by Ian Vorster
Backpackers head north along the Olympic Wilderness Trail from Rialto Beach in Olympic National Park, Washington. Image captured on a Canon EOS3 with a 28-80 mm Tokina lens using Fujichrome Velvia 100 that which was then drum scanned.
I was cold. The air was still. Not a sound could be heard in the predawn darkness. I sat on a small ledge, my gloved hands tucked beneath my arms. What would first light be like this morning, at 11,000 feet above sea level, I wondered to myself.
It got too cold to sit still, so I scrambled into the sleeping bag I had pulled from my tent. Nestling my head on my camera bag I kept an eye on the east and tried not to fall asleep. Ten minutes later a sliver of light cracked the darkness. I could see the difference between earth and sky, and like God at creation, was pleased with what I saw.
I threw off the sleeping bag, dropped my gloves and quickly made some minor adjustments to the tripod. I had scouted the location the previous evening, but as the sun rose, a single cloud obscured the light. The shot wouldn’t work. The light was ordinary. Disappointed, I packed up my gear and began the hike back to my tent.
I spent most of the day hiking to return at sunset. This time with a different angle in mind I waited to see what the light would do. A patch of lenticular cloud obliterated a full hand’s width of sky above the horizon but there remained a tiny gap of hope. The sun broke through for just ten seconds after a half an hour wait — long enough to capture a few frames of a sub-alpine bristlecone pine in the bonsai-like formation typical of the species at this altitude. A thousand feet lower they grow into giants. Five hundred feet higher they are not to be found. A specimen in the landscape setting I had chosen was difficult to come by. Although the photo won a category award for Outdoor California Magazine, the light didn’t approach what I was hoping for.
Getting the shot had been a three-day process. I had photographed several other subjects in that time, but this was the culmination of my efforts. The result was a reasonably complex function of light and time.
The grotesque beauty of a dead whitebark pine’s roots against the backdrop of Crater Lake in Crate Lake National Park, Oregon. Image captured in the optimal minute for landscape photography which is just after sunset (or just before sunrise). Canon EOS 5D MKII with the Singh-Ray 3 stop Galen Rowell graduated density filter.
Vision
Travel photography is a broad field, taking in everything from pure landscape photography to pure photojournalism. Thousands of videos, classes, tutorials, articles, and books have been written on the subject. Some focus on technique and some on hardware, but it’s the unique inner vision and personal motivation of specific photographers that often piques my interest.
For those who pursue distinction — whether you attain it or not — that inner vision becomes a touchstone of sorts. Whenever I feel my work entering the realm of mediocrity, I sound out my vision. In those early days when I was still new to the glorious high elevation Sierras, I couldn’t quite articulate it and my portfolio certainly couldn’t support it. But as time passed, more opportunities were offered or created and my passion never waned, both changed. That touchstone also provides fresh impetus and the focus necessary for the further improved results. For me it is difficult to explain or teach, but easy to recognize.
When I started out, I had a fair awareness of what my vision was, but I had yet to acquire the technique and even the gear to achieve it. This following begins to reveal that vision — to capture key moments of glory, hardship, fear, or achievement that speak for the different peoples of our world and their local environments. To describe a quality of light might complete that expression of vision.
Gear
As a professional photojournalist decades later, with images published in a host of publications, I had always researched the best gear for the job and had, for most of the time, not been able to afford it. So, I settled for the best I could afford. I had to sacrifice frame rate, sensor size or superior weather sealing or a combination of the three. As a veteran outdoor photographer, if given the choice, most often I opted for the latter because, depending on the brand, it offers the least or no reduction in overall image quality.
You don’t need the best gear to become a professional photojournalist or photographer. You do need a vision, passion, and opportunity, all of which cost pennies.
For a long time, I opted for the best available glass for both Canon DSLR and Sony mirrorless systems — until weight became an issue. (For the John Muir Trail I used a Canon Rebel T3 with a kit lens.)
As both my age and technology advanced, I sold my Canon DSLR system to buy the smaller Sony mirrorless outfit and then sold that to buy the miniscule Sony RX 100 MK VII, which I now use with an iPhone 14 Pro Max. My first test of this setup came when I bus-packed my way through the length and breadth of Israel. Both proved distinctly better in all respects than the Canon Rebel I had carried on the JMT.
A handheld four-image panorama taken with a Sony RX100 MKVII at 1/125 second, F4.5 at 117 MM on the 24-200 zoom and combined in Adobe Lightroom. Sandstone cliffs of Timna Park in the Negev Desert of southern Israel. Ancient copper mines and mining shafts can be seen throughout the park. There are also remains of smelting furnaces dating back to ancient imperial Egypt. Copper was the first metal for creating work and household tools, weapons, costly ornaments and cultic objects, and this is the first place that copper was ever mined. The importance of Timna in the ancient world was enormous ad archaeological science is increasing pointing to this being the location of King Solomons mining operations.
