03-OCT-2018
Autumn touches the Snake River Canyon, Twin Falls, Idaho, 2018
The play of light, deep in the Snake River Canyon, is muted in this image -- nearly flat. Yet that flat light evens out the scene and strengthens the autumnal colors. That color provides a contrast to the textures of the rugged rock wall of the canyon that move horizontally through this image. A very small vertical waterfall offers a subtle, shadowed, focal point-- a contrast to the horizontal sliver of river flowing across the bottom edge of the frame.
Sunset, Peralta Canyon, Arizona, 2014
I made this dramatic landscape almost exactly as the sun was setting to the left of this scene. The low angle of warm light strikes the field of saguaro cactus, as well as the wall of Peralta Canyon in the background, illuminating the scene in orange hues and creating powerful shadows. These shadows throw each individual saguaro into sharp relief, and in turn, illuminate the canyon wall to bring out its rugged texture. There are three horizontal layers in this image. Cholla and prickly pear cactus add their textures to the bottom layer, while the layer in the middle ground is filled first with desert bush and then the illuminated saguaros. The background layer fills the frame with the wall of the canyon itself, its mass illuminated by the colors of the setting sun.
03-NOV-2014
Isolation, Peralta Canyon, Arizona, 2014
I used my spot meter to expose and focus on a brilliantly illuminated distant saguaro cactus, thereby isolating it in light and space within its surrounding. By isolating it, I am able to create a mood of loneliness within a dark and brooding atmosphere. I was able to pull some details out of the surrounding shadows when post processing this image, revealing the subtle yet dramatic rocky textures.
26-MAR-2013
Dusk in the Superstition Mountains, Gold Canyon, Arizona, 2013
Masses of yellow wildflowers, surrounded by prickly guardians of Cholla cactus, dot the flanks of the Superstition Mountains every spring. I first photographed them with the sun still high in the sky, producing nothing but descriptive “post-card” landscapes. It was essential to wait for the coming of dusk in order to make expressive images of such a striking scene as this. Just after the sun set, the landscape darkened, turning those yellow wildflowers into a foreground layer of gold at the base of these legendary mountains. The Cholla cactus plants add a transitional layer to the image. Meanwhile, the flank of the massive mountain that fills the background layer seems to be tinged with lingering patches of golden light as the day departs. Gold is a perfect metaphor for this place – for more than century, the area has been famous for its “lost gold mines,” including the still sought after “Lost Dutchman’s Mine.”
26-MAR-2013
Cactus in backlight, Gold Canyon, Arizona, 2013
The translucent needles of Saguaro and Cholla cactus plants seem to come to life when the sun sets. I made this image by shooting directly at a setting sun, yet by lowering my frame, I could crop the sun out of the picture and use its backlight to outline each of the plants with what photographers call “rim lighting.” Two large Saguaro cactus plants dominate the foreground, while additional Saguaros lead off into the distance. The middle layer of this image is carpeted in glowing Cholla Cactus, while a cluster of desert trees fills the background layer.
23-NOV-2011
A city unearthed, Miletus, Turkey, 2011
Miletus, a relatively obscure archeological site, was the greatest and wealthiest Greek city before the Persians occupied it in the middle of the 6th century BC. It is regarded as the birthplace of Western philosophy and science – where philosophers first began to speculate about naturalistic, rather than supernatural, reasons for how the world works. Today Miletus is a picturesque ruin, in every sense of those words. I interpret Miletus here as it might appear in a 19th century romantic painting – brushed with mist, and bathed in a soft nostalgic light. I reduced the color intensity somewhat to create this effect. I carry the eye forward through a foreground layer strewn with overgrown foundations, leading to a shell of an ancient structure, and finally letting it come rest in a hazy, pastoral background. I thought it an appropriate rendering for a place known for its philosophers and their ideas.
13-NOV-2011
Dust devils, Wadi Rum, Jordan, 2011
I used seven layers to express the majesty of the Jordanian desert at sunset. We move through the image starting in a foreground of sand, then to packed dirt, a middle ground of sun-splashed sand and a swirling band of dust devils, and finally to a background of dappled rock and shaded mountains. The alternating bands of shadow, light, and finally shadow again, along with luxuriant evening colors and textures, define the character of a desert steeped in the legend of Lawrence of Arabia.
25-NOV-2011
Arrival, Valletta, Malta, 2011
The dome of the Cathedral of St. John’s dominates the modest skyline of the fortress city of Valletta. I photographed our arrival in Malta from the highest deck of a cruise ship, approaching through a light rain. The pilot boat, which is guiding us into the harbor, creates a wake in the foreground that leads towards the city. The boat’s small scale offers an incongruous contrast to the broad cityscape before us. The fine mist softens detail, and complements the delicate interplay of light, color, and shadow that combine here to express the nature of this historic place.
20-APR-2011
Rim light, Goldfield, Arizona, 2011
Rim light defines the outlines of a subject by illuminating its edges from behind. In this landscape shot of saguaros near the ghost town of Goldfield, I took advantage of a setting sun to create such light. The warm light also increases the color saturation within the image. The saguaro grows only in Arizona’s Sonoran Desert, Mexico, and a small part of California. Its blossom is the State Wildflower of Arizona. Saguaros can grow as high as 50 feet, and live as long as 150 years.
28-MAY-2010
Landscape near Arco, Idaho, 2010
As we traveled through south central Idaho, the weather turned on us – it began as light rain, then turned to snow showers and sleet. Suddenly, the sun broke through the layer of heavy overcast clouds, illuminating a swath of spring green on the distant hills. We pulled off the road, stumbled into the weeds at our feet, and began to photograph the light as it created five different areas of intensity before our eyes. Using a 120mm focal length, I held my camera vertically to stress these differences. The weeds at my feet take on a muted gold coloration. The clouds create a shadowy dark green band in the middle of the frame, while at the same instant, the sun grazes a field of glowing earth in the middle distance. The dark hills at the back of the scene create a portal for the focal point of the image – the glowing emerald valley just below the descending curtain of gray clouds at the top of the frame. Sometime, changing weather conditions can be a catalyst for expression –- that is the case here.
14-NOV-2009
Evening light, Monument Valley, Arizona, 2009
It’s the play of light and shadow that gives this image its expressive qualities, in this case enhanced coloration and dimensionality. The textures of the great monoliths are brought into high relief by the angle of the sun. The entire right side of the butte closest to us, as well as the front of the tower in the background fall into deep shadow, which gives the huge rocks a sense of depth as they relate to space. The colors are richly saturated as well, giving the stark subjects, which arise from a desolate desert, a memorable form of beauty.
12-NOV-2009
Morning light, Monument Valley, Arizona, 2009
Early morning colors in the desert can be very intense, reflecting the color of the sun on rock, sand, and plants alike. In this image, I layer my image with the play of light and shadow on a curving line of sage, and then back it up with the richly colored butte. The clouds that stream out from the butte seem to echo the horizontal structure of the primary and secondary subjects.
28-SEP-2009
Moonrise, Jasper National Park, Canada, 2009
I had put away my primary camera and lenses for the day, and was walking back to our hotel from a nearby restaurant, when I noticed a half moon hanging in the evening sky over the nearly mountains. However I always keep a small camera in a pouch on my belt, and zooming it out to its maximum 60mm focal length, I was able to magnify the rising half moon large enough to have impact. The medium focal length also allows me to include two layers of horizontal mountains and three pinkish cloud layers. I increased the scale of the moon even more by cropping one-third off the left side of the frame, and one third off the top of the frame.
