Posts Tagged fall color
Big leaf, little leaf.
Posted by Doug Otto in Photography on December 1, 2009
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Water, granite and yellow leaves; the essence of fall in Yosemite.
I talk about it quite often but it’s really easy to get caught up in “the big picture” in a place like Yosemite. Honestly, for many first time visitors, looking past the giant looming granite walls, the huge water falls and wide open meadows is next to impossible. Traditional thinking leads you to believe that landscape photography requires wide angle lenses, a hyperfocal distance chart and a complicated array of filters. All of those items certainly have their place in any landscape photographers tool kit, but none are essential to the making of successful images.
I’m not immune to being “sucked in” by the classic scene but lately I’ve been making a more conscious effort to break down scenes into their component parts. Not unlike trying to determine a recipe just by tasting a finished dish, it forces me to step back and feel the image versus just seeing it. The result of the exercise is an image that I’m more emotionally connected to. My hope is that connection translates to a similar experience for you, the viewer of image.
This pretty little scene was captured using my Canon 100-400, zoomed to 190mm. To maintain sharpness throughout the frame I chose f/16 as my aperture. I generally like to leave my ISO at it’s lowest setting, which is 100 on this camera. That combination resulted in an exposure of 13 seconds.
Cheers
Win a few, lose a few
Posted by Doug Otto in Photography, Random Thoughts on November 23, 2009
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Last week brought what looked like a promising weather forecast for Yosemite. The first report had an 80% chance of precipitation and a snow level of 6,000 feet. By Friday morning, the forecast had changed to 100% chance of precipitation and a 5,000 foot snow level. Yosemite valley is just a touch over 4,000 feet so snow in the valley was still a long shot but at least there would be some interesting weather. All of this could only mean one thing: road trip!
(As I often do on short notice I made a reservation at Curry Village for Friday night. Since Curry village consists almost entirely of unheated tent cabins there are often rooms available in winter. While cots and blankets are provided, the trick to staying at Curry is to bring a warm sleeping bag. If you visit the park often, Curry is a great way to save some money as long as you can handle the no frills accommodations.)
Friday afternoon, clouds started to roll in but the storm never really materialized. Sunrise on Saturday morning greeted us with bright blue skies without a cloud for miles. There had been some rain over night but only patchy snow at the higher elevations. I knew that it was a gamble but I also knew that there was a 100% chance that I wouldn’t see snow if I’d stayed home. All in all, any day spent in Yosemite beats working around the house.
I snapped this shot of some black oaks on our way out of the park. This trip was the maiden voyage for my Canon 7D but I ended taking only a couple dozen shots. There will be other opportunities and I’m pretty sure that I’ll get to see more blank blue skies in Yosemite.
Cheers
Round and round they go
Posted by Doug Otto in Photography on November 19, 2009
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My camera is a time machine.
If you’re a frequent reader of this blog then you’ve seen me talk about limitations of the camera when it comes to how it compares to the human eye. Successful photographers know that and learn to exploit those limitations. We see the world in real time. It’s like being in the center of a continuous movie. You can’t “go back” if you missed something. Unlike our eye, the camera has the ability to both stop and accumulate time. It can freeze a water drop in mid-air or, in the case of this image, capture motion that occurred over several seconds. Time is a creative tool not available to artists working with other medias; a tool worth exploiting.
I shot this in one of the streams below Yosemite’s Bridal Veil fall. When there is sufficient water, the run-off divides into 3 individual streams as they tumble on their way to join the Merced river. It’s a shady, rock strewn, area that is incredibly photogenic. I was looking, very specifically, for an eddy to make this type of shot. During a several second exposure the leaves caught in the current just become swirls of color. The rocks in the stream and the motionless leaf in the foreground also provided a nice balance. I tried several different exposures until I got what I felt to be the right amount of motion. 8 seconds at f/11 was where I finally settled.
Cheers
Photography weather
Posted by Doug Otto in Photography on November 17, 2009
If you’ve been following this blog for any time you’ve heard me talk about “light.” Not just any light, but rather that special soft light that brings a photograph out of just about any scene. An unfortunate realization, to many new to landscape photography, is that the best light often comes during the worst weather. In a place like Yosemite, rain chases the tourists back to their car but it shouldn’t chase you away if you’re carrying a camera. You do have to protect your camera and there are certainly limits to the obsession. Standing, camera in hand, out in a sideways driving rain isn’t my idea of fun.
I took this shot on one of the fall yosemite workshops last month. It had started to rain and despite being told to prepare for anything, most of the group was wanting to pack it in. Adding to the feeling was the group leader, Gary Hart. He had just tried to stick a triple-gainer into Tenaya creek. Gary, not as nimble as he once was, missed the landing and came up lame. While we waited for other to make it down the hill, the clouds dropped in a bit and it started to rain. The soft light from the clouds and the saturation of color that rain brings made the scene. With a bright blue sky I wouldn’t even have bothered to take out my camera.
