The scene’s centerpiece, the element that really took the experience over the top for me, was a full moon embedded in the night sky like a blazing gem, illuminating every exposed surface.
Gathering my wits along with my gear, I started to think about photographing the scene. Because the moon was too bright to photograph (and I have the pictures to prove it), I started with a composition my favorite aspects of the rest of the scene: the clouds, the reflection, and the frozen moonlight magic—the moon would remain out of the frame, to the right.
In most moonlight images, my foreground is distant enough that everything in my frame is at infinity, regardless of my f-stop. But the nearby glazed trees and rocks meant this scene needed to be sharp from just a few feet away all the way to the stars, requiring a small aperture and very precise focus point selection. A quick check of my hyperfocal app told me that focusing 5 feet away at f/11 would give me the depth of field I needed. Once my eyes adjusted, the moonlit branches were just bright enough to manually focus on by magnifying the scene in my Sony a7R II’s viewfinder (I love mirrorless).
But at f/11, even with the brilliant moonlight, getting enough light to reveal the scene required other compromises. Pushing my shutter speed to 30 seconds—the after-dark threshold that the risk of star motion prevents me from crossing—I had to bump my ISO to 3200 to capture enough light. Fortunately, the a7R II was up to the task—while I did get some noise in the shadows, it cleaned up nicely in processing.
Leaving Valley View that night, the chill and hunger I’d felt earlier had disappeared. Photography is funny that way—we put ourselves in the most miserable conditions, then completely forget how miserable we are when Nature delivers. The key is to remember this capacity when we’re debating whether to set the alarm for zero-dark-thirty, skip a meal, or brave extreme conditions.
This El Capitan moonlight moment turned out to be my final 2015 photo shoot, a fitting conclusion to a year filled with highlights. Breaking in a new camera while learning a completely new system and way of shooting (Sony mirrorless), I visited the dunes of Death Valley, the rain forests of Hawaii, Yosemite’s glacier-carved granite (many times), Grand Canyon top and bottom—among many. I photographed lightning, rainbows, snow and ice, an active volcano, spring wildflowers and fall color, the moon in many phases, and the Milky Way above some of the world’s most spectacular scenery. How fortunate I am to have a job that I don’t need a vacation from!
At the end of 2014, while reflecting on the beauty I’d witnessed that year, the new friends I’d made, not to mention countless new memories with old friends, I wondered what 2015 would bring. And now I know. In one year I’ll do a similar retrospective on 2016, and while I have no idea what’s in store, I’m confident my good fortune will continue.
So let’s go….
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Here’s what my 2015 looked like
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Snow day
Posted on December 17, 2015
Winter Storm Reflection, El Capitan, Yosemite
Sony a7R II
Sony/Zeiss 16-35 f4
1/8 second
F/10
ISO 100
From my front door I can be in Yosemite Valley in less than four hours (including a stop for gas and another for Starbucks). I enjoy the drive and am not averse to doing a one day up-and-back when I think something special is in store. And nothing is more special than a chance to photograph Yosemite with fresh snow.
My most recent Yosemite snow-dash was last month. Given the fickle nature of Yosemite’s weather, and four years of drought that have made Yosemite snow a rare commodity, I made this trip an overnighter to maximize my odds.
Though I arrived well ahead of the storm, dense clouds and a damp chill ruled the afternoon. Instead of rushing into photography mode, I used the relative calm to scout the conditions, and was pleased to find water in the falls and a few traces of autumn color lingering in some of the more sheltered spots.
The rain started just as night fell. Descending the hill to my hotel that evening, I monitored the outside temperature and was cautiously optimistic about the next day. I enjoyed a warm, quiet evening in my room, cleaning sensors and filters, organizing my wet-weather gear, and visualizing scenes of snow and granite.
Yosemite Valley is at 4,000 feet, but my room was in El Portal, less than 15 minutes away but 2,000 feet lower. Staying in El Portal means I often wake to rain and hold my breath as I ascend to the valley because, regardless of the forecast, snow in Yosemite Valley is never a sure thing.
As expected, that morning I left El Portal in a steady rain, but the drops on my windshield turned to flakes at about 3,000 feet—exhale. By the time I reached Cascade Fall at 3,500 feet, snow was sticking to the trees, and it only got better from there.