02-OCT-2009
Tide pool, English Bay, Vancouver, Canada, 2009
The morning light and the trail of a receding sea give the wet sand a tactile sheen, leaving an array of rocks and boulders that speak of the glaciers that once covered this area. I like the play of light and shadow as well – the image flows from blue to black as it reads from both left to right and top to bottom.
02-OCT-2009
Seascape, English Bay, Vancouver, Canada, 2009
I worked on this image for nearly fifteen minutes, waiting for passing freighters to position themselves in my frame, the small waves to break on the rocks, and for a lone gull to do something other than just stand on the big rock. Finally, after about fifty images, a freighter worked its way to the end of the hills in the background, a dense rain cloud framed the top of the image, a small wave breached the valley between the rocks, and the gull decided to stand on one leg and scratch its head. Note how I positioned the horizon here, placing it one quarter of the way from the top, rather than splitting the frame in half at the middle. This off center horizon placement gives primacy to what is happening in the bottom three quarters of the image.
28-SEP-2009
Athabasca Lake, Jasper National Park, Canada, 2009
The fall colors were just starting to show about the time we visited Jasper. By making this image early in the morning, when much of this river valley was in shadow, I was able to paint the new colors upon a darkly forested canvas. I only retain a sliver of the blue gray lake at the bottom of the frame, and remove all sky from the image. I virtually fill my frame with trees, featuring orange Aspens against a field of dark pines.
17-JUN-2009
Seascape. Crescent City, California, 2009
I made this view of Crescent City’s rocky harbor from an overlook many miles away. Using a long telephoto lens, I compress a string of rocky islands that line the Pacific coast into a unified pattern upon a sea streaked in shadow and light. The evening sun, hiding behind the storm clouds overhead, adds a golden aura to he scene. The island at left has a single cypress tree. Next to it stands the silhouette of the historic 1856 Battery Point Light House. I made this image as both a vertical and horizontal, and selected the vertical because the tall frame intensifies the compression of the string of islands.
15-JUN-2009
Fallen giant, Hendy Woods State Park, California, 2009
This park has two groves of old growth coastal redwood trees, hundreds of years old and enormous in scale. I made my most expressive redwood forest landscape photograph of a tree that has fallen and a fern rising from a pool of light next to it. It is not the subject itself that moved me to make this image. It the way light simultaneously abstracts and reveals it. The fallen tree creates a dark diagonal, deep within the shadows. It has been left to gradually decompose, nourishing the soil around it so that new growth such as this lone fern can flourish. One leaf of the fern catches the light, as if in salute the fallen giant behind it. The gradations of light and shadow in this image trace the process of life itself.
08-APR-2009
Desert glow, Saguaro National Park, Tucson, Arizona, 2009
The sun is low in the sky, backlighting the spines on the Cholla cacti as well as illuminating the outlines of the Saguaro cacti in the background. Just enough glare enters the top of the frame to inject a golden glow into the image. We move from the deep shadows in the foreground through the luminous strands of cactus in the middle ground to the fiery haze in the background. This is what it feels like to stand in the southern Arizona desert at sunset.
13-APR-2009
The Old West, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona, 2009
I have always wanted to make a photograph of the Grand Canyon that drew on the nostalgic color palettes of the great oil painters of the Old West, such as Thomas Moran, Frederick Remington, and Maynard Dixon. This image brings me a step closer to my goal. I made it very late in the day, as a low hanging sun was trying to burn through heavy clouds, creating a diffused glow that rendered the copper cliffs of the canyon in tones of rustic brownish gold. Using a long 400mm telephoto lens, I compress a series of buttes into a series of tightly framed layers, completely eliminating the sky. I like the splashes of melting snow at the lower corners – it give the image a feeling of an unfinished canvas.
13-APR-2009
Colorado River, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona, 2009
Using a long 400mm telephoto lens, I focus on only a tiny part of the river as it roars between the towering cliffs and the piles of rocky debris that surround it. The tiny slash of bluish green contrasts strongly to the golden brown rocks and dark shadows that frame its course. We are looking at the work of nature here – centuries of it. It is a sight such as this that makes the Grand Canyon one of the wonders of the natural world.
14-APR-2009
Morning, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona, 2009’
The Grand Canyon was full of morning haze and the sky partly overcast – we were very unhappy with the light. Yet as we continued to shoot, I noticed that one particular butte in the midst of the canyon seemed to be picking up at least some defining light, and it stood out in sharp contrast to the bluish haze behind it. I was able to build this layered image out of that situation by spot metering on the illuminated crown of rock, using a 150mm medium telephoto focal length. The foreground layer is full of softly shadowed rock, the middle ground layer embraces two richly colored buttes, one of them well illuminated, and the background layer offers a deep blue background for contrast. I learned a good lesson from this photograph. Always look for the spot of good light, even in situations where it might be difficult to find. You never know when you’ll find it and if you do, make the most of it by spot metering on it, and then working on it with layers and contrasts.
06-OCT-2008
Changing seasons, Cache National Forest, Idaho, 2008
I’ve tried to express the changing seasons in this image of fall color in Idaho’s high country. I use backlighting to make the Aspen leaves translucent, and bring out the comparison between the tree full of leaves at the center and the branches in the process of shedding their leaves at right. Meanwhile, the pine tree at left is impervious to the changing seasons, and holds its green color.
06-OCT-2008
Seed pods, Preston, Idaho, 2008
This flow of seedpods, glowing in backlight, begins at upper left and wraps its way around and through the small stream that slices through the middle of the frame. This autumnal image offers a palette of browns and greens, striking evidence of the seasonal change.
17-SEP-2008
Deschutes National Forest, Oregon, 2008
I made many images in this forest of ferns, but the only one that seemed special to me was this one, because of the way the light strikes the plants in the foreground and on the sides of the tree trunks in the background, leaving all else in shadow. The textures and colors of the autumnal ferns, varying from green to yellow to orange, speak of the ebb and flow of the seasons and the life cycles that parallel them. The pine trees that appear to continue indefinitely, remind us that here in Oregon, lumbering is a way of life, and Oregonians must continually walk the delicate line between protecting the natural environment and their own economic survival.
13-SEP-2008
Upper Falls, McCloud River, California, 2008
I built this image around the light falling on the plants on either side of the turbulent water. The sunlit plants are like pathfinders, illuminating the way for the onrushing waters. I used my spot-metering mode, exposing for the highlights and letting the shadowed portions of the image slide into darkness. I also stress the texture and frozen movement of the water, which required a fast shutter speed. Some photographers would have used a tripod, a neutral density filter, and a slow shutter speed to blur the water as a silky torrent. However I have long felt that such silky water can call attention to technique itself at the expense of the natural world, and when used repeatedly can become gimmicky. I feel that as a nature and landscape photographer, I am expressing my ideas as a witness, and my images should bear true witness to its wonders. For that reason I do not employ special photographic effects at either the moment of exposure or later in post processing in nature and landscape photography. I try to let the landscape speak for itself, and as far as I’m concerned, this landscape does.
