Photographer, Sabrina Basin. Sierra Nevada, California. October 2, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
A photographer working the autumn colors from a ridgetop in Sabrina Basin, Sierra Nevada, as an early fall storm comes in.
I decided to stop and wander out onto this ridge above Sabrina Basin, a spot that I have visited previously for its unobstructed view of the valley below and the peaks of the Sierra crest above Sabrina Lake, which lies in a bowl far up the canyon. I had my eyes on some rocky benches that run along the top of the ridge, and as I approached I saw that I wasn’t the only photographer with this idea. As I walked the narrow rock toward the overlook, he was working the spot from which I also wanted to shoot, so I decided to sit back and let him finish. (The ridge wasn’t wide enough for both of us to work together there.)
As I waited, I thought there was something interesting about his position above the valley, his concentration on shooting, his all-blue outfit (shirt and jeans, on a cold and rainy day!), and that wide brimmed hat – so I decided to make a few photographs of him. We barely talked at all. I hoped to get his name, but that didn’t happen. The best I was able to do was give him a card, and offer him a copy of the photo if he contacted me. Never heard from him…
© Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email
Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.
Thanks, Stephen. I wish I could say that I had been trying for the parallel to the painting. (I do so sometimes with certain photographs – that’s all I’ll say… :-) However, in this case the parallel was entirely unintentional, but really cool when I saw it. When Melanie pointed it out I was stunned!
Dan
Dan – just sitting here watching a program about German art where they’re discussing… Caspar David Friedrich. The painting immediately reminded me of your image, so I thought I’d stop by your site, and here I am, only to find that the parallel wasn’t lost on others! It’s a great image – one that has stuck in my mind since I first saw it.
Melanie Kintz pointed out a painting by Caspar David Friedrich that that has some startling parallels with my photograph. I was not aware of the painting when I made the photograph, but if I had been I most certainly would have thought of it!
See: http://www.caspardavidfriedrich.org/The-Wanderer-above-the-Mists-1817-18.html
Thanks, Melanie!
Dan
(I think he shoots large format… ;-)
Hey, I’m OK with occasional tangent…
About the cost of lenses… yes. I think we all tend to overlook that, which is odd given that most of us have more invested in lenses (and other stuff) than in our camera(s) by a long shot. But it would be very easy, I think, to double that $10,000 investment in the Pentax body very quickly by acquiring some lenses!
There is a rumor going around this week – with no more validity, of course, than any other rumor – that Canon might lose the 1Ds bodies at some point and make the 5D type bodies the new high end for the high megapixel shooters. The rumor has it that they would improve the camera in this category in some important ways so that it would perhaps seem more comparable to the full frame 1Ds bodies: better AF, better sealing, and so forth.
I don’t know how much credibility to give this rumor – certainly not a whole lot at this point. But it does seem that it could become more difficult to sell into the relatively small market for cameras like the 1Ds (and Nikon equivalent) if a camera lower in the line-up (e.g. the 5D2) is less expensive and produces equivalent image quality and a camera not much more expensive offers a medium format-style experience.
Dan
Dan – Thanks for the info on that Pentax “mini MF”. I was aware of this camera but didn’t bother reading the article, because I thought, “Gee, yet another $30K camera that I can’t afford!” But if it is “only” $10K that might be a real game changer for photographers, especially pros. As you mentioned, I agree it that will drive down the cost of the most expensive 20-someting MP cameras from Canon and Nikon, and in general drive down the cost of all DSLRs. That is good news for all photographers wanting to get a DSLR. Unfortunately, I don’t think the cost of lenses go down as the cost of cameras drop (drats!)
(This comment is taking this line of posts off on a tangent, so I’ll leave it here.)
I think it all has something to do with an enigmatic photographer with a broad-brimmed hat. (Like Muir said, it is all linked together…)
I’ve never shot LF film, but Charlie told me some time ago that it cost him, IIRC, about $4.50 every time he clicked the shutter when he shot 4×5. Against that backdrop, I suppose that the cost of a back seems less horrendous. He also told me that he went out and shot digital MF for a few days in the Young Lakes area at one point, and brought back something in the range of 300 exposures – far more than he would have made when shooting 4×5. I’d have to ask him if it really makes economic sense, or if there are other reasons for making the switch as well.
I think that the costs are going to come down quite a bit and very soon. Pentax has come out with a $10,000 “mini MF” digital camera than includes a 40MP sensor, and it recently got a very positive review at Luminous Landscape. Such a camera has the potential to create some very big waves in the camera business. That cost is not far from the price for the high end full frame DSLRs from Canon and Nikon – so I think it can put some pressure on their high end. At the same time, it vastly undercuts the prices of existing MF back systems and even the new less-expensive Hasselblad system. Interesting changes may be coming.
