Hallelujah

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Hallelujah

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Taken from the Mueller Hut in Aoraki / Mt Cook National Park on May 16, 2016.

There are three things that can get you into trouble when you’re playing in the mountains. The first is overconfidence in your abilities for the terrain. The second is not being prepared in terms of equipment. And the final thing is changing weather. A lot of times you can work through one of those issues and be alright. But when those things start to collide and you have cascading failures, that’s where you can get into a serious situation.

That was exactly what happened when my friend Jessica and I decided to hike to the Mueller Hut in Aoraki / Mt. Cook National Park in New Zealand in May of 2016. The Southern Alps were getting blasted by storm after storm, making trekking difficult, but when we spied a 24-hour break in the weather forecast we decided to head up to the hut. Unfortunately for us the break turned out to be much shorter than we expected and brought much colder temperatures with it, including two days of blizzard conditions.

To make a long story short, we ended up being stranded in the hut for three days, ran out of food, and built a mattress fort to stay warm. In addition I also missed my flight back home to the US. After those three days of enduring the battering of this storm, the accompanying winds, thunderclaps, and avalanches, we woke up our final morning in the hut to extraordinary calm and clear skies. We walked outside to find three feet of fresh snow blanketing the surrounding countryside, and some of the most intense alpenglow I’ve ever seen igniting the atmosphere.

That, along with the news that the Department of Conservation was sending a helicopter to extract us from the hut (we couldn’t descend the hiking route due to extreme avalanche danger), led to a profound Hallelujah moment.

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Electric Light

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Electric Light

Neon-Canyon-Escalante-Utah

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Taken from a bluff overlooking the entrance to Neon Canyon near Escalante, Utah, on October 10, 2016.

In late 2016 my Hungarian friend Julia let me know she was planning another trip to the America Southwest. She’d lived in New York for six years and during her time there a yearly pilgrimage to Utah was a staple in her spiritual diet. And since I enjoy exploring southern Utah almost as much as my own beloved Sierra I leapt at the chance to head out there for 10 days of canyon goodness. Julia recommended we make a backpacking trip into one of the more famous canyons in the Escalante area, Neon Canyon, and having never been there I was happy to agree.

The hike in to the entrance of Neon canyon is fairly easy, if a little boring and exposed: five miles of trudging across sandy, rocky desert, followed by a startlingly quick descent down to the Escalante River. A thigh-deep ford of the river, followed by 50 feet of knee-deep, sucking mud, and you’re in the mouth of the canyon. Then the question becomes where to put your tent. After exploring a few bends up canyon we settled on a wonderful bluff a few hundred feet above the seasonal creek that has hollowed out the canyon.

From our campsite we could see a clear use trail leading to the top of the cliffs to the west so we wandered up that way and found a high perch with incredible views of the Escalante River to the west and Neon Canyon to the east. We spent the next day exploring Neon Canyon, which ends with a truly spectacular sandstone cathedral. As well as Ringtail Canyon, an extremely tight and narrow slot which at the time was chest-deep with frigid water. Brrrr.

On our final morning of the trip I woke up early and hustled up the use trail to the canyon rim. And although the day began with relatively few clouds in the sky they soon developed, and filled the heavens horizon to horizon with puffy, colorful goodness. I set up my camera low between two giant boulders and used a number of technical techniques (including focus stacking and exposure blending) to capture the beauty of the morning. All that was left to do was tear down camp and hike back out.

Check out these behind the scenes photos:


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escalante-river-neon-canyon
escalante-river-neon-canyon
neon-canyon-amphitheater-utah
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ringtail-canyon-escalante

See more beautiful Escalante photos here.

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Los Cuernos

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Los Cuernos

Cuernos-del-Paine-Chile

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Taken from the Lago Grey area of Torres del Paine National Park, Chile, on February 26, 2017.

Chile’s most famous national park is Torres del Paine, which means The Blue Towers. And although those specific towers are striking -gigantic monoliths of rock jutting thousands of feet into the sky- they are somewhat inaccessible. Most people will only ever see them from far away, from a viewpoint miles and miles and miles away from the towers themselves. In contrast, Los Cuernos del Paine (The Blue Horns) are omnipresent in the park. The most famous, the most iconic views of Torres del Paine all involve Los Cuernos. And with good reason: these enormous columns of rock erupt over 6,000 feet from the shores of the lakes below. Their craggy nature give them an incredible character and aesthetic, and they are surely some of the most well-known and iconic mountains in the world.

Being mere miles from the western Chilean coast, this sub range of the Andes is also subject to a battering by the severe weather of the southern latitudes. Ferocious winds, blustery squalls, and intense downpours can spring up out of nowhere, mingling with perfect sunshine in a frustrating display of fickleness. But that same weather, when it hits Los Cuernos, often dances and plays with the light and atmosphere in a way that is a delight for photography.

On this particular day, after a beautiful morning exploring the Lago Grey region of Torres del Paine National Park, I was driving back toward my campsite as the winds picked up and began howling over the peaks. That led to the formation of incredible interlocking lenticular clouds over Los Cuernos, all of which basked in the afternoon sunlight.

Key Learning Tip:

It’s easy to over-complicate composition. In those moments where I’m not sure how to compose a scene I tend to fall back one of the simplest “rules” of composition: the Rule of Thirds. The rule states that you divide your frame up into an imaginary Tic-Tac-Toe board and place important objects in your photos along the lines and intersections of that grid.

In this image you can see I’ve done exactly that: the sky gets a third of the photo. The grass and forested hills at the bottom of the photo get a third. And the mountains in the middle get a third. So simple, yet so effective. Also notice where I’ve placed the most prominent tower in the scene: its most eye-catching, sunlit section is placed on the upper-left third intersection point. It’s a power point in the image and your eye goes right to that tower.