24-AUG-2008
Wheeler Beach, Narragansett, Rhode Island, 2008
Using a 28mm lens, I fill two thirds of my vertical frame with the richly colored rocks that form the base of the jetty making the southern boundary of Narragansett’s Wheeler Beach. The upper third of the image features the beach itself, as well as the low flying line of clouds that hang over the scene. The early morning light bathes the scene in warm colors that define the age of the ancient boulders that anchor the image.
13-MAY-2008
Rainbow on Bridalveil, Yosemite National Park, California, 2008
Rainbows are created by sunlight passing through droplets of moisture at a particular angle. The mist of a great waterfall is an ideal setting for this optical phenomenon. The rainbow that forms at the base of Yosemite’s spectacular Bridalveil Fall creates a delightful mix of primary colors that can best be expressed when the image is underexposed. I made this photograph from the top of Yosemite’s Tunnel View lookout point, several miles away from Bridalveil Fall. We knew the rainbow would appear in Bridalveil’s mist – we just had to wait for it to happen. This image is one of my favorite landscapes. It is as if a giant liquid crack has opened in the earth, revealing a trace of fire in the thundering fissure.
15-MAY-2008
Scorched pines, Yosemite National Park, California, 2008
By spot metering on the brilliantly illuminated ferns on the forest floor, I cause the stand of pines to grow darker, emphasizing the scars left on them by a recent forest fire. The light reflected off the ferns adds a soft, indirect glow to the scorched bark. The image speaks of nature’s way – fire and timber are not only enemies - they are collaborators.
13-MAY-2008
El Capitan, Yosemite National Park, California, 2008
I used spot metering to expose on a sliver of El Capitan’s sheer granite face, as the morning sun illuminated it. I set my telephoto zoom lens at its longest distance (420mm) and shot the image from off to one side, at a great distance away. I framed the vertical sliver within a horizontal frame, which creates tension and further abstracts the image. Finally, I screened the face of El Capitan with a foreground layer of pine branches, which helps give the great cliff its sense of place by implying a forest setting.
07-AUG-2007
Sunset, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona, 2007
The most expressive landscapes show less of the subject in order to say more about it. This is a good example of that concept. I watched and waited as the sun slowly dipped below the rim of the canyon, observing the changing pattern of light and shadow. Three of the five rock formations before me are barely seen abstractions, because of the dark shadows that engulf them. The formation closet to my vantage point is still reflecting the last rays of the setting sun along the top of its façade. It looks like an illuminated cake with one candle on it – formed by the sun splashed edge of the butte just behind it. We are celebrating the geological result of six million years of erosion here, and we do it by showing less in order to say more.
08-AUG-2007
Looking down, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona, 2007
By layering this image with a foreground of tangled bushes, I give the viewer a basis for appreciating the sheer height of our vantage point. I exposed for the one spot of bright light in this image – the rising sun illuminating just the crown of the huge rock formation at the left of this image. By using my spot meter in this way, I plunge the foreground vegetation into shadow, making it mysterious and seemingly ancient. The balance of the frame is filled with distant rock formations that vanish into shadow as well, leaving the eye to focus on the subject of this image – the towering, twisting, terraced vision at left.
08-AUG-2007
The tree in the chasm, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona, 2007
Ten minutes after making the preceding image (
http://www.pbase.com/pnd1/image/83716757 ), I made this one from almost the same spot. The rising sun now illuminates almost the entire rock formation that I had featured in that image. I used a 40mm focal length on that image. For this photograph, I am using a 28mm wideangle lens turned vertically, in order to embrace the ancient, well-worn rocks on the edge of the rim itself to add perspective to the landscape. I stress the dark chasm in the center of the image, in order to feature a small but glowing tree that seems to be hanging within it. The tree just catches the early morning sun, a spot of orange adrift in a sea of black. All of the massive formations in this image now become our context. That little tree, alive, and vulnerable, becomes the subject of this image.
07-AUG-2007
Growing in the glow, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona, 2007
The evening sun illuminates the top of a canyon ledge supporting but a single tree. I used my spot meter on the brightest part of the image – the slabs of rock that line that ledge – to create my exposure. The rest of the image darkens accordingly. I was struck by the way the rock façade below the tree holds its glow as the rest of the image darkens. It is reflected light, bouncing off the rim of the Grand Canyon itself, which creates that glow. The glow seems to nurture the solitary tree above it, urging it to flourish.
13-JUN-2007
Sugarloaf Ridge State Park, California, 2007
A landscape of ancient boulders, trees and grasses greets the hikers and campers who visit this state park. I saw the boulders here as islands in a sea of grass. The tiny spikelets at the ends of the blades toss around and over the rocks as ocean spray. The light illuminates one of the boulders, while throwing the others into deep shadow. The rounded shapes of the boulders echo each other, creating a sense of movement from front to back and side to side. Three layers draw the eye into the scene – the foreground boulder as an anchor, the flow of green grass dividing the boulders down the middle, and the wall of boulders as background.
20-FEB-2007
Manley Beacon, Death Valley National Park, California, 2007
Most dawn landscapes stress the delicate early morning light as it falls on the primary subject. In this image, I go against that principle here – using the dawn light as context for a subject still very much in shadow. The distinctive arrowhead shape of Manley Beacon is still shrouded in darkness. As the most prominent feature of Death Valley’s famous Zabriskie Point overlook, it forms the base layer of my image. Its vast shadow is the secondary layer. The distant Amargosa Mountains, aflame in the dawn light, form the background layer of this landscape. The image is about the gradual arrival of the morning sun, tempting the imagination of the viewer to visualize what Manley Beacon will look like when it becomes ablaze with light.
20-FEB-2007
Encircled, Twenty Mule Team Canyon, Death Valley National Park, California, 2007
As the sun rises, its low rays set desert plants such as these aglow. I use my spot meter to expose for the highlighted plants. Because the black hill beneath them is still in shadow, the illuminated plants seem to float over the ground below them. I isolated this particular grouping of plants because they symbolize a community. They form a circle around a plant that appears that does not appear to be as healthy as most of the others. It becomes an image about survival and renewal.
24-FEB-2007
A landscape revisited, Alabama Hills, Lone Pine, California, 2007
Returning to the Alabama Hills, just outside Lone Pine, California, for the second time in for months, I had a chance to work on a different version of a landscape I had photographed on my earlier visit. Click on the link at the bottom to see it. In that vertical version, I drew on the contrasts of color ranging from the brown rocks of the Alabama Hills to the golden pink dawn on the peaks of the Sierras. In my new version, I use a horizontal format to frame just the lower reaches of the mountains, the valley at their base, and the boulders of the Alabama Hills in the foreground. The first light of dawn is now seen in the valley, rather than on the mountain peaks. I place more stress on the field of boulders, which fill the foreground, awaiting the light. This version is no better or worse than the first – it is simply a different way of expressing the same idea on the same subject.
23-FEB-2007
Ghost riders, Alabama Hills, Lone Pine, California, 2007
Lone Pine's Alabama Hills provided the location for many western movies. The setting sun spotlights this tree and the surrounding grasses, creating background shadows resembling huge, haunting figures. They bring to mind the actors who once dueled in the dust of these same hills. The barren tree seems just as ghostly. Its branches reach out towards the shadowy figures that dominate the image.
