Photographers under the lunar rainbow in Cook's Meadow, May 5th

I hope that saying, “Better late than never” is true—at least this time! I’ve been really busy the since the full moon, but here, finally, are some photos of the lunar rainbow from May 4th and 5th.

Large numbers of photographers headed to Yosemite Valley that weekend to photograph dogwoods and the lunar rainbow. At times I joined four or five photographers pointing lenses at the same dogwood, and there were at least 200 people in Cook’s Meadow on Saturday evening (May 5th) watching and photographing the lunar rainbow. The photo at the top of this posts shows the moonbow and some of those attempting to photograph it.

The previous night my friend Jon McCormack and I grunted up the Yosemite Falls trail to a spot with a profile view of the upper fall. I’d photographed a lunar rainbow from this spot in 1996, but back then I didn’t have a wide enough lens on my Mamiya 645 to include Half Dome and the whole waterfall, so I thought it was time to try it again.

Half Dome and Upper Yosemite Fall with a lunar rainbow, the night of May 4th

I wasn’t sure there would be enough mist for a good lunar rainbow from this location, but just when the rainbow appeared the wind kicked up. This made it really cold, but also blew the spray around and made the waterfall look bigger, and the rainbow last longer. It turned out to be almost ideal conditions for this photograph.

It was a long night; I got home as dawn was breaking and birds were starting to sing outside my house in Mariposa. But Jon and I had a great time. It was wonderful hearing and seeing this huge waterfall from up close on a beautiful moonlit night.

I’ve seen some great photos from that weekend; if you have some you’d like to share, please post a link in the comments.

Another celestial event is coming up this Sunday: an annular solar eclipse will be visible over parts of northern California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, as well as many other parts of the world. If the weather cooperates the eclipse could be photographed fromd some beautiful locations, including Redwood, Lassen, Zion, Bryce, and Grand Canyon national parks, Monument Valley, Canyon de Chelly, and Chaco Canyon.

An annular eclipse differs from a total solar eclipse in that the moon isn’t quite big enough to block out the whole sun, so the outer ring of the sun still appears. You can see photos, maps, and a video on NASA’s site, and a video animation showing the path and timing of the eclipse here.

I wish I could give you some advice about photographing this eclipse, but I’ve never photographed a solar eclipse before, so I’m just gleaning information off the internet like everyone else. I found some useful articles here, here, and here.

The usual caution about solar eclipses applies: don’t look directly at the sun unless you’re wearing protective glasses. From descriptions I’ve read the sun might be bright enough, even during the darkest part of the eclipse, to cause lens flare—but I don’t know. The eclipse will occur near sunset in New Mexico and Texas, which will make the sun dimmer and help avoid potential flare.

I’m planning to head north for the eclipse, though I’m not sure where yet. Maybe Lassen, but I’ll check the weather reports first. If you try photographing the eclipse let me know how you make out!

—Michael Frye

Lunar Rainbow, Upper Yosemite Fall, the night of May 4th

Related Posts: Lunar Rainbow Season, and a Dogwood Update

Michael Frye is a professional photographer specializing in landscapes and nature. He is the author and photographer of The Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite, Yosemite Meditations, and Digital Landscape Photography: In the Footsteps of Ansel Adams and the Great Masters, plus the eBooks Light & Land: Landscapes in the Digital Darkroom, and Exposure for Outdoor Photography. He has written numerous magazine articles on the art and technique of photography, and his images have been published in over thirty countries around the world. Michael has lived either in or near Yosemite National Park since 1983, currently residing just outside the park in Mariposa, California.

Upper Yosemite Fall through the mist, last Thursday afternoon

The moon will be full this weekend—on May 5th, at 8:36 p.m. to be precise. So that means I’ve been getting lots of questions about photographing lunar rainbows. First, the best way to find out where and when to photograph Yosemite’s lunar rainbows is astronomer Don Olson’s web site. Don and his team have figured out precise viewing times for lunar rainbows from the Lower Yosemite Fall bridge, and from Cook’s Meadow for Upper Yosemite Fall.