Manipulation
Understanding the essence of photography is the first step. At its most fundamental, it is the manipulation of light as a function of time for a desired effect. For this reason, it has been called “painting with light.”
In my early days as a stock photographer, I would plan my day according to what the light was doing. Light dictates timing, which dictates strategy, which dictates tactical maneuvering. In applying this principle, consider the following evaluation I made of San Francisco.
The city can be divided it into three areas of focus — the Golden Gate region which included the bridge and the headlands, the waterfront with all its activity, and the inner city. The latter includes Chinatown, Crissy Field, various historical landmarks, and architectural images. With three days available for a field trip, I decided I could only do justice to one area and selected Golden Gate Headlands. You would be surprised how busy you can get with this technique.
Landscapes are often sought in the magic or golden hour after sunrise and before sunset. So, the Golden Gate Bridge from different angles determined my starting and end point for each day. And since I wanted to capture vignettes of the structure as well, I had to wait for specific light at the various vantage points along the bridge.
This interplay required me to move by car from Hawk Hill in the Marin Headlands down to the bridge for a few hours, across to both sides of the carriageway and back again as the sun slowly descended. When it did set, I was in a premeditated position — the vantage point gave me a view of the city and lights at twilight. The following day the process was again followed, this time reversing the locations.
As the morning magic hour wanes, it becomes a good time to switch attention to people and their activities. Thousands of joggers and cyclists cross the Golden Gate Bridge every week to access the Marin Headlands and the Sausalito waterfront. A photograph of a cyclist against the red steel framework of the bridge is a story in a single frame. Having selected a suitable position with the light from the correct angle, a half an hour wait and a roll of film produced 15 opportunistic images — yes, this was pre-digital.
A chalk artist working on his own image of the bridge for tourist sales caught my attention. This produced another image. Some call it a gift — that special something you get without planning, just because you’re out there. I think of it as the reward for planning and hard work. Or as the professional golfer Gary Player once quipped, “The more you practice, the luckier you get.”
On my last assignment in South Africa, the same formula was applied as I photographed private safari lodges. Mid morning and afternoons were good times time to capture housekeeping staff, rangers, and chefs at work. The magic hours provided wildlife opportunities, and twilight or dawn gave time for landscapes or those signature “lodge aglow” shots with lanterns twinkling romantically in the dusk. They used to drop thousands of dollars for a handful of those images back in the analogue days. Now in the digital era these are a dime a dozen.
Photographing a particular subject in a certain light often requires a surprising amount of planning and inordinate effort. I have followed dozens of mountainous trails, dodged the incoming tide on countless beaches, climbed in and out of a myriad of overland vehicles, and crouched in agonizing positions for hours on end to land the shot. On that note I might add, “and effort” to what John Paul Caponigro said about the importance of light and time to photography.
A selection of images that demonstrate some of the attributes of light below, married to the strategy explained above.
Attributes
Light can be described in terms of four physical attributes which are at times related. These are intensity, direction, color, and diffusion. A fifth, contrast, is not descriptive of the light itself — the textbooks say that it is related to the interplay of the first four.
Intensity
Light intensity or brightness is the area over which photographers have the least control. The travel photographer’s dilemma is often related to it. In the pre-digital era, when chromes were king, the maxim was to shoot slow for maximum resolution or saturation, at apertures that provided adequate depth of field. This often left photographers with a shutter speed under 1/15 of a second. Most photographers weren’t willing to sacrifice the 50 ASA film or the depth of field, and instead chose to deal with the slow shutter speeds by way of a tripod. Fujichrome’s Velvia 100 went a long way to overcome this problem.
In the digital era, sensors record light intensity per pixel in greyscale. To record color pictures, a filter known as a Bayer mosaic is placed over the sensor. Bayer mosaic consists of three small filters in red, green, and blue. There are twice as many green filters in a Bayer mosaic to accurately reflect the way the human eye sees color — it being more sensitive to green light. Once all the colors are put together, an image is created.
Direction
To a certain extent this is within our control because but there will be many occasions when you cannot move, and so need to wait for the light to move or the subject. If you can move, shift around to place the light in a desired direction to achieve a desired effect. Side lighting emphasizes texture and form, and occurs early and late in the day. Back lighting can be used to emphasize an outline or a silhouette, or to show translucency. Front-lit subjects are illuminated from behind the photographer. This tends to flatten an image and isn’t useful unless that is your intent. Emphasize the characteristics that are important to you. Try to predict light direction at different times of the day.
Color
The efficient human optical system, which consists of the eyes and brain, corrects shifts in color almost instantly. As we watch a sunset, we see the orange in the sky. If we look at trees illuminated by the sunset, they might then look vaguely orange to our eyes, but film would render the uncorrected version as bright orange vegetation. If we are in a room illuminated by fluorescent lighting, our eyes fail to see the lime color of that type of light, but your digital camera catches it if you have the incorrect temperature set — hence the AWB selection in your digital camera, which averages out the different color temperatures. In the days of film, if you took a photo without flash, the film would show the green. It used to be said that once you understand how much color correcting goes on inside your brain, you might be able to train yourself to see the subtle variations in light color that add up to major shifts in slide images. You could then use it to your advantage. I can’t say I ever figured that one out. In all honesty, now in the digital age, I shoot everything on AWB and occasionally, if required, edit it in post.