20-FEB-2007
A touch of light, Zabriskie Point, Death Valley National Park, California, 2007
Light comes to the barren ridges of Death Valley very quickly. In a matter of moments, the scene goes from dark to light. I made this image at first light, catching the glow on the repeating ridges, and letting the rest of the image stay in the shadows. I spot metered on the brightest part of the scene to hold detail in the highlights. Shooting from high above these ridges at the Zabriskie Point overlook, I composed this scene as a series of flowing diagonal repetitions – eliminating the sky and stressing the variation of light on the stone ridges unfolding below me.
23-FEB-2007
Winter light, Alabama Hills, Lone Pine, California, 2007
In winter, the plants that blanket the Alabama Hills are bare. The evening light shines through them, creating glowing clusters of branches that symbolize the cycles of life itself. In this case, I photographed these bushes in front of massive rocks for contrast in scale and substance. The rocks are permanent. The bushes grow, cycle through seasonal changes, and then vanish, eventually replaced by others. Nature has created both rock and plant and gives us the light to bring energy and meaning to the scene.
21-DEC-2006
Progress, Tineghir, Morocco, 2006
This landscape offers five layers of content, starting with the plowed fields in the first layer, which lead to the palm grove in the second layer. The third layer features the old adobe city, while the fourth layer provides the focal point of the image – new construction, spotlighted by a narrow shaft of sunlight coming though the clouds. The fifth and final layer provides a backdrop of earth and hills. The glow around the new construction implies that better days may be in store for the provincial Moroccan town of Tineghir.
11-DEC-2006
Where land meets sea, Essaouira, Morocco, 2006
Trade winds often rake the Moroccan coast at Essaouira, smashing the roaring surf into the huge rocks that line the port. The most important decision I made in making this landscape was to frame the image without the sky, instead filling the image with water and rocks from top to bottom. The waves grow in energy as they move down the image, finally ripping into the rocks at the bottom in an explosion of spray and froth.
17-DEC-2006
Zis Valley in winter colors, Midelt, Morocco, 2006
The vivid winter colors of these golden Aspens appear even more startling when seen juxtaposed against a sea of palm trees. The contrasting colors and kinds of trees create a seldom seen incongruous beauty.
21-SEP-2006
Sunset, Arches National Park, Utah, 2006
We went into Arches on a heavily overcast evening. Rain was falling lightly. There was no indication that we would see even a hint of a sunset. As the sun was dropping in the sky, it found a crack in the clouds just above the horizon, spreading golden light along the fields of sage and the distant rock formations. I emphasize rich golden brown fields of sage, which contrast dramatically to the heavy clouds above. Nature offered us a lasting lesson that evening – never look at dreary skies overhead and assume that sunset light is impossible. All it takes is a small crack at sunset between the clouds and the horizon to create the lighting conditions for an image such as this one.
21-SEP-2006
Evening on the Colorado River, Moab, Utah, 2006
I built this image around a single spot of glowing late afternoon light on the bluff across the river. I used my spot meter to expose for that spot of light, and allowed the rest of the image to darken. I lowered my camera to my waist so that I would fill the bottom of the image with a screen of brush, creating a primary anchor layer. The reflection of the light in the river becomes my middle layer, and the subject itself is the final layer.
19-SEP-2006
Reflected light, Bryce Canyon, Utah, 2006
Bryce Canyon is filled with thousands of colorful hoodoos, creating a fantastical assembly of shapes and colors. The canyon holds a series of walls that can act as reflectors for light. This image is the product of such a wall, which catches the late afternoon sun and throws its glow back on the hoodoos before it. It is as if we are looking into a giant basket of glowing hot coals. I backed up from the edge of the canyon to fill the foreground with a ridge of bushes and trees to add a sense of spatial dimension to the landscape.
27-SEP-2006
Dawn on the Firehole River, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, 2006
This image contains three contrasting areas of light. The foreground is in deep shadow, containing softly glowing red and brown grasses. The middleground contains the thermal hot springs that line the river – they send up clouds of steam that catch the pinkish light in their plumes as they contrast to the dark hill behind them. The background of this image is the crest of that hill, lined with the stark remnants of the wildfires that ravaged Yellowstone in 1988. The dead trees are thrown into stark relief by the pinkish yellow light of rising sun behind them.
22-SEP-2006
Fisher Towers, Moab, Utah, 2006
The Fisher Towers, just outside of Moab, are an illusion. They are patterns etched into the side of a hill, looking very much like a city skyline. When the late afternoon washes them in golden light, they can acquire a sense of dimension, as if some of the “buildings” are closer to us than others. In actuality, they are all part of the same hill. In this image, I was able to use the late afternoon light and the shadows of overhead clouds to offer a dimensional illusion of massive futuristic city. The clouds throw the foreground into deep shadow, anchoring the image. The hill itself is also abstracted by the shadows of the clouds. The actual clouds, dark with rain, echo the darkness of the hill and foreground.
22-SEP-2006
Mesa Arch, Canyonlands National Park, Utah, 2006
Very few images of this famous arch only show half of its bottom half. Most predictably show the entire arch framing the canyon below. I wanted to stress the warmth of the reflected sunlight on the underside of the arch, and use it as a counterforce to the curving side of the mesa below it, so I include only about one quarter of the famous arch in this image. The view of the canyon completes the image.
15-OCT-2006
Sunset, Alabama Hills, Lone Pine, California, 2006
The setting sun reveals the ancient texture of these hills, arranged along a gradually receding diagonal line. These rocky surfaces look very familiar. They provided the background for dozens of western movies.
18-SEP-2006
Footprints, Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park, Utah, 2006
The evening light on this huge sand dune brings out the trail of human footprints along the crest of the dune, as well as the deep shadows that give the dune and its foreground undulations great dimension. The tiny figure walking along the crest tells us just how large this dune is. The image begins with green vegetation in the foreground, then moves to sand in the middle ground, and returns to green trees in the background. These dunes are just outside of Kanab, Utah.
21-SEP-2006
Golden rain, Arches National Park, Utah, 2006
The circumstances surrounding this image were bizarre, to say the least. We were photographing in Arches just as the sun was going below the horizon. The entire ground turned purplish gold, and at that moment a rain shower erupted in front of us. The falling rain reflects the light of the setting sun, creating what seemed like a mirage, or a scene out of a biblical movie. Using the red butte at right as a counterpoint to the burst of golden rain, this is as close as I’ve ever come to photographing a supernatural event. It is a graphic example of the power of light to utterly transform a landscape.
18-OCT-2006
Fall colors, June Lake Loop, California, 2006
The play of light intensifies the richness of this vivid color. I’ve layered the image in quarters – using the rocky foreground to anchor the image, cathedral-like middle ground of glowing yellow trees, and a two stage backdrop featuring both a shadowy and illuminated hillside. Its towering neighbors dwarf the tiny red tree.
20-OCT-2006
Aspen, Lee Vining Canyon, California, 2006
Interpreting the landscape with light usually involves accurate light metering. However in this case, I experimented with over-exposure, making the lighter areas of the image seems almost transparent. The resulting softly impressionistic palette blends green, yellow, and orange into an expression of both the delicacy and the brilliance of nature at work.
21-OCT-2006
Abandoned house, Bodie State Historic Park, Calfornia, 2006
Bodie once contained 2,000 buildings and 8,000 people. Today it is one of the best preserved ghost towns in the world. At sunset it seems truly haunted – this underexposed image, based on the brilliant gold of the sage, suggests rather than describes this house. We see only the side struck by light – the darkness implies the presence of the spirits that are said to live here.