Temperatures are forecast to be relatively cool this weekend, which means that snow won’t be melting at a high rate, and water flow and spray will probably be below average for early May. The moonbow should be visible on the upper fall from Cook’s Meadow, but it won’t spread as wide as it did last year, nor will it be visible as long. For the lower fall, less spray is good (up to a point), because it’s easier to keep water drops off the lens from this often-damp location. I’m sure there will still be spray at the bridge below the lower fall, but it might be manageable. Whether you go to Cook’s Meadow or the Lower Yosemite Fall bridge you’ll have to share the spot with many other photographers—but there’s less room at the bridge.

Once you’ve figured out the right time and place, then what? How do you focus? What equipment do you need, what aperture should you use, and how long should you keep the shutter open? Here’s a link to a previous post with answers to all these questions.

As for the dogwoods, they all seemed to bloom at once last week. Last Friday perhaps 30 percent of the valley dogwoods were still in that stage where the blossoms are green, but I’d bet even those specimens are all white by now. You should still be able to see dogwoods in bloom for another couple of weeks, but they are rapidly leafing out, and the window when they’re at their most photogenic will close soon—at least in Yosemite Valley. But the dogwoods at higher elevations bloom later. If you find that the dogwoods in the valley are too leafy, or the blossoms look old and tattered, try hiking to the Tuolumne Grove of giant sequoias, or looking for patches of dogwoods along highways 41 and 120.

But right now Yosemite Valley is just gorgeous. The deciduous trees have those new, bright green leaves, the waterfalls are booming, and the dogwoods are blooming. For our workshop last week we also had mist, interesting clouds, and a clearing rainstorm on Thursday afternoon. We had a great time photographing all this stuff; I’ve included one photograph of Upper Yosemite Fall from last Thursday afternoon.

—Michael Frye

Related Posts: Floods, Moonbows, and the Opening of Tioga Pass; Tips for Photographing Lunar Rainbows

Michael Frye is a professional photographer specializing in landscapes and nature. He is the author and photographer of The Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite, Yosemite Meditations, and Digital Landscape Photography: In the Footsteps of Ansel Adams and the Great Masters, plus the eBooks Light & Land: Landscapes in the Digital Darkroom, and Exposure for Outdoor Photography. He has written numerous magazine articles on the art and technique of photography, and his images have been published in over thirty countries around the world. Michael has lived either in or near Yosemite National Park since 1983, currently residing just outside the park in Mariposa, California.

Dogwood and ponderosa pines near the Ahwahnee Hotel, yesterday morning

I’m teaching my Spring Yosemite Digital Camera workshop this week, but wanted to post a quick note to let you know that the dogwoods have suddenly popped out in Yosemite Valley. On Saturday I saw only a few green discs, but yesterday dozens of trees were in full bloom, and it seems like more are emerging every hour. The dogwoods are most photogenic when they first blossom, before too many leaves obscure the flowers, so the next week or so should be the best for photography, though the dogwoods will continue to bloom for a couple of weeks beyond that.

—Michael Frye

Michael Frye is a professional photographer specializing in landscapes and nature. He is the author and photographer of The Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite, Yosemite Meditations, and Digital Landscape Photography: In the Footsteps of Ansel Adams and the Great Masters, plus the eBooks Light & Land: Landscapes in the Digital Darkroom, and Exposure for Outdoor Photography. He has written numerous magazine articles on the art and technique of photography, and his images have been published in over thirty countries around the world. Michael has lived either in or near Yosemite National Park since 1983, currently residing just outside the park in Mariposa, California.

Reflections in the Merced River, Tuesday evening

(If you’re getting this post through email, click here to view the video.)