And you are, of course, right that we can’t buy vision. Not even the best workshop can get you there, and buying equipment certainly isn’t going to do it. There is too much to say about this subject to get started in this discussion…
Dan
Dan – Yes I knew that Charles Cramer was moving towards digital capture and away from LF film. His collaboration with Bill Atkinson in this area, I believe helped him make the jump. Another great Bay Area LF photographer, Joseph Holmes, is also making the move to digital backs.
What amazes me is how a person can drop $30K to $40K on a digital back…from my perspective that is a large chunk of change. That’s like buying five years worth of film all at once…which is okay, assuming that something better doesn’t come out, but digital breakthroughs are happening all the time, so a person could be stuck with yesterday’s news (very expensive news).
Charles is a great photographer, and no matter what format he chooses to use, he will always turn out outstanding work!
Which brings me to a thought, that we can buy film, we can buy digital, we can buy lenses, but we cannot walk into a store, and buy photographic vision (or learning to recognize a great image when we are standing in front of it). This is the greatest tool a photographer can have in his/her kit so whatever format we pick, whether film or digital, time spent developing a photographic eye is time well spent.
(Okay, I’m not sure what the above has to do with the enigmatic photographer in the broad-brimmed hat, but I’ve strayed once again…sorry!)
Ha! I know what you mean. Truth be told, quite a number of the LF folks (though certainly not all) are moving in the direction of MF digital. I especially enjoyed a moment at Charlie Cramer’s recent talk at the opening of his current show at the Center for Photographic Art in Carmel when he popped a photograph of himself up on the screen at the front of the hall. He commented with something along the lines of, “My large format friends will notice that I’m using a medium format digital camera now… with a zoom lens!”
The times are changing. While acknowledging the stunning work that has been done – and which continues to be produced! – with the older technology, I am aware that more and more photographers at all levels are finding that the digital photographic medium can produce images every bit as expressive as those produced using film.
Dan
Dan – Aw shucks…the romanticized image of the landscape photographer of yester year …has been dashed to pieces!
Your thinking is similar to mind given the clothes and so forth. You could have put him behind a LF film rig and set your clock back a few decades and the image would be complete. However, if I recall correctly, he was shooting what may have been a Canon 1-series body of recent vintage!
Dan
Dan – I had similar thoughts to the ones Chris posted; something about his stance, and that wide brimmed hat; very interesting.
Just out of curiosity, what type of format was he shooting, and was he shooting film, or digital?
This photographer’s clothing makes me think of someone that might be from an earlier era, with no Gore-tex, no soft-shell, or other modern-day fabrics…to complete the image in my mind, I would think he would be a large format film shooter…but I’m sure my guess is totally wrong.
Thanks, Richard. I’m hoping he finds out about the photograph somehow. It would be great to find out who he is, and I would follow up with my offer to let him make use of the photograph.
Dan
Great photo Dan. His loss for not taking you up on the offer!
Thanks, Chris. I thought a bit more about it this morning and came up with some additional ideas, too. They include:
He faces the large expanse of the scene, with his back to us. I think this lets us feel a bit like we are sharing the experience of looking into the scene as photographers ourselves.
He stands on the “prow” of rock the extends into the scene – other than that he is pretty much unanchored from the foreground.
His position (facing away from us) and his stance suggest that he is completely engaged in the process of making the photograph – does doesn’t look posed. (And he wasn’t!)
The completely blue outfit with the interesting, angled hat are a bit unusual and catch our attention. It doesn’t hurt that the blue color complements the yellow of the aspens!
Also, we know he is a photographer and that he is making a photograph… but we don’t see the camera – we have to fill in a lot of missing information ourselves.
He is centered in the frame. (Oh, my, a violation of the “rule of thirds!” ;-) The angles between the slopes and the sky point towards him, and even the shapes of the rocks below him do something similar.
There is, I think, something in this suggesting a feeling that many of us who spend time in the wilderness are familiar with, namely an intense feeling of the huge expanse of this world coupled with a sense of how small we are, yet how a part of the larger scene.
Dan
I have to admit there does seem to be something about the photographer that is somehow especially interesting. Certainly I think it has something to do with his unusually coordinated outfit, but also the slight diagonal of the tilt of his cap and his relaxed stance. The mountain shoulders on the right and left really draw you to the photographer as well.