This was not a particularly heavy snowfall, but I stayed all day and the clouds never completely cleared. Instead, the storm ebbed and flowed, lifting its stratus cap enough to reveal all of Yosemite’s iconic landmarks, then dropping the lid to obscure everything beyond a few hundred yards.
I concentrated most of my attention on the assortment of El Capitan reflections on the west end of Yosemite Valley. For this image I parked at the El Capitan Bridge and walked upstream along the riverbank a short distance. From here I was close enough to El Capitan that I was unable to get all of El Capitan and all of its reflection in one frame, even at 16mm. I decided to bias my composition to the reflection, and as I worked the sky peaked through just long enough for me to include it in a handful of frames.
The ultimate clearing finally came shortly after sunset. With a nearly full moon illuminating snow-covered Yosemite Valley, I couldn’t resist photographing for a couple hours longer than planned. Stay tuned….
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Yosemite in the snow
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Anticipating the exceptional
Posted on July 11, 2015
Morning Glory, Sunrise Clearing Storm, Yosemite Valley
Sony a7R
Sony/Zeiss 24-70
1/50 second
F/16
ISO 100
No one denies that an image records a single, unrepeatable instant. But just as each instant is the culmination of a series of connected preceding events, most images have their own history that can be traced backward, often months or years before the shutter clicked. The moon didn’t just materialize above Half Dome that evening, and a moonbow isn’t just some random event at the base of Lower Yosemite Fall—their appearance can be directly connected to celestial dance that was set in motion with the birth of our Solar System, and can be predicted with surgical precision (minus a few wild card variables like weather and water flow to keep photographers from getting too cocky).
Photographers spend a great deal of time trying to anticipate instants like these. We start with the common-knowledge stuff, things like the February sunset light on Horsetail Fall, a shaft of summer light slanting in Upper Antelope Canyon, or a moonbow in the spring mist billowing beneath Lower Yosemite Fall. But the precision of the celestial choreography that delivers light shafts to slot canyons and moonbows to waterfalls is just as predictable for anonymous hidden trees, lakes, and peaks. Iconic or undiscovered, each of these spectacles are the convergence of location and predictable natural processes just waiting to be appreciated (and photographed!).
Image planning isn’t limited to the sun, moon, and stars. Understanding and monitoring a favorite location’s weather can put you in the right place, with the best chance to add a rainbow, lightning bolt, or fresh snow. And simply finding a complementary foreground/background alignment that connects two or more terrestrial subjects can elevate an image to the next level.
Rather than a fortuitous right-place, right-time convergence, the creative aspect of many images starts long before capture. When I find a new location, or identify a potential subject, my brain immediately starts spinning on the ways I can make it better. Can I align it with another foreground or background subject? What natural phenomena will take the scene to the next level, and how I can be there when it happens?
For example…
Bridalveil Dogwood, Valley View, Yosemite
Before capturing my image of a raindrop-festooned dogwood flower with Bridalveil Fall in the background, I had long visualized a scene somewhere in Yosemite that featured a dogwood bloom aligned with a soft-focus but recognizable Yosemite landmark. I knew I’d need overcast skies that would illuminate the entire scene with diffuse, soft light, then filed my vision away until the next time the forecast predicted clouds during the short window the dogwood bloom in Yosemite.
On my drive to the park, I started mentally working on locations where I might be able to align a dogwood with a recognizable Yosemite subject, the lens I’d use, the amount of background sharpness I wanted, and so on. Once I was in the valley, I was able to conduct a pretty orderly search that eventually led me to this flower near Valley View.
Sometimes bringing my ideas to fruition requires a lot more research, planning, and patience. I’ll start with a scene that appeals to me, then mentally add something that I think will take it to the next level. A moon? Stars? A rainbow? Lightning? Fresh snow? Maybe all of the above (so far not at the same time, sadly).
The moon and stars are a relatively straightforward matter of plotting angles and timing (and hoping the weather cooperates). On the other hand, weather phenomena, such as rainbows, lightning, and snow, require an understanding of the processes behind them, careful and persistent monitoring of long- and short-term weather forecasts (only the National Weather Service for me), and a lot patience while waiting for the moment to arrive. Then, when the moment does arrive, I need to move quickly and not allow myself to be swayed by fear of failure (always a distinct possibility).