Before you head out for that next shoot, make sure that you’re prepared. If nothing else, throw a clear plastic bag in your camera case. When that magic light starts happening, you don’t want a little weather to chase you indoors.
Cheers
Frosty morning on the Merced
Posted by Doug Otto in Photography on November 2, 2009
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I think that nearly every landscape photographer struggles when they visit a location for the first time. The first instinct is to grab the widest lens that you have and try to capture it all. More often than not the resulting images are busy, confusing and uninteresting.
During the Gary Hart workshop that just concluded, a number of folks commented that they had struggled with one location that we visited. It was a morning shoot along the bank of the Merced River. It’s also really the only place that you can get an end-to-end view of El Capitan and the Three Brothers. While I’d been to this particular location many times, I’d never really captured an image that I felt did it justice.
After the group spread out and began searching for their compositions I tried to break the scene down to find it’s essence. Really, this hugely vast scene came down to just a few things: the Merced River, the golden first light on El Capitan, the chill in the air and the color of the fall leaves. The next step was to find a composition that embodied those components. After a short walk I came upon this vignette. It’s not the grand vista that one first imagines from this spot but, at least to me, it more accurately captures the “soul” of the location.
I purposely left the technical details of my last couple of posts because I felt them to be conflicting with the message of the post but I know that people like to see them. This simple scene contains a challenge that is worth commenting on.
Reflections can be difficult. The tendency is to focus on the reflection which often results in a loss of sharpness in portions of the frame. The distance to the object not the reflection, determines the focus. In this case, El Capitan was at infinity not the 2 foot distance to the reflection. To get the leaves and grass sharp and have reasonable sharpness in the reflection I set my aperture to f/11. I was using my Canon 24-70 at 55mm and was as low as my tripod would go. I tried several exposures but the blurring of the water seemed distracting so I brought the ISO up to 400, giving me a shutter speed of 1/5 of a second. I felt like it was just enough water motion to give it texture without being a distraction.
Cheers
A yellow leaf
Posted by Doug Otto in Photography on October 26, 2009
The creative process is a funny thing. One of the things that I struggle with is the uncoupling of my engineer brain from my photography. Don’t get me wrong, having a strong grasp of the technical details is important but it can cloud your vision.
I ventured down a small hillside to this setting because something about it grabbed me. My initial focus was the small cascade in the top left corner so I set my tripod right next to the tree with two legs on the fallen tree in front of me and started shooting. From that vantage I worked several compositions but it felt very uninspired. I shrugged and stepped away from the tree, meaning to climb the hill and be on my way. Gary was somewhere behind me and I wanted to catch up with the other members of the group that were already near the top of the trail.
As I turned around my eye caught a flash of yellow. I scanned the area for what ever it was that had caught my eye then I saw it. The tree, with it’s sprawling roots clinging to the side of the stream with the single yellow leaf in contrast. This was obviously what had drawn me to this spot but I nearly let my brain keep me from seeing it. The details are important but it’s as equally important to forget about them occasionally and just let yourself “see.”
Cheers
Fall on Tenaya Creek
Posted by Doug Otto in Photography on October 20, 2009
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Tenaya canyon lies directly North of Yosemite’s Half Dome. Tenaya creek makes its way through the canyon, from the high country, and joins the Merced river in the valley. The area is often known for Ansel’s Adams images of Mirror Lake.
Mirror lake isn’t a lake at all but merely a large widening of the creek. The size of the area causes the water to slow and often yields a mirror like surface just begging to capture reflections of Half Dome. It’s a pretty area but in fall it is almost always completely dry. During most years you could walk right past the “lake” and never have any idea that it was ever there. (Don’t ask me how I know that.) Luckily, this wasn’t like “most” years. The storm last week brought spring-like flows to all of the waterways in the park and Tenaya creek was no exception. Mirror lake is far from the only photographable scene in the area. The creek runs directly next to the trail and offers a ton of spots to shoot.
I actually shot this spot more than once. Each time I walked by it grabbed me and insisted that I spend some time there. What really made this shot was the light. Tourists crave bright blue skies but they’ve the bane of most landscape photographers. On the day that I shot this it was completely clouded over and just starting to rain. The cloud cover acts like a giant “soft box” and casts a smooth even light. Defined shadows disappear and everything gets a nice soft look. I’ve got more images from this area but those will be posts for another day.