Here it is, my second video about the new process in Lightroom 4. In Part One I explained how the new tone controls work; here in Part Two I talk about how to use these new tools to process both low- and high-contrast images. Here are some of the main points:

- Where to begin? If you’ve read my eBook Light and Land, or watched one of my previous videos about curves, you know that in the old process I preferred starting with all the Basic tone controls set at zero, and the point curve linear. Does this still apply in the new process? (1:10)

- Curves or sliders? The new Basic Tone sliders are much better than the old ones; are they good enough to replace the Point Curve? (10:30)

- Does the order matter? Adobe suggests using the Basic tools in order from top to bottom, starting with Exposure, then Contrast, and working down to Highlights, Shadows, Whites, and Blacks—essentially working from the midtones out to the black point and white point. But this contradicts a long-standing tradition in digital imaging of setting the black point and white point first. Should you stand with tradition, or embrace the new order? (13:02)

- Processing a high-contrast image. (21:04)

This video is about 27 minutes long, so, as I said with Part 1, grab your favorite beverage, sit back, relax, and enjoy the show. Spending a little time with this video now will save time later when you’re processing photos. More importantly, I hope that this video will help you get the most out of your images so that they convey what you saw and felt when you pressed the shutter.

As I mention in the video, the best way to learn more about processing images in Lightroom is to take a workshop. There’s are still a couple of spots available in my October workshop, The Digital Landscape: Autumn in Yosemite. This is a comprehensive course covering the entire process from capture to print, with field sessions covering exposure, composition, and everything you do before pressing the shutter, and lab sessions where we process and print the images with Lightroom.

I hope you enjoy Part 2!

—Michael Frye

Related Posts: Lightroom 4: The New Tone Controls; Using Curves in Lightroom and Camera Raw

Michael Frye is a professional photographer specializing in landscapes and nature. He is the author and photographer of The Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite, Yosemite Meditations, and Digital Landscape Photography: In the Footsteps of Ansel Adams and the Great Masters, plus the eBooks Light & Land: Landscapes in the Digital Darkroom, and Exposure for Outdoor Photography. He has written numerous magazine articles on the art and technique of photography, and his images have been published in over thirty countries around the world. Michael has lived either in or near Yosemite National Park since 1983, currently residing just outside the park in Mariposa, California.

Unfiltered Object #4 by Jeff Grandy

Planning to visit Yosemite in the next few weeks for the waterfalls and dogwood bloom? While you’re there, stop by The Ansel Adams Gallery and see the current exhibit by Jeff Grandy, featuring prints from his exquisite Unfiltered Series. The show will be on display until May 10th.

Jeff is a long-time friend, and I’ve always loved his classic landscape images, but this new work of his is quite different. He’s focused on the colors and textures of water, and created a series of abstract and imaginative images. You can see some samples on Jeff’s website.

There will be reception for the artist April 21st from 3:00-5:00 and I plan to attend. Hope to see you there!

— Michael Frye

Michael Frye is a professional photographer specializing in landscapes and nature. He is the author and photographer of The Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite, Yosemite Meditations, and Digital Landscape Photography: In the Footsteps of Ansel Adams and the Great Masters, plus the eBooks Light & Land: Landscapes in the Digital Darkroom, and Exposure for Outdoor Photography. He has written numerous magazine articles on the art and technique of photography, and his images have been published in over thirty countries around the world. Michael has lived either in or near Yosemite National Park since 1983, currently residing just outside the park in Mariposa, California.

(If you’re getting this post through email, click here to view the video.)

As I wrote last week, Lightroom 4 represents a big change—the biggest change to Adobe’s Raw processing engine since Adobe Camera Raw was introduced in 2003. They’ve completely revamped the underlying algorithms for all of the tonal controls, and changed the behavior, and in some cases the names, of all the Basic Tone sliders.

Overall, I’m really happy with the new process, especially for high-contrast images. But if you’re accustomed to Lightroom 3 the new tools may seem strange at first. So I’ve been working on two videos to explain the changes and how to work with the new tools.