For example…
Double Rainbow, Tunnel View, Yosemite
I’d long fantasized about adding a rainbow arcing over Yosemite Valley to the already breathtaking Tunnel View scene. And being a lover of rainbows and a photographer, I’d long ago taken the time to become extremely aware of the why, where, and when of rainbows. Which is how, on a spring afternoon a few years ago, I was in perfect position when my rainbow fantasy came true.
I was in Yosemite to meet customers for dinner, and to plan the next day’s guided tour of the park. But when my mostly sunny drive up the Merced River Canyon turned to rain as I entered Yosemite Valley, my mental wheels started turning—Yosemite weather almost always moves west-to-east, which meant soon Yosemite Valley would have rain on the east side and sunlight low on the western horizon. It wasn’t hard to rearrange my customers’ priorities, and this was our reward.
Celestial phenomena are wonderfully predictable, so much so that I make very few non-spontaneous photo trips without factoring in the moon and/or Milky Way. (My spontaneous trips are usually spurred by the weather forecast.) And there are few locations I photograph that I can’t tell you the altitude and azimuth necessary to align a the sun, moon, or Milky Way with the location’s most prominent feature.
Hawaii, Death Valley, Mono Lake, Alabama Hills (Mt. Whitney), plus many personal favorite subjects near home—I know exactly where I want to be and when I want to be there, and do my best to make it happen, sometimes planning several years in advance. In Yosemite my terrestrial subject is usually Half Dome, and and my celestial subject is usually a rising moon. And depending the direction of the moon’s arrival, I have an array of locations that I know will align with the moon’s appearance.
For example…
Rising Crescent, El Capitan and Half Dome, Yosemite
Tunnel View is my favorite location for photographing a Yosemite moonrise, but it’s not my only location. Across the Merced River Canyon on Big Oak Flat Road is Half Dome View, a turnout vista with a slightly different, less popular view of Half Dome and El Capitan.
From Half Dome View, the visual distance separating the two monoliths is quite narrow, meaning an extremely small margin of error for a photographer hoping to catch the moon splitting the gap. But the idea had always intrigued me, so I went to work with my plotting method (I do it manually using topo maps, moonrise tables, and an HP-11C scientific calculator that does trig functions).
When I discovered that a crescent moon would indeed split this gap before sunrise on a certain May morning in about a year, I started a plan of attack. Despite the fact that I’d never photographed a moonrise from this location, and even the slightest error in computation would foil the attempt, I went ahead and scheduled a workshop for this date. Try to imagine my anxiety as the day approached and the realization that failure wouldn’t just impact me, it would impact my entire group, really started to sink in. And imagine my euphoria (not to mention everyone with me) that morning when the moon slid into the gap, right on schedule.
When photography’s less than ideal, I might leave the camera in my bag, but I don’t stop being a photographer. I spend a lot of non-camera time scouting locations, looking for complementary subjects that I can align with the grand scene. If my primary subject is in the foreground, I add move around until I can align it with a complementary background. And when my subject is in the distance (like Mt. Whitney from the Alabama Hills, or Yosemite Valley from Tunnel View), I spend a lot of time exploring the nearby terrain in search of subjects I can align with the grand primary scene.
When I find a subject that merits something exceptional, I try to wait until I can enhance it with similarly exceptional natural phenomenon.
For example…
Morning Glory, Sunrise Clearing Storm, Yosemite Valley
When I “discovered” this tree, it was love at first sight. But rather than photograph it in the more conventional quality light conditions that are fairly easy to anticipate, or wait for one of Yosemite’s inevitable exceptional but fairly regular moments, I saved my discovery for something truly extraordinary. And, after about ten years of waiting for location, light, conditions, and circumstances (this spot is too small and dangerous for a group), extraordinary finally happened this April.
Anticipating snow, I’d traveled to Yosemite the previous afternoon. A little snow had fallen earlier that day, and while the storm had passed, its cloudy vestiges lingered overhead and in the valley below. While not the winter wonderland I’d hoped for, there was enough snow still hugging the trees that I found some very nice images. Nice enough, in fact, that I’d have been completely satisfied with my captures if my trip had ended right then. But I wasn’t done.
Because more snow was promised overnight, I got a room nearby and returned the next morning. I wasn’t too far into my drive back into the park before it became clear that I was in for something special. The snow had just stopped, and while there wasn’t a lot of snow, the air was cold enough that I knew until the morning sunlight made it all the way down into Yosemite Valley, everything would remain in a state of suspended animation. And the clouds that had deposited the snow were doing their typical slow-clear dance on the valley floor.