16-OCT-2006
The Sierras, from Alabama Hills, California, 2006
This vertical landscape contrasts the shadowy Alabama Hills to the higher, sun struck Sierras above them. The image begins in sage and ends in sky, with deep browns and golden oranges gradually rising through the image. The colors in the deep shadows are, in their own way, as warm as the colors create by the setting sun in the background.
17-OCT-2006
Approaching storm, Onion Valley, California, 2006
Not all expressive landscapes are made in soft golden light. There are times where the light is neutralized by weather, such as in this image. We were riding through snow showers in the Onion Valley when we spotted this tightly packed group of isolated trees in the midst of changing colors. Using a 28mm wideangle lens, I create a three layer image, featuring golden sage at in the foreground, the fall foliage in the middle ground, and the approaching storm moving out of the hills in the background. The light is soft and even, without a shadow in sight. We rely entirely on color and texture to express the beauty and meaning of this scene. The storm brings moisture, and it is moisture that feeds the tree and sage and keeps them alive.
20-OCT-2006
Afterglow, Mono Lake, California, 2006
A cloudscape can also be a landscape. This image is both, defining the scale of the distant hills, juxtaposed against a corner of one of the most unique lakes on earth. The shape and coloration of the cloud is unique – some call it a Sierra cloud. A giant spear of pink, the well-defined cloud echoes the lighter, more diffused clouds behind it.
20-AUG-2006
At my doorstep, Phoenix, Arizona, 2006
I travel all over the world to make expressive images. Yet I found this one on my own back doorstep. I live on the edge of the Phoenix Mountain Preserve, and made this wideangle image over my back fence. The sky belongs to all of us, and nature often paints it in colors so delicate yet vivid that they defy description. The key to this image is the towering cauldron of gauzy clouds, swirling in air currents tumbling upon each other in a pattern that seems to explode over the low hills that flank Piestewa Peak, the highest mountain in Phoenix. I use the horizon as context, and one of my yucca plants as an anchor layer, letting nature’s palette do the rest.
05-AUG-2006
Moonrise at Mohonk, New Paltz, New York, 2006
While visiting New York, we stayed for a weekend at a secluded Victorian Resort known as the Mohonk Mountain House. Located in the Hudson Valley just 90 minutes from New York, Mohonk was founded in 1869, and today its 265 rooms sprawl across the crest of Shawangunk Ridge along Mohonk Lake. Looming on a cliff over that lake is a tower, offering hikers a view of numerous neighboring states. I made this image of that tower at the moment the moon drew equal to its cupola, just as the setting sun turned the limestone ridge to a deep reddish gold color. Less than a minute after I made this image, the light faded from the cliff. This image echoes a prime maxim of landscape photography – be there when the light is on the edge, just before it goes away.
09-JUN-2006
Waterfall, Hug Point, Oregon, 2006
Most waterfalls are photographed as waterfalls. I find them more expressive if they can be photographed as part of a landscape. After shooting this one head-on, I soon realized that all I had was a descriptive picture of a waterfall. To make a more expressive image of this subject, I began working the angles, until I was able to create a series of layers, which are essential to any landscape. Layers add a third dimension to an image. We not only have width and height, but can imply depth as well. As I worked on this image from the side, I saw that I could create a flow of small rocks along the bottom of the image that became progressive smaller as they receded into the distance. I also saw the outline of what appeared to be a huge cave just behind the waterfall, and when I used my spot meter on the light water, the cave behind the waterfall became ever darker and more mysterious. The darker the rocks became, the richer the color, which adds still another expressive dimension to this image. Another question I needed to answer here was the amount of blur in the water. The slower the shutter speed, the more silky-smooth the blurred water becomes. Most photographers blur flowing water by shooting from tripods. It gives them complete control over the amount of blur in the water, without risking blurring the surrounding rocks due to camera shake. However, I prefer to always shoot “hand-held.” I like to move when “working” a shot, and I move a lot. I don’t want to have to keep replanting a tripod, leveling it, etc. The technical side of photography tends to sap spontaneity, so I eliminate the use of such encumbrances as tripods, fill flash, and filtration from my approach. Using my image stabilized Leica lens, I can hand hold a shot as slow as ¼ of a second, which is equivalent to about 1/15th of a second exposure time without using image stabilization. Shooting this particular waterfall, I found that the slower exposures gave me too much blur in the water. It just did not look “real” to me – whereas this shot, made at 1/15th of a second, gives just enough blur to imply swiftly moving water. Light plays a huge role in landscape photography. But sometime the light is just not there. Such was the case here. It was a heavily overcast morning, and I had to work in flat light. Yet I was able to draw on heavy shadows to abstract the background, and add a layer of mystery to the image. Shadows are part of any cave-like setting, and I stress them in this image.
The effect of my vantage point is very important here. You can see where I was shooting from in a wideangle view of the whole scene shot by our tour's co-leader Winn Krafton by clicking on the link at bottom. I used a medium focal length to compress background and foreground.
05-APR-2006
Li River, Guilin, China, 2006
When we think of good light for landscapes, we think first of the golden light of morning and evening. Yet expressively rich images of landscapes can also be made on a cloudy day, particularly if the air is misty and the sky overcast. For years I have been looking forward to photographing the spectacular mountain scenery on Guilin’s Li River, yet when that day finally came, the sun was obscured by a bright overcast of clouds. I made the best of what nature gave me, relying on that obscurity to challenge the imagination. This image is my favorite from that day – it evokes mighty scale and the forces of nature at work over the centuries. The sheer limestone cliffs soaring over the river into a misty sky dwarf the four riverboats ahead of us, creating powerful scale incongruity. The mountains are delicately painted in green, and forests flow from their flanks down to the river. My choice of a cloudy white balance setting warms the bright sky with a bronze glow reminiscent of a 19th century painting. I increased the saturation of this glow later in Photoshop to bring the image to what we see here
03-APR-2006
Horsemen, Lijiang, China, 2006
Just as the sun demolished a leaden afternoon by hurling its rays through these broken clouds, these horsemen and a small dog came riding past us – a perfect combination for a striking landscape image. Usually landscapes allow time for contemplation. This one did not. The rays lasted only a few minutes; the horses were in front of us for only a few seconds. I put my camera into its multiple image mode, held the shutter button down, and made six pictures in two bursts. I based exposure on the brightest part of the sky to hold detail in the rays. The horses were underexposed, but I was able to bring them back to this point by using the shadow/highlight option in Photoshop. The image has a timeless feel to it – these riders could have come from another century altogether. It is grandeur of nature that takes center stage here – light like this does not show itself every day.
