“You don’t make a photograph just with a camera. You bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved.”
― Ansel Adams
Lots of people like a photograph I made last September in the Sierra, an image that features a bit of cracked granite along the edge of a small lake, with its inverted form reflected in the water.
It seems pretty straightforward as an image. Rocks. Water. No trees. (Among some photographer friends of mine there is a sort of joke. One asks of another returning from a morning of photography, “What did you shoot?” The answer is always the same, “Rocks. Trees. Water.” And it is often true.) Nothing stupendous or iconic. Shooting this frame wasn’t all that complex, really. I only had to walk a short distance to get to the spot and no climbing was involved. From one side of this little lake I could look across and get a clear shot of this little scene. As I recall, I didn’t even have to change my lens. I just set up the tripod, used some relatively basic settings, aimed the camera over there, found a composition, made the shot. I’ll bet I didn’t spend more than five minutes here.
Well, OK, it wasn’t quite that easy. I had been photographing right around this spot for a few days, and while I had a general idea in my mind about a photograph containing these sorts of elements, I had undoubtedly walked past this spot a number of times without even seeing it. In my defense, the area is small and it isn’t surrounded by anything so stupendous that one’s attention would immediately be drawn to it. And this time the light was a bit special, with soft early light reflected in various ways from the surroundings. And this time the air was completely still, so the reflection was nearly perfect.
Actually this little lake is one of perhaps a half dozen or more in this little valley, a valley which is itself located within a larger group of valleys that hold dozens of such lakes. And, all told, I spent about six days wandering around this set of valleys and these lakes, making often just looking, perhaps filing an idea away for better light, and eventually making a few hundred photographs. Many of them are fine and competent photographs, but during this week only a handful rise to a higher level and perhaps only one or two rise to a significantly higher level. (I reserve the right to change my mind about a few of the others since sometimes a photograph’s potential doesn’t reveal itself right away.)
So I suppose it was a bit misleading to say that it only took five minutes to make this photograph. It actually took six days. Oh, did I mention that it also took two days on the trail to get to this spot, crossing two 11,000’+ passes and climbing one more ridge to get to this location at 11,000′? And another two days to get back out again? I guess I forgot that part. So it was actually 10 days, not just six. We lived at 11,000′ in our base-camp—oh, that’s right, we camped—and got up every morning before sunrise, went out and photographed for perhaps 3-4 hours, knocked off in the middle of the day to take care of camp business, and then went out for another 3-4 hours each evening, typically returning after dark to fix dinner.
I suppose that I should also point out that this wasn’t my first trip to this location either. Some decades earlier, on my first solo backpacking trip, I went out for two weeks, self-contained and carrying camera gear, and on about the tenth or eleventh trail day I had a bit of free time, so I left my camp at another nearby lake, thinking I would hike up into this area and make some photographs. I climbed the steep trail, at one point being surprised when a trio of big horn sheep spooked a few feet from me and the clatter of rocks roused me from my hiker’s revery. I dropped my pack and pulled up my camera, but the animals were already too far away down the rocky ridge. Yet, among the images I carry in my mind (many of which I eventually discover again in actual photographs) is the indelible memory of looking up at those three big horns right above me.
Now that I’m thinking of one earlier trip, I suppose I should acknowledge that whatever ability I have to “see” and photograph in the Sierra did not simply happen overnight, nor was it really just a matter of learning to operate a camera and find cool places. I recall the first time that I was aware than making a photograph was something more important than snapping a picture of the thing in front of me. I don’t remember exactly, but I must have been perhaps 10 or 11 years old, and I had a small camera that my father had loaned me. The family was in Yosemite and we hiked to Vernal Falls. No, I do not recall photographing that iconic subject, but I’m sure I must have. But on the way back, I distinctly recall rounding a corner of the trail and looking up and seeing a dome across the Valley—it must have been North Dome—and being struck by the form and position of the thing in ways that I can’t quite articulate. I knew that I had to make a photograph, but I also knew that I couldn’t just point the camera. I recall climbing up from the trail onto a small promontory where I saw some tree branches, and finding a spot where I could frame that dome with closer trees, and I made a photograph that felt like it wasn’t a snapshot.
And, speaking of long stories, that might well have been one of a series of influences (others included photograph books my father left lying around, including some I still own) that compelled me toward heading into the back-country on my first pack trip just before my 16th birthday. I did not know what to expect, but I found magic. The place I went on that first trip is, objectively speaking, nowhere near as spectacular as places I have since visited, but its effect on me was no less powerful. I crossed my first Sierra pass and dropped into another valley full of lakes, spending a few days there before emerging a confirmed backpacker… and eventually a cross-country skier… and for a while a climber… and through almost all of it a photographer.
Some years ago I made a game out of estimating how many days I had spent on the trail in the Sierra. I was shocked—and a bit proud!—when I figured out that by backpacking days added up to something like a year and a half. And, of course, since that time I’ve spent many more days on the trail, though I haven’t recalculated the total.
What does that have to do with this photograph? After substantial time in these places they get into your blood. What originally seemed novel and, to be honest, a bit foreign to a city kid becomes comfortable and familiar. You settle into routines of the back country. I recall that when I first began backpacking it might take a few days to really get to the point where I was “fully there” on the trail. Eventually it would take, oh, about ten minutes. And as all of these things—rocks, water, trees—became more a part of who I am they also became more a part of what and how I see. Where someone on their way to, say, Yosemite Valley might…
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him.
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