I first stopped at a spot along the Merced River and photographed dogwood and El Capitan. I got so caught up in that scene that I lost track of the time and didn’t give myself a lot of time for my next stop, up the hill at “my” tree (that I often check but rarely photograph). I also realized that given the light snowfall on the valley floor, I’d severely underestimated the amount of snow that had fallen just a few hundred feet up the hill from Yosemite Valley.
I found an entire world covered with white, and the sun about ready to pop up over Sentinel Dome—once the sun arrived, I’d only have about 60 seconds of quality photography before the sun overpowered the scene. I quickly grabbed my gear and scrambled up to the tree. Fortunately, I’d photographed here the previous afternoon, so I didn’t really have to hunt for a composition (generally a fairly painstaking, trial-and-error process). With the sun about to appear, I knew I’d need to do a sunstar and set my aperture accordingly. Without a lot of time to play with the exposure, I made the snap judgement to spare the highlights and hope I could recover the shadows laters, and click.
This image was literally the first click I made of the scene this morning—subsequent captures showed increasingly blown highlights as the sun rose into the scene. On my LCD this image looked severely underexposed, but I trusted the histogram on my a7R, which indicated there was indeed detail in the shadows. (Yes, I know I could have accomplished it by bracketing and blending multiple exposures, but I’m a one-click guy.) And when I finally found the courage to process the image, I held my breath as I grabbed the Lightroom Shadows slider and watched my scene appear.
A gallery of “planned” images
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Exploring the familiar
Posted on April 17, 2015
Snow on Old Tree, Half Dome and Bridalveil Fall, Yosemite
Sony a7R
Sony/Zeiss 24-70
1/30 second
F/16
ISO 100
I spend a lot of time guiding and teaching photographers who have traveled a great distance to capture a particular shot: Horsetail Fall in February, the spring moonbow on Yosemite Fall, the Milky Way above the Kilauea Caldera, to name a few. They’ve seen an image on my website, or someone else’s, and have decided want to add their version to their portfolio. Many have saved money and vacation time for years for the opportunity; others have been chasing the shot without success more times than they can count. Either way, it’s a vicarious rush watching it happen for them.
The captures that make me happiest are the one’s I’ve never seen before. But given that my “job” is guiding people to the scenes I (and others) have photographed many times, I don’t get a lot of opportunity to explore new territory. Instead, I challenge myself to find something new in these heavily photographed areas. And “new” to me is more than just capturing an extraordinary sunset or glorious moonrise, it’s looking beyond the obvious to find a new perspective or fresh interpretation.
Finding new scenes can happen by accident, but there’s no substitute for conscious, calculated exploration. For example, a typical day in Yosemite has lots of blue sky and flat light hours that aren’t conducive to the type of photography I enjoy. Rather than waste that lousy light time simply waiting for the good stuff, I spend it collecting new scenes for later use. In Yosemite that usually means deciding on a subject (Half Dome, El Capitan, Yosemite Falls, Bridalveil Fall, and so on) and poking around looking for foregrounds to put with it.
Despite its apparent permanence, Yosemite is a dynamic environment. Rocks cleave and fall, trees grow and die, water ebbs and flows. Whether it’s walking the bank of the Merced River searching for a reflection of Half Dome, or scrambling granite slopes for a fresh view of Yosemite Valley, there are new perspectives and subjects to be mined everywhere.
When I find something I like, I try to figure out the conditions that would make the best photography. Sometimes this is simply a matter of plotting a moonrise or moonset; other times the best photography requires very specific weather or light. Whatever the condition might be, I do my best to get myself there to photograph it.
Though I photographed this scene just a couple of weeks ago, the view I found on one of these reconnaissance missions several years ago. The first time I saw the twisted remains of this old tree, I imagined it etched with snow. Unfortunately the tree’s location—perched on a ledge above a vertical drop of several hundred feet, is not for the faint of heart, even in the most benign conditions. And getting out here in snow can be downright dangerous.
On my most recent Yosemite trip earlier this month (sandwiched between my Yosemite moonbow workshop and a week-and-half in the Columbia River Gorge), my desire for something new trumped my “respect” for heights. I took a long way around to avoid the cliff as much as possible, then did my best not to look down once I arrived. As I worked, every shift of foot or tripod was planned and tested before execution.
