In the Moment:
Michael Frye's Landscape Photography Blog
by Michael Frye | May 29, 2009 | Yosemite Photo Conditions
Many people assume that once Memorial arrives Yosemite Valley will be overrun with tourists until after Labor Day. Sure, summer is the most crowded season in Yosemite. But there’s a little window between Memorial and the middle of June, the date most kids get out of school, when the valley is still relatively quiet. It’s actually a great time of year in the park. The roads to Tioga Pass and Glacier Point are usually open (as they are now), the waterfalls are still full—in fact often at their peak in early June—and the valley wildflowers are most abundant. The accompanying photo shows Cook’s Meadow with blooming cow parsnip in early June.
by Michael Frye | May 22, 2009 | Announcements, Yosemite Photo Conditions
Tioga Pass opened Wednesday, and we now have easy access to some of my favorite Yosemite locations: Tenaya Lake, Tuolumne Meadows, and Tioga Pass. I haven’t been up there yet, but usually when the pass first opens there’s still a lot of snow on the peaks near Tioga Pass, and ice on some of the lakes, making for some interesting photo opportunities. I made this image of melting ice and reflections near Gaylor Lakes (a short but steep hike from Tioga Pass) in 2006.
This photograph is a good example of telephoto compression. Long lenses compress space and make objects look closer together than they really are. This is a good way to create abstract patterns, as in this image where the ice at the top of the frame is actually much farther from the camera than the ice at the bottom, but the visual impression is a flat, abstract design.
by Michael Frye | May 21, 2009 | Photography Tips
Charles Cramer is a master digital printer, and has probably forgotten more about Photoshop than most of us will ever know. He just made an excerpt from his Photoshop booklet—the handout he uses for his highly regarded workshops—available as a PDF download. If you’re serious about making great digital prints you should read this! And while you’re at it you can check out his beautiful photographs.
by Michael Frye | May 9, 2009 | Photography Tips, Yosemite Photo Conditions
Last night I joined the throngs in Cook’s Meadow to photograph the lunar rainbow on Upper Yosemite Fall. There were at least 100 photographers around the meadow, and probably many more at the bridge below Lower Yosemite Fall. Like Horsetail Fall in February, lunar rainbows have become a photographic phenomenon. Until recently the most popular place was at Lower Yosemite Fall, but since Don Olson published specific times for seeing the “moonbow” from the Sentinel Bridge in Cook’s Meadow this spot has attracted lots of photographers. The big advantage is that it’s dry! At the bridge below Lower Yosemite Fall it’s impossible to keep mist off the front of the lens.
You can’t really see a lunar rainbow with the naked eye. Our eyes don’t render color very well in the dark, so at best you can see a bright arc and maybe a hint of color. But the color is there, and film or digital sensors capture it well. One of the reasons that more people haven’t photographed lunar rainbows from Cook’s Meadow in the past is that you can’t really see it from there. With film you’d just have to guess about the position and wait to find out whether you were right. With digital sensors it’s easy to just take a photo and see the position of the rainbow.
Last night the moon was bright enough that I could see the rainbow fairly well. Along with everyone else I watched it move down the fall as the moon rose. When the rainbow fell too low, most people packed up (it was 11:30 p.m. after all), but I followed the moon westward and saw an even more vivid rainbow from near the Yosemite Chapel. This photograph was made from that spot. Rainbows form a circle around a spot opposite the light source—sun or moon. Lunar rainbows can be seen on any waterfall that gets moonlight if you position yourself properly. In fact I photographed a lunar rainbow on Castle Geyser in Yellowstone many years ago. Maybe I’ll put that image in another post.
Long exposures with digital cameras can create lots of noise, but newer models handle this pretty well. You’re usually better off making a long exposure at a low ISO than a shorter exposure with a higher ISO. But with lunar rainbows you don’t want to make the exposure too long or the bands of color will blend together. I used a six-minute exposure at f/4 and 100 ISO for the image above. Trying to lighten a dark image will exaggerate noise, so it’s best to make the photograph as light as possible without overexposing it. Don’t rely on just how it looks on your LCD screen. Since it’s dark, the screen will look bright even if the image is underexposed. Use your histogram.
Having said that, a nighttime photograph shouldn’t be too bright. You don’t want it to look like it was taken under midday sunlight. I actually darkened this image—especially the sky—in software to give it more of a nighttime feeling.
by Michael Frye | May 8, 2009 | Announcements, Workshops
Last week 12 people joined me, along with my assistants Mike Osborne and Robert Eckhardt, for the Spring Yosemite Digital Camera Workshop sponsored by The Ansel Adams Gallery. This image of Bridalveil Fall was made by participant Brenda Nehring on Wednesday. On Friday an unusually potent spring storm arrived, but the wet weather actually provided some great photo opportunities. Despite or maybe because of the rain we had a great time. I’ll be posting more photos from the workshop on my web site soon.
by Michael Frye | May 5, 2009 | Yosemite Photo Conditions
The dogwoods in Yosemite Valley are nearing their photographic peak. Although some are still in that green stage, most are now in full bloom, yet haven’t leafed out yet. I made the photo above last Friday near the Ahwahnee Hotel.
