To the Pain

Gary Hart Photography: White Gold, Half Dome Reflection, Yosemite

When you stop to consider all the components that have to fit into place to make a successful landscape image, it’s a wonder we don’t all just stay inside and watch TV. First there’s mastery of photography’s creative side, which requires the ability to distill our dynamic, multi-sensory, three-dimensional world into a coherent two-dimensional image. Then there’s the technical side, where we juggle our camera’s aperture, shutter speed, and ISO settings to control the scene’s depth, light, and motion. And as if meshing all these moving parts into something visually appealing weren’t daunting enough, don’t forget to factor in photography’s mental component: knowing where to be and when to be there; the foresight to recognize what might happen next and the patience to wait for for it; and finally, the fortitude to endure hunger, sleep depravation, and whatever elements Mother Nature throws our way.

Yet somehow photography happens. And like most things in life, I’ve always thought photography’s greatest joy comes from doing the hard work and overcoming difficulty. Sometimes spectacular just falls in our lap, but most of my favorite images simply those images I feel like I earned.

Nature photography’s 3 P’s

To remind myself (and others) of the photography’s mental side, many years ago I identified what I call, “The 3 P’s of nature photography.” These sacrifices, large and small, a nature photographer must make to consistently create successful images.

Preparation is your foundation, the research that gets you in the right place at the right time, plus the vision and mastery of your camera that allows you to wring the most from the moment. It’s controlling exposure and focus, knowing your equipment, and understanding the subject. Preparation is also just having the right equipment for the moment, from the lenses in your bad to weather-appropriate clothing.
Persistence is patience with a dash of stubbornness. It’s what keeps you going back when the first, second, or hundredth attempt has been thwarted by unexpected light, weather, or a host of other frustrations, and keeps you out there long after any sane person would have given up. And just as important, persistence is a willingness to wait as long as necessary for the moment to be right, and not just settling for “good enough.”
Pain is suffering for your craft. I’m not suggesting that you risk your life for the sake of a coveted capture, but you do need to be able to ignore the tug of a warm fire, full stomach, sound sleep, and dry clothes, because the unfortunate truth is that the best photographs almost always seem to happen when most of the world would rather be inside.

An assignment

The truth is, you almost certainly already do it. Pick some of your favorite captures, pop them onto the screen, and try to put yourself back at that time and place. Ask yourself which of the 3 P’s you employed, and be generous with yourself and not too quick to write an image off to blind luck.

Practicing what I preach, here’s my stab at the assignment for this image:

Preparation: Some would argue that I was lucky to be in Yosemite last month just as several inches of snow fell on peak fall color. And while my good fortune that day isn’t lost on me, the fact that I was there was no accident. I monitored the weather forecast for snow in Yosemite Valley, adjusted my schedule, and packed the right clothes for the conditions. Of course I also had an intimate familiarity of my subject, from the locations themselves to the best time to be there for the current conditions.
Persistence: I can’t tell you the number trips I’ve taken to Yosemite and elsewhere that didn’t amount to anything. In 2013 I scheduled an entire workshop around the arrival of Comet ISON, only to have the comet disintegrate just a couple of days before the workshop. Many times I’ve made the long drive to Yosemite to photograph snow that turned out to be rain. But no matter how many times Mother Nature throws me a curve, I keep coming back and sometimes it pays off. Like this time.
Pain: It’s not like I trekked solo across the arctic, or summited Everest without oxygen, for this image. Though this day was cold and wet, and getting to Yosemite required an 8-hour roundtrip drive in less than ideal conditions, I didn’t do anything most other people couldn’t do—I just pried myself from the recliner and hit the road. The drive was sometimes boring (I’ve done it hundreds of times), sometimes stressful (turns out my Outback needed new tires—uhhh, reference Preparation section above), and standing in the snowy cold was less comfortable than lounging inside by a fire. It’s insidious the way these small inconveniences and discomforts try to lure us into staying home, but the payoff happens enough to justify the sacrifice.

A few words about this image

Autumn Snowfall, Half Dome Reflection, Yosemite

Sentinel Bridge is such an iconic view of Half Dome that it would be photographic malpractice not to share it with a workshop group, but when I’m in Yosemite by myself I rarely stop here because it lacks compositional variety (it’s hard to find something I don’t already have). But because the conditions on this day were spectacularly unique, I actually stopped here twice. This image was from my first stop, when a light snow still fell and storm clouds ruled the scene.

Half Dome had been swallowed by clouds for a while, but crossing the bridge I saw that it had just emerged so I whipped into the adjacent parking lot. Rather than mess with my entire kit, I just grabbed my tripod, Sony a7RIV, and Sony 24-105 f/4 G lens and jogged up to the rail (maybe 100 feet from the car).

I always do my best to position myself so the trees frame Half Dome without obscuring any of its face, not always easy at this extremely popular spot. I was lucky this time that there were only a couple of other photographers set up so I didn’t have any trouble finding a spot that worked. With the scene so perfect, I didn’t want to get too fancy and risk losing Half Dome to the clouds. I quickly identified the elements I wanted to feature—Half Dome, the upstream trees, and of course the gorgeous reflection—and went to work.

I often start with a vertical composition on Sentinel Bridge, but surveying the scene, when my eyes were drawn to the serpentine ribbon of autumn leaves clinging to the south riverbank I opted to start with a horizontal frame. That left me with a decision about what to about the trees on both sides of the river—how many to include, and whether to cut them off at the top. I finally decided that not cutting them off would give me more sky than I wanted.

With the frame’s top/bottom established, I panned left and right until I was satisfied: enough of the floating leaves—check; Half Dome properly centered (Half Dome has so much visual weight, putting it too far left or right can throw off the balance)—check; the diagonal trunk and snow-capped rock far enough from the left edge that they create compositional balancing elements for that side of the frame—check.

With a few gentle ripples ruffling the reflection, I added my Breakthrough 6-stop dark polarizer, stopped down to f/16, and dialed my ISO to 50. This gave me a 4-second exposure that smoothed the water just enough to allow the reflection to stand out nicely. Once I was satisfied that this composition was a success, I went on to shoot the scene in a variety of other ways as well: wider, tighter, and vertical. (You can see the vertical version in the gallery below.)

Returning to Sentinel Bridge a few hours later, the sun had broken through to light up Half Dome and the tops of the trees, creating a completely different, but no less beautiful, scene (that I haven’t had a chance to process yet).

Many of you no doubt recognize the reference in this post’s title; for those who don’t (inconceivable!), treat yourself to this scene from the best movie ever.