I tried a variety of compositions, wide and tight, vertical and horizontal, that included some or all of the Tunnel View trio: El Capitan, Half Dome, and Bridalveil Fall. Exposure was pretty straightforward, but depth of field was a concern. I stopped down to f16, but chose not to go any smaller due to diffraction (light bending around small apertures to fill the entire sensor can inhibit resolution) concerns. As always in these scenes where I might not be able to achieve complete front-to-back sharpness, I biased my sharpness to my foreground—rather than focusing on Half Dome, I focused on a branch toward the back of the tree.
I actually returned to this scene the next morning, when the snow was much thicker and the light much more difficult. I haven’t had a chance to work with those images, so stay tuned….
A Gallery of the Shot Less Taken
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When seasons collide
Posted on April 11, 2015
Spring Snow, El Capitan, Yosemite
Sony a7R
Sony/Zeiss 24-70
1/8 second
F/11
ISO 100
Ever notice how the best photography happens at nature’s boundaries, the interface separating disparate elements? Sometimes it’s visual elements, like the collision of surf and shore or the intersection of shadow and light. But often we’re moved by images that capture the transition of our experience of the world, such as the color and light that happens when we shift between night and day, or distinctive elements of two seasons together in one frame.
Sunrises and sunsets are a daily occurrence, but the opportunity to capture snow and autumn leaves, or snow and spring flowers, comes just once a year. And until last week, with Yosemite’s waterfalls approaching a summer trickle, and the spring dogwood bloom at least a month early, prospects for the elusive snow with dogwood opportunity didn’t look good.
Storm brewing
Despite Yosemite Valley’s snowless winter, the optimist in me steadfastly monitored an incoming storm, openly defying my internal pessimist that knew the promise of snow would surely fade as the designated day neared. In recent years the pessimist has prevailed in these internal conflicts, thanks to a stream of promising storm after promising storm detoured into the Pacific Northwest by a persistent ridge of high pressure.
But for some reason this storm was different, and while the forecast details changed daily, the one constant was that it seemed determined to defy the ridge. Not only that, this new storm originated in the arctic—what it lacked in tropical (drought busting) moisture, it made up for with air cold enough to deposit snow all the way down to Yosemite Valley.
Obi-Wan Kanobe, you’re my only hope
So, despite the fact that I’d just returned Saturday night from four days in Yosemite (for my spring photo workshop), I found myself on the road back Tuesday morning. With my (4-wheel-drive) Pilot in the shop for some minor body work, I congratulated myself for having the good sense to rent a Jeep when I scheduled the work, even though at the time snow was the last thing on any Californian’s mind.
The queue at the Yosemite entrance station was backed up about a 1/4 mile, and as I idled in a steady rain (the outside temperature was 38F, and with 1500 more feet to climb, I had no doubt it was snowing in Yosemite Valley), it occurred to me that I didn’t actually see anything indicating 4WD anywhere in or on the vehicle. Of course surely a Jeep will have 4WD, but for peace of mind I reached for the manual in the glovebox….
The manual provided no encouraging or discouraging words. As I crept toward the entrance, chain requirement signs seemed to be taunting me, I saw several cars ahead of me turned away for not having chains or 4WD. Approaching the booth, I still wasn’t sure whether I had 4WD (I think I knew, but I was in serious denial), but it dawned on me that without it, my trip was in jeopardy. I rolled to the entrance window and the ranger eyeballed my Jeep—I waved my National Park pass in front of him, and without coming to a complete stop uttered, “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for”, then held my breath as he moved me along. Phew.
Of course my problem was more than simply getting into the park—if conditions truly did merit chains, I knew of no Jedi tricks that would spare me. The snow appeared just a couple of miles up the road, but by the time I got there it was no longer falling and the road turned out to be clear all the way up to the valley. The rest of the afternoon I photographed Yosemite Valley sporting a light but nice dusting of snow. Parking the car for dinner at Yosemite Lodge, I crossed my fingers that the predicted overnight snow would hold off until I retreated to my hotel below the snow line.
No such luck. Stomach full, I exited the cafeteria to at least an inch of new snow, now falling fast enough that my visibility was severely limited and traction was dubious—beautiful indeed, but extremely stressful for this driver. With no other cars on the road, I split the gap in the trees (all actual signs of a road had been obliterated) all the way down the mountain, poking along at about 10 miles per hour but still occasionally unable to resist flipping on my high-beams to recreate a slow-motion Millennium Falcon shift into hyperspace effect.