02-APR-2006
Jade Dragon Mountain, Lijiang, China, 2006
Lijiang’s most famous landmark is this towering 18,360-foot high mountain. Its 13 sharp peaks resemble the back of a dragon. Its snow-covered peak is one of the southernmost glaciers in the world. An early morning storm is just lifting from the summit. Nature made this image for me. Without the clearing storm at the summit, all I would have is another picture of a mountain peak. What I was given, however, was a glimpse of lifting clouds in the warm glow of dawn light. I was able to abstract the lower half of the mountain by shooting through a stand of trees. Their jagged edges rhythmically repeat the jagged peak of the mountain. I owe this image, and indeed all of my Lijiang images to pbase photographers Alister and Allie Benn. (
http://www.pbase.com/alibenn ) Alister took me to this particular vantage point, one he obviously knows well. He told me that this mountain is often fogged in at dawn. I was very grateful to be able to see the peak in this kind of light
08-FEB-2006
Isolation, Zion National Park, Utah, 2006
When shooting landscapes, I look not for a subject, but instead for light that defines a subject. Such was the case here. I saw how the early morning light defined the isolation of this lone Cottonwood tree, and how it gave a sense of scale to vast cliffs that line the valley of Zion Canyon along the route of the Virgin River. I lowered the top edge to remove the top of the cliffs, making them seem to go on forever. The light not only illuminates the delicate branches and leaves of the Cottonwood tree from behind, but it also abstracts the canyon walls, turning them all black, except for one wall that slashes into the valley at a right angle. And that wall plays counterpoint to this tree – two forms of nature, one alive, the other eternal.
08-FEB-2006
Riverside Walk, Zion National Park, Utah, 2006
A lone figure passes under the deeply etched, richly colored sandstone walls that rise on both sides of the Virgin River. The figure gives this landscape its focal point and a sense of scale. I conceived the idea first, and structured my image within the frame long before this man appeared. I used a new camera, a Leica D-Lux 2, to make this photo. It offers a 28mm focal length in a 16:9 aspect ratio, similar in frame shape to the screen of a high definition TV set. This proportion was ideally suited to my idea. I wanted an image based on two triangles, meeting along a diagonal line through the middle of the frame. I stood behind the slope of a hill, which I used to fill half the frame. It begins at the upper left hand corner of the fame, and leads down to a paved trail that comes into the image from behind the hill, and leaves the frame at the lower right hand corner. The hill and trail gave me one of my triangles. The other triangle fills the upper right side of the image. It is dominated by the vast, richly colored, deeply carved sandstone cliffs, and fronted by backlit cottonwood trees along the Virgin River. All I needed was a human figure to enter my frame, and when this man did, I caught him just as he was turning to admire the view.
07-SEP-2005
The Slap, Plitvice Lakes National Park, Croatia, 2005
Veliki Slap, the "big waterfall," dominates one end of Plitvice Lakes National Park. Its cascades were smashing into the ground only a few yards from where I was standing. I tried to make a landscape photograph that would be primeval in nature, comparing the gentle cascades and surrounding plants in the foreground to a thundering tapestry of natural power of “The Slap” in the background. I exposed for that background, and then recovered the important detail, such as the light shimmering on the small cascades in the shadowy foreground, later in Photoshop.
04-MAY-2005
Liquid Gold, Oak Creek Canyon, Sedona, Arizona, 2005
Oak Creek, along with it namesake, Oak Creek Canyon, is one of the most photographed sights in the American West. Yet it is difficult to express the essence of it, largely because it is often shrouded in flat light. The day’s warmest light, blocked by the canyon’s towering walls at both dawn and dusk, often never makes it all the way down to the waters of the creek itself. However, for this particular image, I was able to incorporate the golden light of dawn as it hit the canyon wall, by catching its reflection in the creek’s rippling water. I abstract the creek itself, shooting only an incongruously narrow channel of gilded water threading its way between the boulders that line the creek bed. Less has truly become more here.
I intend this golden reflection to work in metaphorical, rather than descriptive, terms. We are looking here at water, a resource ultimately as precious to man as the metaphorical gold that seems to drift upon its ripples. Fresh water is a dwindling resource, and I symbolize its potential scarcity by squeezing it as tightly as I can between those ancient boulders.
26-JAN-2005
Tad Fane Falls, Pakxong, Laos, 2005
In the far south of Laos, we visited spectacular Tad Fane Falls, a pair of waterfalls plunging 800 feet into a forest gorge. The sheer drop of water is so breathtaking that Tad Fane would be among the most popular waterfalls in the world if not hidden in a remote section of Laos. The light and color in the surrounding foliage brings the image to life. I also found two thin tall trees that seemed to mimic the narrow twin cascades of water, and moved my vantage point so that the two trees separate the two falls. This greatly improves the structure of my wideangle composition. When I first photographed these twin falls without the trees between them, I produced a visually beautiful yet static picture post card image, crippled by the abundant amount of negative space nature had placed between the cascades. Inserting the twin trees between the cascades, I not only create rhythmic repetition, but I also tripled yet narrowed the overall amount of negative space, energizing the picture. Each of the three narrow strips of negative space adds vertical tension to the image. I also framed the falls both top and bottom in foliage to shift perspective and give an illusion of depth. (The mid-flow crater in the right hand cascade was particularly impressive. I made a close-up image of that crater with my long lens, in back and white. You can see it in my black and white gallery by clicking on the thumbnail below:
On the Plains of Old Bagan, Myanmar, 2005
We climbed to the top of a ruined temple at dusk to look out over what was left of Old Bagan. When the forces of the Mongol Golden Horde, led by Kublai Khan, overwhelmed Bagan in 1287, there were 13,000 temples here. The ruins of 2,000 of them still stand on the plains of Bagan, which today is both a farming community and an archaeological zone. The two come together in this landscape image. Where agriculture ends, archaeology begins. It creates a striking contrast in zones, and that is what makes this a strong landscape. I devote three quarters of my frame to the rows of crops in the field below us. Each row leads to a ruined temple on the horizon. The image is designed to flow both horizontally and vertically. We see a huge farm and enjoy a panoramic view of at least 25 ruined temples in the distance, yet the eye also is drawn vertically to the temples by each row of crops. Evening light also plays an important role here, producing the rich, deep colors and powerful shadows.
15-OCT-2004
Fiery Dawn Over Half Dome, Yosemite National Park, California, 2004
I walked to a meadow in the dark, put my camera on a tripod, and waited for the sun to light up the sky behind Half Dome. I never expected to see, let alone photograph, a sight such as this. Obviously this vividly incongruous display of dawn light itself becomes the subject matter for this landscape. Half Dome, perhaps the most famous of Yosemite’s landmarks, provides the context. Light and color express the essence of this landscape, by creating stylized fire in the sky as a metaphor for creation. Yet my perspective is critical as well. By aligning the edge of those abstracted trees in the foreground with the fiery clouds, and comparing the scene to those the three huge slopes at right, I bring both the illusion of depth and a sense of scale to the scene.
15-OCT-2004
A Second Look, Dawn Over Half Dome, Yosemite National Park, California, 2004
Within a matter of only a few minutes, the light show that nature had put on for us in the previous image had changed in color, form and intensity. I made this follow-up image about eight minutes later, just as dawn was about to become day, by changing both my vantage point and the focal length of my lens. I am still photographing light here as my subject matter, but as I moved my camera position, I noticed that I could create a rhythmically repeating relationship between clouds, mountains, trees and leaves that would tie these natural elements more closely together as both form and content. The clouds, including the intensely colored orange mass, seem to flow into the saddle just to the left of Half Dome. The tree line below the saddle echoes that same flow. I moved the camera in order to pull a branch of Oak leaves down from the upper right towards the ball of fire in that saddle. Using a 24mm wideangle lens, I am composing this landscape as a series of “pointers,” leading to Half Dome from both left and the right, as well from as above. There is a sense of depth here from layer to layer – beginning with the leaves, then the trees, then the mountains, and finally those marvelous clouds. Everything leads the eye to the “cauldron of fire” swirling in the saddle of Half Dome. That’s where all the energy in this image comes from. This landscape is about that energy, as expressed by its light, color and form.