The first video, embedded here, explains some of the differences between the old and new processes, how the new tools work, and the ways they affect an image’s appearance. Here are some of the main points:

- The automatic highlight recovery and black point setting in the new process (2:00)

- Why you should avoid updating older images to the new process—unless you want to start over (5:04)

- The new tools: some of the names are familiar, but they all behave differently (7:30)

- Starting points: the numbers are different, but the defaults are really the same (8:53)

- An in-depth look at each of the new Basic Tone controls and how they work (12:38)

This video is about 25 minutes long, so, as I say in the video, grab your favorite beverage, sit back, relax, and enjoy the show. I think you’ll come away with a better understanding of the strange but powerful new world that Adobe has created in Lightroom 4.

In the second video, which I expect to post next week, I’ll talk about workflow in the new process. I’ll show examples of processing both high-contrast and low-contrast images, talk about what settings you should start with, and discuss whether the new and improved Basic sliders can replace using curves.

I hope you enjoy this first video!

—Michael Frye

Related Posts: Lightroom 4 Update; Lightroom 4 Goes on Sale; Should You Wait, or Dive In?

Michael Frye is a professional photographer specializing in landscapes and nature. He is the author and photographer of The Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite, Yosemite Meditations, and Digital Landscape Photography: In the Footsteps of Ansel Adams and the Great Masters, plus the eBooks Light & Land: Landscapes in the Digital Darkroom, and Exposure for Outdoor Photography. He has written numerous magazine articles on the art and technique of photography, and his images have been published in over thirty countries around the world. Michael has lived either in or near Yosemite National Park since 1983, currently residing just outside the park in Mariposa, California.

Poppies in the Merced River Canyon, Sunday afternoon

It’s turning out to be a great year for poppies in the Merced River Canyon, along Highway 140 just west of Yosemite. While nothing may ever match the spectacular poppy bloom of 2009, this season is coming pretty close. There’s a brilliant display on the north side of the canyon about three miles east of Briceburg, with poppies reaching from the river to the ridge tops. A mile or two further east, around Grandy’s Hill, you can find some great patches of flowers above the road on the south side of the canyon. And there are plenty of poppies at the beginning of the Hite’s Cove trail.

The bloom seems to be spreading from west to east, as it did in 2009. During the last week poppies have appeared in many places on the north side of the canyon from the rock-slide to El Portal, including some of the areas burned in last year’s Motor Fire. I’m hoping that this spread will continue, and we’ll see poppies blooming for two or three more weeks.

Despite the fact that this is mostly unfenced public land, and some of the best poppy displays are on the same side of the river as the highway, access to the flowers is difficult. The hillsides are extremely steep. Not fall-off-and-you’ll die steep (at least in most places), but it requires a lot of agility, stamina, and sure-footedness to climb up many of these hills, and a slip could cause injury. Most people are going to be limited to telephoto views from the road. The one spot with relatively easy access to close-up views of poppies is the beginning of the Hite’s Cove trail.

While I usually prefer soft light (shade or overcast) for flowers, poppies present a dilemma. They only open in full sunlight, so they look much more vibrant during the middle of a sunny day, when the light is harsh. So when photographing poppies you have to balance all the usual considerations about light with the need to have the flowers open.

One of the solutions is to photograph a patch of poppies just after the sun leaves them in the afternoon. I made the image above after climbing one of those typically steep canyon hillsides. The sun had just sunk behind a ridge, so most of the foreground flowers were still open, creating an ideal combination of open poppies and soft light.

Backlight can also work, with the sun shining though all those translucent orange petals from behind. Low-angle direct frontlight can also complement poppies, as it creates few shadows, emphasizing colors and color contrasts.

Meanwhile, along the river banks and creeks in this same canyon, the redbud are peaking. A few have started to leaf out, but most are in prime condition, and should be in good shape for at least another week. And the redbud are a lot easier to get close to than the poppies!

It’s unusual to see the redbud and poppies peaking together. Early April is a pretty typical time to see the redbud, but poppies usually bloom in March. We’re lucky to have such great displays of both flowers at the same time.