All’s well that ends well
I made it down the hill without incident, then immediately started stressing about the next morning. If the snow fell this hard all night, Yosemite would surely be spectacular, but lacking chains or 4WD, I’d not be able to get there to enjoy it.
I rose at 5:30 and headed back into the park in the dark. Much to my relief, the snow had stopped in the night, and at each “Chains required” sign I rationalized that the warning was left over from the night before and decided to continue until I actually encountered snow and ice on the road. In Yosemite Valley I found every tree and rock fringed with snow, but the roads were fine.
Freed to concentrate on photography, I knew I had about two hours of quality shooting before the clouds departed, the light hardened, and snow dropped from the trees. My first stop was a personal favorite spot beside the Merced River, too small for a group, where I hoped to find blooms on the dogwood tree that aligns with El Capitan and the Merced River.
I arrived just in time to catch the morning’s first light on El Capitan, the moment made even more dramatic by the diaphanous vestiges of the departing storm. I worked the rapidly changing scene hard, shooting entirely with my 24-70 lens, but using pretty much every millimeter of the lens’s focal range before heading up the hill to Tunnel View.
I drove home thankful for enough snow to photograph, but not so much that I couldn’t navigate, and for the rare opportunity to leverage the late snow and early spring into images capturing the best of both seasons.
Join me in Yosemite next spring
An El Capitan Gallery
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The yin and yang of nature photography
Posted on August 7, 2014
Clearing Storm, El Capitan and the Merced River, Yosemite
Canon 1Ds Mark III
17 mm
1/8 second
F/11
ISO 100
Conducting photo workshops gives me unique insight into what inhibits aspiring nature photographers, and what propels them. The vast majority of photographers I instruct, from beginners to professionals, approach their craft with either a strong analytical or strong intuitive bias—one side or the other is strong, but rarely both. And rather than simply getting out of the way, the underdeveloped (notice I didn’t say “weaker”) side of that mental continuum seems to be in active battle with its dominant counterpart.
On the other hand, the photographers who consistently amaze with their beautiful, creative images are those who have negotiated a balance between their conflicting mental camps. They’re able to analyze and execute the plan-and-setup stage of a shoot, control their camera, then seamlessly relinquish command to their aesthetic instincts as the time to click approaches. The product of this mental détente is a creative synergy that you see in the work of the most successful photograpers.
At the beginning of a workshop I try to identify where my photographers fall on the analytical/intuitive spectrum and nurture their undeveloped side. When I hear, “I have a good eye for composition, but…,” I know instantly that I’ll need to convince him he’s smarter than his camera (he is). Our time in the field will be spent demystifying and simplifying metering, exposure, and depth management until it’s an ally rather than a distracting source of frustration. Fortunately, while much of the available photography education is technical enough to intimidate Einstein, the foundation for mastering photography’s technical side is ridiculously simple.
Conversely, before the sentence that begins, “I know my camera inside and out, but…,” is out of her mouth, I know I’ll need to foster this photographer’s curiosity, encourage experimentation, and help her purge the rules that constrain her creativity. We’ll think in terms of whether the scene feels right, and work on what-if camera games (“What happens if I do this”) that break rules. Success won’t require a brain transplant, she’ll just need to learn to value and trust her instincts.
Technical proficiency provides the ability to control photography variables beyond mere composition: light, motion, and depth. Intuition is the key to breaking the rules that inhibit creativity. In conflict these qualities are mutual anchors; in concert they’re the yin and yang of photography.
About this image
With snow in the forecast for a December morning a few years ago, I drove to Yosemite and waited out the storm. When the snow finally stopped, I made the best of the three or so hours of daylight remaining.
Rather than return to some of the more popular photo locations, like Tunnel View or Valley View, I ended up at this spot along the Merced River. Not only his is a great place for a full view of El Capitan, it’s also just about the only place in Yosemite Valley with a clear view of the Three Brothers (just upriver and out the frame in this image). Downriver here are Cathedral Rocks and Cathedral Spires.
As I’d hoped, the snow was untouched and I had the place to myself. My decision to wrap up my day here was validated when the setting sun snuck through and painted the clouds gold.
Yosemite Winter
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Eloquent Images by Gary Hart 