14-OCT-2004
Smoky Morning, Yosemite National Park, California, 2004
I made this photograph of a 3,000-foot high cliff below Granite Point on my first morning in the park. There were a number of controlled burns in progress in the area, giving the light a smoky, diffused haze. I took advantage of the haze, and also used underexposure to abstract to scene – suggesting the sheer scale of that great granite cliff, rather than clinically describing it, as so many other photographers preferred to do. I hope to leave more to the viewer’s imagination, using minimal light to maximum effect, and creating a soft dark painterly effect that speaks of age and time. I frame the scene within a brace of overhanging pines to both give a flavor of Yosemite and pull the eye into the image, leading it past the cliff and into the pinkish glow where the slope of the cliff meets a distant hill. Later, I realized that I was unconsciously influenced here by the work of the 19th century scenic artist Albert Bierstadt, who brought a similar theatrical quality of light to his own Yosemite paintings. What do you think of this interpretation? Would you rather see more of the scene and suggest less? Or does my low key, more abstract and subtle approach strike a chord within you. I invite your comments, questions, and criticisms.
14-OCT-2004
Mule Deer, Stoneman Meadow, Yosemite National Park, California, 2004
When I compose a landscape photograph, I prefer, if at all possible, to lead the eye of the viewer through a number of “layers” of light and content – building meaning piece by piece. This is good example of this process. I organize it in three layers – a meadow at the bottom, backed by high trees in the middle and an illuminated surprise at the top. The two mule deer are the subject of the picture, but the meaning goes well beyond just showing two mule deer eating their breakfast. They are abstracted within a band of yellowish autumn grass, perfectly placed well apart from each other, almost as if they are to be bookends for the surprise that awaits us at the top of the frame. The band of dark trees dominating the middle of the picture act as a wall of privacy. It makes it seem as if this meadow is their private preserve. And then light as subject matter makes its entrance as the eye climbs up to still another wall, this one made of rock and covered with glowing yellow and orange autumn trees, which tells us just how enormous this scene must be, as well as what time of year it is. This image, so rich in scale incongruity, is all about nature, nourishment, and a very special time of year.
15-OCT-2004
Layers of Light, Stoneman Meadow, Yosemite National Park, California, 2004
Not far from busy Yosemite Village, the heart of Yosemite’s service area for tourism is this broad silent meadow with a river running through it and old trees lining it edges. Shooting before breakfast, I was able to build this image out of the dappled angled sunlight warmly filtering through these old trees. What really caught my eye was how many ways the light speaks in this picture. I can put layers of light to work for me by moving back on to the edge of the meadow to make space for the foreground – my initial layer, which is filled with soft shadows and green and gold grass. These shadows draw eye back into to the second layer -- the beautifully backlit tree that provides the focal point of the image. This back lighting makes its leaves translucent and emphasizes a double diagonal of bare branches that frames the subject tree. The Yosemite controlled burn fires give add a third layer to the image, an area of smoky light. A careful eye will spot “God’s Rays” shining on the background to the right of the subject tree. It adds space and air and infinite depth this photograph. Taken together, these layers speak of the cycles of nature, of the light that brings life to all things, and of this very special place called Yosemite.
15-OCT-2004
The Old Red Barn, Foresta, Yosemite National Park, California, 2004
In this photograph, I am not photographing the light itself as much as I expressing the effect of light on my subjects. I anchor this photograph with the shadows, colors and textures produced by the autumnal morning light in the foreground, which takes up three quarters of the image. The low light comes at the subject from the side and from a low angle, creating a textured blanket of dried golden brown grass that leads the eye out to the red barn itself. By using a 24mm wideangle lens, I add additional sweep to this field of textured grass by taking advantage of that lenses natural barrel distortion, which bends the horizon into a subtle arc echoing the arc of the hill in the background. The subject of this image is, of course, the old red barn. I place it in the upper right hand corner of the frame so it can draw the eye of the viewer all the way through that golden grass. I selected a vantage point that would bring the light from right to left, defining the geometry of the barn itself and given it a sense of dimension. Its rich deep red siding echoes the reds in the grass and creates the focal point of the image, while the black shadow that fills the left hand side of the barn provides an extension of the soft shadows that move across the grass below it. To me, this light creates tones, textures, shadows and colors that speak of timelessness, illuminating a place where nature seems to have produced a continuing cycle of crops for as long as we can remember.
15-OCT-2004
Autumn on the Merced, Yosemite National Park, California, 2004
The Yosemite Valley is one of the world’s best-known examples of a glacier carved canyon. Its sheer granite walls and flat floor evolved as alpine glaciers moved through the canyon of the Merced River. Today, the Merced still winds its way through the Valley. I use strong contrast in light here to express the change of seasons here by exposing for the leaves and allowing the water to become an abstraction that fills almost half the frame. This creates a negative space area equivalent to a giant arrowhead, pointing to the left at the spot where two diagonals converge. The lower diagonal is made up of the yellowing leaves of autumn, while summer still lingers on the bushes that line the rocks that form the upper diagonal. A faint echo of yellowing autumn leaves can also be seen in the reflection that moves along the river beneath the rocks at the top. Also notice how the light falls on the glacial rock that emerges from the river. It forms a small arrowhead, pointing to that same spot of convergence. When we are photographing a landscape, we must force ourselves to see the forms and shapes produced by contrasting light, and how they effect both composition and meaning.
15-OCT-2004
Merced Reflection, Yosemite National Park, California, 2004
Another view of Yosemite appears within the Merced itself. Ancient rocks from the glacial period still cover its bed, and the towering granite cliffs that line its sides reflect upon its surface. When we work with reflections, we are essentially photographing the effect of light and shadow on the surface of the water. In this case, I chose a surface that was already filled with rocks. I wanted to incongruously merge them with rocks of a much different color, size, and texture. It took many shots and many camera positions to find a place where the sky, the cliffs and the river rocks could merge successfully. I also had to find a spot where the river rocks themselves were in indirect light. If they had been in the sun, the effect would have been chaotic. The angle of the light falling on the rocks had to give dimension and shape to them as well. I have tried to produce a mini-landscape here that expresses the origin and nature of both the Merced River and the enormous cliffs that flank it.
15-OCT-2004
Forming a Rainbow, Bridalveil Fall, Yosemite National Park, California, 2004
In autumn, most of Yosemite’s famous waterfalls are just not falling. There’s not enough water at that time of year to feed them. Which is unfortunate for landscape photographers, because falling water always bring the potential for striking and often meaningful images. When we had passed Bridalveil Fall a day earlier, it appeared to be dry. Yet when we returned the next day, it was not only flowing with water, but more importantly, it was actually in the process of forming a rainbow near its base. Bridalveil can make a rainbow very briefly and only once every 24 hours, when light hits the falling water at a perfect angle. I zoomed in with a 432mm telephoto lens to stress just that part of the fall where the rainbow seemed to be forming. (I took many shots, as most photographers do, of the entire waterfall as it threaded down the side of a huge cliff, but that distant vantage point reduced the size of the potential rainbow to inconsequential size.) When I returned from my shoot and brought the images up on my laptop screen, I saw for the first time what I had accomplished. I had photographed a tapestry of light and color (that’s what a rainbow is, right?) capturing the essence of this phenomenon, and also stimulating the imagination of the viewer. The water appears (appropriately enough) as a translucent veil, a gossamer sheet of purple green, gold and red descending between a diagonal flow of green trees and deep reddish brown rocks. A flare of light strikes the veil at the upper right, as if to signal that a magical event is about to take place. There are even diagonal areas of black coming out of each of the lower corners, giving coherence to the entire image. And yes, this really is a landscape, because it captures an aspect of nature at work on the land.