Diffuse
Light can be either diffuse or hard. This attribute is determined by the relative size of the light source. The sun is a point light source and produces hard light with shadows that show sharp edges. This type of light intensifies contrast (the range of dark and light tones). If it is your intent to accentuate contrast and jagged lines or textures, then this type of light works. A point light source does not have to be bright. A lantern or even the full moon are point light sources that create distinct shadows. The intensity factor is just less.
Diffuse light softens and feathers shadow edges while lowering contrast to a level that sensors and to a lesser extent, film can handle. The larger the apparent size of the light source, the more diffuse the light. On an overcast day the entire white sky is the light source — a giant soft box. June Gloom down on the Santa Barbara coastline creates the perfect opportunity for people or portraiture photography because you will have zero shadows to deal with. Diffused light tends to render scenes more as our eyes perceive them. Coastal fog or mountain mist provides for an excellent diffuse light source. Look for bright colors and remember that they will always appear more saturated, so don’t think you have to photograph spring blooms in bright sunlight because often the exact opposite will produce more pleasing images.
I have found that the more you do it, the more this light management becomes second nature. You will eventually not even think about it. And, instead of chasing the light, you will concentrate instead on that inner vision — the image that expresses what your heart and mind is aiming for. In all likelihood it will be more difficult to capture.
Transients walk along the road with their dogs in soft (diffuse) light. This image was captured on a foggy morning along Highway 101.
This image was captured beneath a smoke filled sky during the Zaca Fire on Highway 33.
Gear Evolution
I received my first camera from my dad for my 15th birthday. I had a lot of passion but very little information and zero skill. But that Pentax Spotmatic with its TTL (Through the Lens) light metering, aperture-priority and stock 50 mm 1.4 lens allowed me to cover local marathons, high school events, vacation travel and wildlife. (You can pick one up on eBay for 80 bucks now.) Thanks, dad, for getting me started.
I traded the Pentax in for a Ricoh K10 five years later. With it came a 70-200 kit lens, the standard 1.2 50 mm, and I added a Vivitar Strobe which I never managed to master. For most of the next 10 years I captured wildlife, travel, and local athletics with this setup.
In the mid 90s, my dad then gave me a Pentax PZ10 with a 35-80 mm lens on it. What was cool about the camera — wait for it — was that you no longer had to advance each frame manually, because it had an auto-winder! It also had its own pop-up flash and auto-focus. Imagine that. I carried that little rig down more rivers and along more bike trails and on southern African road trips than I can recount.
My first professional quality gear came again via yet another gift from dad, this for my 37th birthday. It was the Canon EOS 3. Pitched as a pro-sumer model because it lacked the superior weather sealing, I ran pretty much only Fujichrome Velvia 50/100 through it for the next five years. The camera had many of the same features and ergonomics of the flagship EOS-1 series cameras, with three main auto focusing modes. Automatic, manual selection focusing with 45 points, and Eye Control. The built in motor drive was capable of 3 fps. Dad could only afford the body, so I added a Tokina 28-80 mm lens. This rig lasted me the next 5 years. The EOS 3 launched my professional career, landing images in everything from Backpacker magazine to Getaway to a few leading book publishers. It was my last film camera. You can pick up a body on eBay for around $300 now, and double that with the L USM 28-70 lens.
I sold the EOS 3 to buy the EOS 10D and a 70-200mm Canon L lens. With a CMOS sensor (smaller), the 10D was also a pro-sumer model. The glass however was the real deal. With this setup I covered events the Santa Barbara film festivals, the Michael Jackson trial, college athletics, and particularly three years of the USPS and later Discovery Channel professional cycling team’s spring training camps in the Santa Ynez Valley.
Then came the revolutionary EOS 5. I had already wised up and so waited for the 5D Mk II before trading up the 10D. The Mk II had a 21-megapixel full frame sensor and was the first Canon EOS camera to be able to record video. It sparked the global trend in backpack multimedia production because of the sensor’s remarkable video capturing capability.
Although I used the Mk II’s successor, the Mk III extensively and loved it, I then changed to Sony Mirrorless with the A6000, followed by the A6300 and the A7. I used the A7 Mk II and Mk III in a professional capacity and the quality of these cameras, and their capabilities has gone down in the record books, but I was getting tired of carrying even the reduced size of the A6300 with its little 10-18 mm E-mount lens when backpacking or even bikepacking.
I switched over to the Sony RX 100 Mk VII and first the iPhone 12 Pro Max, followed by the 14 Pro Max. The National Park Service and the California Native Plant Society among others have published images captured with both. And the Zeiss glass of course is pro-level.
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