Shoreline Forest, Lower Young Lake. Yosemite National Park, California. September 14, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
Morning light on the shoreline forest at Lower Young Lake.
After finally managing to convince myself to get out of my warm sleeping bag and bivy sack oh-so -early on this cold, late-summer morning, I grabbed my tripod, camera, and lenses and headed down to the shoreline of this lake. (That’s right – no breakfast. My routine is generally to simply get up and start shooting. I might work for as long as a few hours before the light is no longer what I want, at which point I make my way back to my camp to fix coffee and breakfast.) Although I know this lake pretty well at this point, there are always new things to discover when I look closely, and the conditions are never the same twice. Although I’ve walked past this little bit of shoreline forest many times – the trail goes right through here – this is probably the first time I’ve photographed this spot. I’m often intrigued by backlit trees – for the long shadows, the color of light coming through leaves and branches, and the darker and mysterious quality of the trunks – and several other things also caught my attention here. There was still a bit of late-season green in the small plants down close to the ground, and I liked the obstructed view of the lake surface, the far shore, and the rocky slopes above.
This type of scene and lighting poses some challenges, the most obvious being the wide dynamic range. There are very bright specular highlights reflecting from the needles of the trees and the bright areas of the tree trunks can also be very bright. In this scene there was an additional source of “bright” where the rocks above the far shoreline were directly lit by sunlight. The trick is to not blow out all of those highlights – though a bit of “blow out” on tiny specular highlights can be OK – while still retaining some detail on the shaded side of the trees. Often I resort to exposure bracketing (making two or three different exposures to be blended in post) and, in fact, I did approach this scene that way. However, by shooting RAW and working carefully in post I was able to control the highlights and bring back some of the subtle shadow details.
This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.
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This Linkedin Widget is really beneficial – otherwise I’d have missed this entry. (I added it to my blog too, because I found the idea fascinating). Anyways, I like this image, glad I stumpled upon it. While your description of the image focuses on the lighting challenges, I simply enjoy the composition of the image, it feels as if the trees in the center are curtains slightly pulled apart to present the beautiful things behind it. I feel, like you took me along on your trip, opened these curtains, so I could see the beauty. Thanks. :)
I don’t necessarily just hang around camp, though that does happen sometimes. Last year when I was at Young Lakes, for example, I spent the middle of one day hiking cross country to Roosevelt Lake. Another time I explored way up above the upper lake. (though on this last trip I did hang out a bit.)
The bracketing idea makes even more sense with digital capture – not only is the cost negligible, but the bracketed exposures can often be useful in post.
Dan:
Your daily routine makes sense to me as nutty as it may seem to non-photographers. However it is hard for me to follow that routine even though I know I should.
In the past when I have completed the morning shoot, and come back to camp, it is really difficult to sit in camp during a perfectly beautiful sunny day (the only person left at the campsite) reading a book, or doing some other chores when there is beautiful scenery to be seen and enjoyed. I get too antsy to sit still. As a consequence, I end up doing scouting during the middle of the day, or just hiking, or general sightseeing, so one really gets burnt out after completing the evening’s shoot. That is a full day’s worth of activities!
I guess that is a tip-off: If you see some person milling around a campsite, in the middle of the day, when most normal folks are off hiking, sightseeing, or just enjoying the mid-day warm and sunshine, then they must be a photographer.
Thanks for insight to your photographic techniques. I guess it is the safest if one just brackets, so one has the option to blend later or do PS on one image.
Hi Greg, and thanks for posting. You are right about the “penalty” – and it is one of the reasons that I often work alone, and a reason that I find it more difficult to do good photography when, for example, traveling with some of my dear backpacking friends. A typical back-country photography day probably seems really bizarre to non-photographers and might go like this:
Sometimes when I car camp I wonder what the other campers must think. Basically, I’m gone when they are awake, but I’m doing stuff when they are asleep: rattling around in the dark before dawn or (when car camping) fixing dinner very late at night.
Regarding the technical question about blending exposures, if I think I might need to blend in post I go ahead and make the multiple exposures. This photograph is a good example. When I’ve shot subjects like this in the past, I have sometimes found it useful to introduce some elements from a longer exposure via masked layers. With this in mind, here I made, as I recall, three exposures “just in case.” In the end, I was able to get enough detail from one to accomplish what I had in mind, but I was ready if that turned out to not be the case. I guess I might summarize it by suggesting that there are three circumstances and three ways to think of handling them:
Dan
Dan:
Your routine of getting up in the morning, and shooting images before eating breakfast, I know well (or I knew well…ah the old days!). That is the “penalty” nature photographers must endure to be able to come back with great images!
The late Galen Rowell mentioned that the best time to be taking photos coincides with the time one usually eats. I have generally found this to be true. Nature photographers are returning back to camp for breakfast and wash up, when most “normal” folks are just heading out for the morning!
In regard to the techniques you used to take this photo, do you use any specific critiera of when you bracket+blend vs. RAW+PS?
Wow, really cool photo – and really interesting explanation of how you came to making this precise photo :)
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed the photograph and the explanation.
Dan