16-OCT-2004
Giant Sequoias, Mariposa Grove, Yosemite National Park, California, 2004
About 35 miles south of Yosemite Village stands Yosemite’s largest grove of Redwoods. They are the largest of all living things, and many have endured for thousands of years. As I passed through this deeply shaded forest of giant trees, l looked for shafts of light filtering down into the forest that would help me to both abstract them and define their character within a landscape photograph. I found this pair of stately redwoods standing side by side, each with strong light grazing the bases of their huge trunks. Moving in to stress the way this light brought out the textures of their distinctive richly colored bark, I noticed that next to each of them was a small set of green branches, symbolizing a pair of relatively youthful neighbors. I used a vertical frame to imply height, and kept moving my position until each of the smaller trees displayed only the ends of their brightly illuminated branches against a deeply shadowed background. I wanted to express a sense of community with this image, and by using the abstracting power of light and shadow and drawing on the beauty and meaning of color, I was able to so.
15-OCT-2004
Colors of the Merced, Yosemite National Park, California, 2004
Leaves of all colors line the autumnal banks of Yosemite’s Merced River as fall takes over from summer. I used a 432mm telephoto lens to shoot across the river itself into a sun-splashed forest glade dominated by a small but brilliantly illuminated tree, wearing its new autumn colors. Three tall trees seem to stand guard behind it, casting protective shadows across the face of it as well as on the ground in front of it. With the help of the spot-meter in my camera (my single most important tool for landscape photography) I was able to expose this picture for this tiny illuminated area, and put everything else into relative darkness. The result is a landscape photograph that uses light to tell its story of the changing season and neighborly protection.
15-OCT-2004
El Capitan Fantasy, Yosemite National Park, California, 2004
I found a smooth portion of the Merced River that reflected the granite face of Yosemite’s famous El Capitan almost perfectly. I waited for a figure on the opposite bank to walk into my frame and shot this image of its reflection to add scale incongruity. I then turned the reflection upside down to make El Capitan, along with its tiny tourist, appear right side up. The key to this picture was the intensity and color of the light falling on sheer face of El Capitan itself. By exposing on the reflection of that light as it hit the surface of the river, I was able to make everything else very dark, which greatly simplified what otherwise would have been a very cluttered image. I created this strange looking landscape to represent the fantasy aspect of Yosemite that lingers in the imagination of most of its visitors. They may see it for what it really is, but they also steadfastly retain an idealized version of Yosemite in their own minds, which is what this image represents.
15-OCT-2004
Morning Pines, Yosemite National Park, California, 2004
Morning light at Yosemite is enchanting, making ordinary subjects such as this stand of pines into memorable visions. I used a long lens to throw the golden meadow behind these pines into soft focus, and bring a warm and rich feeling to this natural scene. Compared to many of my other landscapes, this one is quite intimate. Yet we don’t measure the effect of a landscape photograph by the amount of real estate it covers. We can only evaluate the effect it has on the imagination of you, the viewer. When you look at this image, what does it say to you? What feelings does it trigger? What do you think of it? I would be delighted to know.
15-OCT-2004
The Texture of Granite, El Capitan, Yosemite National Park, California, 2004
A late afternoon, low angled sun brings out the texture of the sheer granite cliffs of Yosemite’s towering El Capitan. I deliberately restricted the frame of this image to only part of the cliff, thereby stressing its texture instead of its shape or form. I wrap the textured cliff within a large contrasting “C” shaped area of dark vegetation, and poke at the side of the cliff with tiny sprigs of leaves to echo the flow of El Capitan’s ancient granite and give the image a sense of dimension and scale. Once again, this is a landscape photograph that does not “show” the whole subject. Rather, it appeals to the imagination of the viewer to fill in the details.
16-OCT-2004
Large and Small of It, Mariposa Grove, Yosemite National Park, California, 2004
I thought it would be appropriate to compare this young, fragile plant with the base of its ancient and mighty host – a giant Sequoia. To make this landscape “macro,” which is based largely on scale incongruity, I moved my camera so that the light will show off its frail green stems against a fire-blackened hollow in the trunk of the Sequoia. I abstract the image so that it tells the story of the Sequoia only by the illuminated texture of its rough red bark, which contrasts strongly to the smooth and slender green stems and tiny golden blossoms of the little plant. This is one of those pictures where less is more, even when one of the subjects is the largest living thing on earth.
14-OCT-2004
Evening Landscape, Yosemite National Park, California, 2004
Bring your eye out of the shadows and carry between the abstracted trees in the foreground, then race across a golden meadow to a lone, translucent tree standing before ranks of towering pines flanking a granite cliff. We are traveling through layers of time and space to enjoy this example of nature’s handiwork. While the foreground approach may somewhat similar to my Stoneman Meadow landscape “Layers of Light,” the middeground and background in this image work quite differently. In this example, the focal point of the image -- that one translucent tree -- is very far from the camera. We must journey across a vast field to get there, and once there. we are treated to a great scale incongruity – the translucent tree is many times smaller than the conifers stacked up behind it. This image spotlights the individual, instead of the masses. Even in nature, some must go it alone.
16-OCT-2004
Storm over the Merced, Yosemite National Park, California, 2004
Sun may be wonderful, but a rain soaked Yosemite can be just as productive photographically. I shot this mysterious image only a few minutes before we left Yosemite. We had enjoyed a two-day stretch of beautiful autumn light, which was ended abruptly by this onrushing storm. Flat light gray skies can produce richly saturated fall colors and I emphasize them in this view of the Merced River taken from the Stoneman Bridge. I also used the awesome column of low hanging clouds as an abstracting tool. They partially obscure the powerful diagonal created by the forested hillside in the background, and create a sense of power and mystery. Abstraction can bring mysterious thoughts to mind, and this image is no exception. Many years ago, Albert Einstein said “the most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science.” Weather is science, and art is expressed through landscape photography. This image draws on the mystery of nature at work upon the land, which is what landscape photography should be all about.
15-OCT-2004
Sunset, Half Dome, Yosemite National Park, California, 2004
Perhaps the most memorable single moment of our visit to Yosemite came as we watched the setting sun turn the massive open face of its most famous landmark into a flaming orange slab of granite. I photographed it through the branches of an old Oak, connecting the living park with the park of legend. The Oak branches and my tight framing abstract Half Dome, suggesting its huge scale and forbidding nature instead actually showing it. I made numerous other images showing all of Half-Dome in this exquisite light, and they simply could not compare in terms of their ability to tell a story. Although the light in them was just as beautiful as in this shot, they were merely very attractive descriptions of an American icon. By covering Half Dome’s face with this screen of Oak leaves and branches, I give the image a sense of depth and also contrast the living Yosemite to the ancient granite that has always been dead, yet lives on in our dreams as a flaming orange slab of history.