Just to make things interesting, of course, two storms are headed this way. The first is expected to move through tonight and tomorrow, and while the second is due to arrive Thursday night. It sounds like Yosemite Valley could get a couple inches of rain out of these two systems, and two or more feet or snow could fall in the high country. The second storm is expected to be colder, and snow could get down to Yosemite Valley by time it’s over.

It’s hard to predict what this weather will do to the poppies. In areas where they’ve already peaked they might fade quickly. But in other spots, where the poppies are just getting started, the additional moisture may actually help sustain the bloom. At least I hope so! And the new snow in the high country will certainly help keep Yosemite’s waterfalls flowing longer.

— Michael Frye

Redbud and the Slate Creek Bridge, yesterday afternoon

Related Posts: More Poppies; Spring Storm

Michael Frye is a professional photographer specializing in landscapes and nature. He is the author and photographer of The Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite, Yosemite Meditations, and Digital Landscape Photography: In the Footsteps of Ansel Adams and the Great Masters, plus the eBooks Light & Land: Landscapes in the Digital Darkroom, and Exposure for Outdoor Photography. He has written numerous magazine articles on the art and technique of photography, and his images have been published in over thirty countries around the world. Michael has lived either in or near Yosemite National Park since 1983, currently residing just outside the park in Mariposa, California.

Clearing storm along the North Carolina-South Carolina border—processed with Lightroom 4

I’ve finally had a chance to really dive into Lightroom 4, and I’m very happy with the results I’ve been getting. While I haven’t found a big difference in processing low-contrast images, with high-contrast scenes the improvements are significant.

The accompanying image was made during my trip to South Carolina last November. It was a fast-changing situation—the sun suddenly broke through, and I missed the exposure slightly, so the brightest highlights at the top of the clouds were blown out. By the time I adjusted the exposure the scene had changed.

I struggled to process this image with Lightroom 3. While I was able to recover detail in most of the highlights, they still looked a bit hot, and and darker bottom half of the image seemed flat, despite extensive efforts to bring out the detail and contrast in this area. You can see this Lightroom 3 version at the bottom of this post.

The version on the right was processed in Lightroom 4. I was able to get better texture and detail in the brightest parts of the cloud, while the bottom half of the photograph has more local contrast, and seems livelier. Overall I’m much happier with this version.

Along with this improved ability to handle high-contrast images, Adobe has made big changes to the Develop Module. I’ve been testing Lightroom 4 extensively, and though I’m still learning, I’ve found out many things about how the new tools really work—things that I haven’t seen or read elsewhere. I’m looking forward to sharing all this with you, but it’s easier to show you than write about it, so I’m working on a video (or maybe two videos), that do just that. I’ll show you how the new tools differ from the old ones, how they really behave, how that might influence the way you work, and some suggested working methods for getting the most out of Lightroom 4. I’ll be posting this next week—stay tuned!

About That Point Curve Bug…

Adobe has finally provided a fix for the point curve bug in Lightroom 4 that I mentioned in an earlier post. They’ve released Lightroom 4.1 RC (release candidate), which seems to solve the problem. You can download this update here. Adobe says “a ‘release candidate’ label indicates that this update is well tested, but would benefit from additional community testing before it is distributed automatically to all of our customers.” Which is basically their way of saying don’t blame them if it doesn’t work perfectly. But this does seem to solve the point curve problem for most people. You can read more about this issue in one of the Adobe forums.

There is a lot of confusion about this bug, and what it is. The appearance of the point curve will change when you update an image from the 2010 (Lightroom 3) process to the 2012 (Lightroom 4) process, but that’s not a bug—it’s by design. The point curve in the 2012 process has a different baseline starting point than it did in the 2010 process, so the shape of the curve necessarily has to change to reflect this. (I’ll talk more about this baseline change in the video.)

The bug is different. It occurs when you update a Lightroom 3 catalog to Lightroom 4, and look at an image in the Develop Module in Lightroom 4. Before updating the process version—in other words, while the image is still in the 2010 process—point curve settings disappear, and the curve resets to it’s default.