The waterfalls got a big boost from Friday’s night’s rain. Although the predicted minor flooding never materialized, the falls and meadows are full of water. In short, it’s a great time for photography in the Valley.
by Michael Frye | Apr 27, 2009 | Announcements
I’ve been getting lots of questions recently about my book The Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite. It’s been out of print for several months, but is being reprinted and should be available again in late May. However, The Ansel Adams Gallery in Yosemite just received 25 copies, so if you call them at 209-372-4413 you may be able to order one before they run out.
On a different note, the dogwoods in Yosemite Valley are progressing slowly because of cool weather. You can find some in full bloom around the Ahwahnee Hotel and old Rivers campgrounds, as well as near Gates of the Valley (Valley View). Many more are still in the “green” stage.
by Michael Frye | Apr 24, 2009 | Yosemite Photo Conditions
The dogwoods in Yosemite Valley haven’t fully bloomed yet, but they’re progressing. Many are now in their “green” stage, where they sport greenish-yellow blossoms. These will change to white soon, although I don’t know exactly how soon. Cooler weather has descended on the Sierra and is expected to linger through next week, so that could slow things down a bit, but I would still expect most of the valley dogwoods to be in full bloom a week from now.
by Michael Frye | Apr 23, 2009 | Advanced Techniques, Photography Tips
Everyone has heard of Photoshop. It’s permeated our culture deeply enough to become both a noun and a verb, as in, “She Photoshopped a telephone pole out of the picture.” So when photographers first dive into the digital world they naturally think of Photoshop or it’s baby sister, Photoshop Elements, for their image-editing software.
Until recently there wasn’t much choice. But in the last few years the landscape has changed, and photographers have many other options. One of the best of these new tools is Lightroom. Actually the full name is Adobe Photoshop Lightroom—it’s made by the same people who make Photoshop. Yet despite the name Lightroom seems to be off the radar screens of most photographers.
In the Spring Yosemite Digital Camera Workshop I’m leading for the Ansel Adams Gallery this week I teach both Photoshop and Lightroom. One of my students asked me recently why she should learn Lightroom when she has Photoshop CS3. What can Lightroom do that Photoshop can’t?
My answer was: very little. Photoshop is the most powerful image-manipulating tool in existence, and can do anything to a photograph that Lightroom can, and much more. But Lightroom has two main advantages over Photoshop: It’s a much better editing, sorting, keywording, and cataloging tool than Photoshop combined with Bridge, and it’s easier to use. And while it’s not as powerful at manipulating photographs as Photoshop, for most images it’s all I need. The image of Mono Lake above, for example, was processed entirely in Lightroom. Having one program that elegantly integrates all these functions takes a lot of friction out of my workflow.
I should point out that I’ve used Photoshop since 1998 and know it inside and out. So I don’t use Lightroom because Photoshop is too complicated for me. But for many people Photoshop is difficult to learn, and Lightroom is a friendlier alternative. I should also add that Lightroom is not for snapshooters. It’s for serious photographers who want an easier, more integrated solution than Photoshop.
There’s one more advantage to Lightroom: It’s a non-destructive editor. Adjustments you make in Lightroom never modify the original Raw or JPEG file. The adjustments are just a set of instructions describing how you want the image to look, and these instructions are only applied when you export the image out of Lightroom. While Photoshop can be tricked into behaving in a non-destructive way, that’s not the way it was designed.
Photoshop is still essential to me for things that Lightroom can’t do. But I’d never want to go back to using only Photoshop and Bridge. And I think Lightroom is a better tool for many photographers than Photoshop. It’s probably time it appeared on more photographer’s radar screens.
by Michael Frye | Apr 15, 2009 | Yosemite Photo Conditions
I’ve heard reports of the first buds appearing on the dogwoods in Yosemite Valley. This puts them on track for their typical blooming period, which usually begins near the end of April and continues through about mid-May. I prefer to photograph them when they first bloom, before the leaves get large enough to obscure the blossoms. You can’t photograph them from behind, as I did in the photograph above, after they’re leafed out. If you miss the show in Yosemite Valley, they bloom about two weeks later at higher elevations, like the Tuolumne Grove of giant sequoias.
Of course the main pursuit for Yosemite photographers in the spring is waterfalls. This is shaping up to be a typical spring, which means the peak flow should arrive around the end of May or beginning of June. Meanwhile the water flow will fluctuate with the weather—the warmer the temperature, the higher the runoff.
Yosemite Falls, the big spring attraction, gets basically terrible light this time of year. But the other big three—Vernal, Nevada, and Bridalveil—are all positioned to receive late-afternoon sunlight. You can find rainbows on all three between about 5 to 7 p.m. depending on your viewpoint. The Mist Trail opened recently, giving access to Vernal and Nevada Falls. The trail is usually crowded, but for good reason—in the spring it has to be one of the world’s most spectacular day hikes.