The details. To make this image I used my Canon 24-70 f/2.8L, the lens that is on my camera 90% of the time. My focal length was set to 30mm. I set the aperture to f/11 to get an acceptable depth of field. (If you’ve been reading many of these posts you’ll realize that I spend a lot of time in the f/8-11 range. One of the main reasons is that most lenses are at their sharpest in that range.) With my ISO set to 100, the exposure ended up at 1.6 seconds.
Cheers
A very different fall
Posted by Doug Otto in Photography on October 14, 2009
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Tomorrow afternoon the first of two Yosemite fall color workshops starts. When I’m preparing to go on a trip I like to go through my images from the previous year. Seeing the old images helps me set the tone for the trip and it gets the creative juices flowing. Usually, fall in Yosemite is a very peaceful time. The falls are almost entirely dry leaving the, nearly still, Merced river to artfully display reflections of fall color. The operative word, for this trip, is usually.
An very strong fall storm is still rolling through California. It is bringing early snow and a huge amount of water to a very thirsty landscape. The impact that the storm will have on my trip will be WATER! All of the weather should have the falls running with spring-like flows. The combination of fall color with spring water conditions will allow for some very rare photo opportunities. I can’t wait to get there.
As mentioned, this image was taken last year during a fall workshop. It reminds me a great deal of an Ansel Adams image of some aspen trees. The rest of the group was photographing the last, golden light, on Half Dome. This stand of trees was across the river from our location and just barely picking up a shaft of side light. The effect was that aspen leaves illuminated like little lanterns on an otherwise dark background.
I made the image with my Canon 5D and 100-400L lens. I was zoomed in to 160mm. I set the aperture at f/11 to get the sharpest possible image which gave me an exposure of 2 seconds at ISO 100. An exposure like that underscores the importance of using a quality tripod for landscape work. To have any chance at hand-holding the camera for this scene I would have had to open my aperture as wide as possible and/or cranked up my ISO to eliminate camera shake. Both would have compromised the image. The tripod allows me to use the right aperture for the scene without having to let my ability to hold the camera still override my creativity.
Cheers
Getting back to nature
Posted by Doug Otto in Photography on September 17, 2009
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You can feel it in the air. The nights are getting cooler, the days are getting shorter and a few leaves are starting to turn. That can only mean one thing, time to head to the Eastern Sierra. Summer is always a slow time for my photography so I look forward to fall and the chance to get out and do more shooting. Starting in the next few weeks I’ll be doing three, nearly back to back, workshops with Gary. One in the Eastern Sierra (still a few spaces left) and then two in Yosemite.
Fall is a really pretty time but especially so in the Eastern Sierra. Timing the color is always tricky but from all reports conditions should be really nice. I can’t wait.
While the color in the trees is often the focus, the leaves don’t still have to be on the tree to make interesting subjects. This image was taken very near the end of last year’s workshop. We were all heading back to the cars in Lundy Canyon. In a few minutes we’d all be saying goodbye to each other. Not far from the car I looked down and found this single leaf, still wet with the morning’s dew and it was just begging to have it’s picture taken. I liked how the little bit of grass frames the bottom of the scene.
To make this image I used my Canon 100-400 at 400mm. (A medium or super telephoto lens can be a great addition to your landscape kit. Not every shot needs to be wide angle to be interesting.) I set the lens wide open, f/5.6, to minimize depth of field and set the shutter to 1/45th at ISO 100.
Cheers
Fire and life
Posted by Doug Otto in Photography on July 6, 2009
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Fire in Yosemite, or just about any other wild place, is a fact of life. Lightning and fire is natures way of taking out the trash. In our urbanized culture we see fire as a destroyer of life and property. In nature, while there is loss of life, fire is a birth process. The problem with our perception is that we operate on a different time scale than most of what we see around us. For the trees in the forest our little ~80 year life span is just a blink.
I spent a couple of days in Yosemite just prior to the Independence Day holiday. There are, as of this post, two wildfires burning in the park. While I rarely venture into the valley during the summer because of the crowds, I do still appreciate the view. Friday afternoon my wife and I hiked out to Dewey Point to have lunch. There was so much smoke that Half Dome was only a faint grey outline. It was still a good hike but it would have been nicer with a view to reward us.
I took this image a couple of years ago. It was from a stretch of Highway 41, North of the Glacier point road. The area had been burned, roughly a decade ago, but in that short length of time was already bursting with new growth. I’d driven by the area several times thinking, to myself, that there was a picture hiding there somewhere. The sky was grey, from some management fires in the valley, so I choose to exclude it. What struck me was the contrast of color. The green undergrowth, the yellow of the Elm, the gold of the Oak, the bright pink of the Dogwood all contrasted against the stark grey and black of the, still standing, burned forest. Color vs monochrome. Life vs death. Read the rest of this entry »
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