So the next time you’re stuck trying to figure out a decent composition don’t be afraid to fall back to the tried-and-true Rule of Thirds.

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See more beautiful Chile photos here.

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Chalice

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Chalice

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Taken from somewhere along San Joaquin Ridge near the town of Mammoth Lakes, California, on September 6th, 2017

The moon moves surprisingly fast. You’ve probably noticed this a time or two yourself: the moon is sneaking up over the horizon, huge and beautiful and orange. Then before you realize it it’s floating high in the sky in a pool of inky blackness. And when the moon is about to set it seems to go faster still. It’s a blink-and-you-miss-it kind of thing. The other funny thing about how the moon moves through the sky is that it doesn’t go in a straight up-and-down line. Rather, from where I live in Mammoth, it almost seems like the moon traverses a 45° incline: As it drops lower in the sky it appears to move an equal distance to the north. Both of these things make it tricky to position the moon exactly where you want in a photo. In fact, you have to be mobile and agile and be willing to chase the moon a bit in order to sneak it into the perfect position. In this case the moon began to approach this wonderfully craggy notch in the Minaret ridgeline but I could see it wouldn’t quite be positioned perfectly in the slot. So I scooped up my tripod and lens and sprinted northward through the pumice to get in position. As the moon sank toward the notched I continued to fine tune my location as well: 20 feet to the north. No, too far, back 10 feet to the south. Perfect. The moon dropped into the notch and I was able to take this single photo before it slunk out of position again. Luckily my efforts paid off and I had managed to time things just right: with the mountain chalice holding the full moon.

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Window to the Sky

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Window to the Sky

pioneer-basin-john-muir-wilderness-reflections

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Taken in the Pioneer Basin, John Muir Wilderness, high Sierra Nevada mountains in California on July 11th, 2014

At the tail end of a 5-day backpacking trip through the John Muir Wilderness I woke up to that rarest of Sierra sights: clouds in the sky at morning. After shooting the blazingly colorful sunrise near the shores of the lowest Pioneer Basin lake I was amped up and excited to continue photographing. I wandered up Mono Creek looking for interesting compositions and came across this bend in the stream. A deep, wide pool caused the creek flow to slow down to a snail’s pace, allowing perfect reflections to form in the surface of the water. The clouds overhead diffused the morning sunlight on the landscape and with the help of a GND I was able to capture the painterly light bathing the scene.

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The Rolling Rainbow

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The Rolling Rainbow

steptoe-butte-state-park-palouse-sunrise

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Taken from Steptoe Butte in the Palouse, Washington, on June 9th, 2017

I took this photo while leading a workshop with Sea to Summit Photo workshops. On this morning we were discussing how to creatively use camera settings to emphasize the scene you’re creating. As an example I used a 150-second exposure to turn the clouds into waves which mimicked the shape and feel of the rolling hills beneath them.

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See more beautiful Palouse photos here.

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Backlight

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Backlight

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Taken at Minaret Vista in Mammoth Lakes, Sierra Nevada, California on September 3rd, 2016

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Things Are Not Always What They Seem

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Things Are Not Always What They Seem

lago-di-sorapis-reflection-dolomites-italy

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Taken at Lago di Sorapis in the Italian Dolomites on July 19th, 2017

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Plummet

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Plummet

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Taken at Upper Yosemite Falls, Yosemite National Park on May 17th, 2017

In late May 2017 I spent a few days in Yosemite Valley and everything I’d heard about the waterfalls this year was true. There was water everywhere, the meadows were all flooded, and there were ephemeral falls I’d never seen before. One day I hiked up to vantage point on the east side of Upper Yosemite Falls and noticed that when the wind was absent comets of water would plummet all the way from the top of falls 1400′ to dash on the rocks below. In order to capture this image I knew I wanted a tight frame, so chose my 70-200mm lens. I also knew I’d need a very fast shutter speed to freeze the water in place, so increased my ISO.

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Croda da Lago

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Croda da Lago

croda-da-lago-dolomites-italy

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Taken from Rifugio Pomedes, shooting at Croda da Lago in the Italian Dolomites on July 26, 2016

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Daybreak

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Daybreak

lago-sorapis-sunrise-dolomites-italy

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Taken at Lago di Sorapis in the Italian Dolomites on July 19th, 2016

In August while photographing on a workshop with my friend Erin Babnik we visited the surreally-blue Lago di Sorapis in the Italian Dolomites. On the morning of our visit I woke up early and hiked from the Rifugio to the lake, and on up the hillside behind the lake. As the sun came up it bathed the scene in luxuriant warm rays while the blue lake reflecting the blue sky provided a striking color contrast.

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Sierra Waves

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Sierra Waves

cathedral-peak-yosemite-snow-sierra-wave-cloud

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Taken at Upper Cathedral Lake in Yosemite National Park on May 3rd, 2014

This was a tough photo to get. Mostly because I was under-prepared. I trudged the four miles in to this spot sans snowshoes, postholing nearly every step and soaking my boots in the process. I brought just enough clothing to deal with the 10 degree F temps, which didn’t mean I was comfortable, just not frozen.

In the morning, when I had finally drifted off to a shivery sleep, I almost didn’t get out of bed because I quick glance out my tent flap told me it was overcast. It wasn’t until my eyes (and brain) focused a little more that I realized I wasn’t looking at gray skies, but rather a huge Sierra wave cloud that had formed above Cathedral Peak and the rest of the Sierra crest.

I quickly donned my snow gear, grabbed my camera, and crunched down to the frozen shore of Upper Cathedral Lake, where this beautiful wave of blue ice mirrored the cloud above.

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