In today’s post, I present two images I took one after the other in the same location. Which one do you like better? Today you get to be the judge. Add your comments below (no registration of any kind necessary).
Silken water reflects the gold colors of fall, South Fork Bishop Creek, Inyo National Forest, CAWater pours over rocks, South Fork Bishop Creek, Inyo National Forest, CA
I was photographing along Bishop Creek when I came across the scene in the first photo. I was attracted to the aesthetics of the small ripple in the creek, and thought it would make a strong foreground element. There were slight color reflections in the water, and I loved how the water poured over the top of the rocks. After taking the shot, I realized that my foreground element was strong enough to stand alone as more of an abstract. So I moved closer, recomposed, and took the second photo.
So, which is the better photo? Tell us which you like better and why in the comments below.
A crescent moon glows in the warm colors of sunset as it sets behind the crest of the Sierra.
This week’s shot was taken a few weeks ago from high atop the crest of the White Mountains, at about 11,500 feet elevation. The moon was setting about half an hour behind the sun, providing an opportunity for a nice crescent moon, lit up by the dramatic colors of sunset. My particular location allowed me to anchor the photo with the silhouetted crest of the eastern Sierra, giving the image weight and a sense of scale and perspective.
On the technical side, in order to achieve this photo, I had to pull out all the stops. In order to keep the shutter speed down, I bumped up my ISO to 200 (I try to shoot most of my landscape work at 100). I didn’t want to go any higher, so I could keep the dark, rich tones of the sunset relatively noise free. I used my 100-400L lens at 310mm, and locked it down onto my tripod. I also made sure to turn off the image stabilizer, because if it kicked in here, it would most likely lead to a blurrier photo than I’d get without it. Finally, I locked up the mirror and set the camera to a 2 second self-timer mode. Unlike Nikon, with the 2 second self-timer, Canon cameras will lock the mirror when you press the shutter release, wait two seconds, and then trip the shutter. This allows the camera itself 2 seconds to settle down after being rattled by the vibration of the mirror slap. Normally, none of this matters, but at this magnification along with the 1.3 second shutter speed I used, even small vibrations will degrade the photo. I framed my shot, held my breath, and pressed the shutter release. Two seconds later I had the photo I wanted.
Recently several people have asked me what alpenglow is, and what causes it. This term was probably popularized among photographers by Galen Rowell, who wrote about it and demonstrated it wonderfully through many of his fantastic landscapes. The term refers to the reddish pre-dawn and post-sunset lighting effects sometimes seen on mountain peaks. There is some debate as to whether it also refers to the light cast directly by the sun at the moment of sunrise or sunset, or if it only refers to an indirect red cast on the mountain top while the mountain is still in the earth’s shadow. Either way, it is a beautiful sight to behold.
Mt. Whitney glows red in pre-dawn light, Alabama Hills, CA
I got a chance to see intense alpenglow recently when I visited the Alabama Hills on the eastern side of the Sierra. In the photo above, you can see the intense red of alpenglow touching the peak of Mt. Whitney, the tallest mountain in the continental US.
Why is alpenglow red? The longest and slowest moving light waves in the visible spectrum are red. As light travels through our atmosphere, the faster wave lengths (blue) are absorbed – only the red penetrates. Alpenglow is an extreme version of this light absorption because of the increased amount of atmosphere light has to travel through at this time of day. Here we have the sun rising on one horizon (east), striking an object on the opposite horizon (west). The red wave length is the only end of the spectrum that makes it through all that atmosphere. The fact that there are no features obstructing the sun as it rises across the Nevada desert, combined with the fact that the peaks of the eastern Sierra rise over 10,000 feet straight up, make the Alabama Hills one of the best places on earth to view alpenglow.
Light from the rising sun creeps down the face of Mt. Whitney at dawn, Alabama Hills, CA
Here we have another shot of Whitney taken less than four minutes after the first photo. Here the darker purple of the earth shadow moved down the face, and the red color was more orange as the sun rose above the eastern horizon. Even though it was only four minutes later, there was less atmosphere for the sun light to traverse, shifting the color away from red and toward the shorter wavelengths.
Barrel cactus grows throughout the dynamic landscape of Alabama Hills
This week’s photo was taken on a recent morning spent in Alabama Hills just outside of Lone Pine, California. I was there with a group from a Mountain Light workshop led by David Muench. After capturing the unreal alpenglow on the peaks of the nearby eastern Sierra fourteen-ers, I sought out some other foregrounds and settled on this group of barrel cacti. I wanted to really emphasize the texture and contrast of these plants, and minimize the sheer faces of the mountains looming in the background. I played with angles and converging lines here for quite a while until I got something I liked. In the end, I mounted the camera just above and behind the cactus, shooting them with a wide angle only a few inches away.
Barrel cactus flourishes in the high desert of Alabama Hills
The shot above was another take an a different cluster of cacti. Here I had to balance the shaded foreground with the brightly lit mountains and rock, which was in full sun by this point in the morning. In the end I blended two shots, the first exposed correctly for the mountainous background (with the highlights pushed all the way to the right of the histogram). The second shot was exposed two stops lighter, in order to get adequate detail in the shadowed foreground. I find that blending two images that are more than two stops from each other looks too unnatural – I would rather sacrifice some detail in the shadows and bring the exposures of the two shots closer together.