So a change in the appearance of the point curve when updating from the 2010 to the 2012 process is normal. Having point curve settings disappear while an image is still in the 2010 process is not.

I expect Adobe will officially release this 4.1 update soon. In addition to this point curve problem I’ve heard about a few issues, especially some plugins that no longer work, but these should all be fixed with the update.

Happy Easter! I hope you all have a great holiday weekend.

—Michael Frye

Related Posts: Lightroom 4 Goes on Sale; Should You Wait, or Dive In?; A Trip to South Carolina

The same image processed in Lightroom 3. There's less texture and detail in the top of the cloud, and the bottom half of the photo looks duller and flatter.

Michael Frye is a professional photographer specializing in landscapes and nature. He is the author and photographer of The Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite, Yosemite Meditations, and Digital Landscape Photography: In the Footsteps of Ansel Adams and the Great Masters, plus the eBooks Light & Land: Landscapes in the Digital Darkroom, and Exposure for Outdoor Photography. He has written numerous magazine articles on the art and technique of photography, and his images have been published in over thirty countries around the world. Michael has lived either in or near Yosemite National Park since 1983, currently residing just outside the park in Mariposa, California.

Sunbeams striking El Capitan, 6:32 a.m. Sunday

Winter arrived late in Yosemite this year, but now it seems reluctant to leave. Of course that’s fine with me, as I love photographing storms, and we certainly need the moisture.

A short but intense weather system dropped about an inch of precipitation on Yosemite Valley Saturday afternoon and evening. The storm began with rain, but quickly changed to snow. I was in the valley on Saturday for the Yosemite Conservancy Spring Forum, and driving out at about 5:30 in the afternoon I encountered blizzard conditions, with thick snow blowing sideways. I stopped at El Capitan Meadow and set up my camera and tripod underneath the back hatch of my car to try and capture the falling snow (see the photograph below). I managed to keep the camera dry, but my pants were soon coated with an inch of snow.

It looked like we might see clearing on Sunday morning, so Claudia and I drove up early and joined about ten other people at Tunnel View. We started talking and socializing, but all that stopped when some breaks appeared in the clouds, and then rays of sun struck El Capitan (above).

Then it started snowing again, and then it cleared a little, and another squall arrived, and cleared. I kept trying to leave. Once I had even packed up my camera and put it in the car, but the clouds started breaking up again, so I took the camera and tripod out again. And I’m glad I did, as we kept seeing wonderful light and mist during those breaks (you can see two of the photographs made during these breaks below). Eventually, around 10 o’clock, the showers ended and it cleared for good.

As we drove home we had a chance to check on the poppies and redbud in the Merced River Canyon, along Highway 140 west of the park. About half of the redbud are in full bloom, with the other half budding. Nearly all of them should be blooming in a week or so.

Despite the dry winter—or maybe because of it—it’s a good year for poppies. We saw large swaths of them covering the hillsides on the north side of the river between Briceburg and the rock slide detour. Reaching these areas requires at least two miles of hiking (one way), but they can be photographed from across the river with long lenses. There are some more accessible poppies along the south side of the river at “Grandy’s Hill,” about a mile west of the detour, and at the beginning of the Hite’s Cove trail.

Will we get more spring storms? There’s a chance of showers in the forecast for Wednesday, but nothing major in sight. March ended with 68 percent of average precipitation for Yosemite Valley since last July. These late storms have helped, and brought fairly normal spring conditions to Yosemite, but we could certainly use some more rain and snow. Does anyone know a rain dance?

