Dewey Point, Yosemite

This is an example of having a wonderful scene but just not getting the photograph right technically. My wife, Gloria, and I had snowshoed out from Badger Pass in Yosemite National Park to Dewey Point in fresh snow from the night before. Above the Point, which was around the corner from our tent site, we hunkered down for the cold night but then I got restless and realized I needed to take a shot of our tent in the moonlight. I can't tell you how hard it is to wiggle out of a warm sleeping bag, put on a parka and boots, and then leave for the freezing night air. No, I'm not trying to demonstrate how dedicated I am . . . okay, maybe I am. In any event, I had figured I might try this composition the day before when I was packing and so I brought a flash and wireless trigger for it. Unfortunately, with Gloria holding the flash inside the tent, the signal from my camera to the trigger just wasn't getting through (or maybe it was too cold). We fiddled with it for awhile and decided that wasn't going to work. So next we got out Gloria's Canon Rebel and put my flash on it. Each time I took a picture with a fairly long exposure, I called her to take a picture inside the tent. First, she pointed the camera toward me but that was way too bright. In fact, we couldn't get the right balance of light and dark with my big, honkin' flash, so tried the pop-up flash on her camera. She pointed it in different directions and finally we nailed it when she directed the flash away from me. I don't know—I probably took 20 or 30 frames during this exercise. Strangely, while we were working out the picture, I didn't feel cold once.
Canon 5DMII, 15-35mm lens set to 23mm, 90 seconds at f/8, ISO 800.

Revisiting Old Photos

There's an interesting contradiction about photography. On one hand, making a picture can be a once-in-a-nanosecond opportunity where the action or the light is so ephemeral, if you miss it, it's gone forever. (Of course, there's something to be said for having memories that exist no where but in your brain, full of emotions and movements that no camera can duplicate.) On the other hand, once you've nailed that shot, you can reinterpret it over and over, changing the artistic emphasis with everything from color balance (including going to shades of gray) to lightening some elements and darkening others to cropping to even changing the sharpness. And let's not forget the manipulations that involve cloning out unwanted distractions or combining exposures to compensate for extreme contrasts in the scene.

And there's certainly nothing wrong with going back to a photo when I realize it can be done differently, perhaps better. Sometimes this is because my artistic vision has evolved or maybe it's just because the processing software has improved to the point where I can accomplish a look that wasn't technically possible before.

For years, I went out to various wild locations to photograph moonlit landscapes. I published several how-to magazine articles for people who wanted to try it themselves and a couple of travel pieces for those who just preferred to experience the calming, occasionally introspective nature of sitting under a full moon without worrying about camera gear.

The other day, I came across some scans of this old work, shot on a Bronica SQ-A medium format camera and transparency film. At the time of the first prints I made, I was somewhat pure about the final product, finishing the picture so that it looked like the original film version. With a 20-minute exposure, I was usually able to get a picture that looked vaguely like a daylight scene but not quite (star paths don't appear in the sky at two in the afternoon.)  This worked for me at the time because the pictures had a weird sense of place that was partly literal and partly mysterious. But now I'm not so sure I like that interpretation and I redid some of the pictures. I like them better with a definitive look of nighttime.

What I did was import the tif files into Lightroom, increased the blacks and clarity, decreased the highlights and added a light vignette. Much better! (Of course, five years from now, I might change my mind and do something else.)

"Devastation Trail, 8:45 p.m." The difference is from the original isn't huge but to my eyes it looks more like how it felt to stand there at night.

"Near Hidden Valley, 10:15 p.m." I wanted to emphasize the lit rock juxtaposed against the bright star path so I darkened the exposure, added black and a heavy vignette.