—Michael Frye

Driving snow, 5:43 p.m. Saturday

Sun breaking through, 8:42 a.m. Sunday

Light striking El Capitan, 9:15 a.m. Sunday

Related Posts: Storm’s Aftermath; Winter Storm Warning for Yosemite

Michael Frye is a professional photographer specializing in landscapes and nature. He is the author and photographer of The Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite, Yosemite Meditations, and Digital Landscape Photography: In the Footsteps of Ansel Adams and the Great Masters, plus the eBook Light & Land: Landscapes in the Digital Darkroom. He has written numerous magazine articles on the art and technique of photography, and his images have been published in over thirty countries around the world. Michael has lived either in or near Yosemite National Park since 1983, currently residing just outside the park in Mariposa, California

Mossy oak in the rain

Claudia and I are in Humboldt County this week visiting our son Kevin, who’s a junior at Humboldt State University. This is redwood country, along the far northern coast of California. It’s a temperate rain forest, and it sure seems like it this week. It’s been raining—a lot. Yesterday we had a break, and a mostly rain-free day, but another storm arrived today, and the area is expected to get six to ten inches of rain over the next two days.

Although we’re mainly here to visit our son, of course I hoped to do some photography in this beautiful area as well. The main challenge of photographing in the rain is keeping the camera dry. I’ve tried many different ways of doing this: umbrellas, towels, plastic bags, etc, but there’s no perfect solution. Various people make rain covers for cameras, which work pretty well, but only for telephoto lenses. In fact it’s a lot easier to photograph with long lenses in the rain, regardless of what kind of cover you put over the camera, because you can use a long lens hood to keep rain off the front glass. Hoods for wide-angle lenses have to be short, to avoid vignetting, which makes it difficult to keep water from splashing onto the front element. The best solution I’ve found for wide-angle lenses is to attach an umbrella to my tripod with a clamp. This works, but it’s awkward.

The other challenge with photographing in the rain is the light. Overcast, soft light doesn’t often work for big, sweeping landscapes, but it’s perfect for many smaller scenes, and its especially good for bringing out colors and color contrasts. Driving over Highway 299 from Redding on Tuesday we saw many beautiful oaks decked with light-green lichen. Some of these also had deep green moss along their trunks, the color made even more vibrant by the moisture. It was raining hard, but I couldn’t resist stopping several times to try and photograph these trees. This time I had something even better than a towel or plastic bag to help keep my camera dry—an assistant (Claudia) holding an umbrella! The image at the top of this post shows one of the these trees.

Yesterday morning I drove to a spot along the coast near Trinidad with some interesting rocks and sea stacks. It had stopped raining, but initially the light was flat, and the scene was gray—dark gray rocks against light gray water. I could have just thought, “This won’t work,” and given up. But since I wrote that post about breaking routines a couple of weeks ago I decided to see what I could do with the “wrong” light for the subject. The gray palette suggested composing scenes that would work in black and white, and I thought that slow shutter speeds might transform the scene and create some textural contrasts—hard rocks and soft water. I used a variable neutral density filter to cut the amount of light reaching the sensor, which allowed me to use shutter speeds of six seconds or longer, even after the sun finally broke through. I’ve posted two of these images below.

If we only break out our cameras when the light is spectacular, we won’t make many photographs. And I think we limit ourselves with ideas about what “good” light is, or what the best conditions are for a certain scene or subject. We sometimes make more creative and satisfying photographs when we’re forced to stretch ourselves and adapt to less-than-optimal conditions. “Bad” weather can be good for the imagination.

—Michael Frye

Coastal rocks near Trinidad (6 seconds at f/22, ISO 50)

Rocks and sea stacks near Trinidad (six seconds at f/22, ISO 50)

Related Posts: Breaking Routines; Capturing a Mood; The Third Dimension in Photography

Michael Frye is a professional photographer specializing in landscapes and nature. He is the author and photographer of The Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite, Yosemite Meditations, and Digital Landscape Photography: In the Footsteps of Ansel Adams and the Great Masters, plus the eBooks Light & Land: Landscapes in the Digital Darkroom, and Exposure for Outdoor Photography. He has written numerous magazine articles on the art and technique of photography, and his images have been published in over thirty countries around the world. Michael has lived either in or near Yosemite National Park since 1983, currently residing just outside the park in Mariposa, California.