02 Mt. Whitney, Winter Sunrise

1943, Ansel Adams, Winter Sunrise

2022, Andy Nikon Z7ii 70mm at ISO 100, f/9.0 1/40 second

Once again, I am humbled by the brilliance of Ansel’s shot of Mount Whitney in Lone Pine, CA. His summary of taking this shot is below so I will share a bit of my own experience. I left Death Valley, CA at 4:45AM to race over to this site and try to catch as much of the sunrise light as possible. We were racing to find this site having never been there before. I did find what appeared to be very obviously the location with the right field/animal/view/light to my uneducated eye. Set up as quickly as I could and starting framing for exposure. As you will see below I fell far short of my expectations, and the resultant image obviously suffers for the speed and skill deficiency.

Here’s what Ansel’s experience was making this photo:

Examples, The Making of 40 Photographs, p164, Little, Brown and Co. (excerpted)

Manzanar, the site of one of the World War II relocation camps, is about fifteen miles north of Lone Pine. While I was photographing in and around the camp in 1943 and 1944 I made some of my best images. I knew the region well; it is roughly 150 miles from Yosemite over the Tioga Pass – or 400 road miles southward when the Tioga is closed by snow.

While at Manzanar for a fortnight in the winter of 1944, Virginia and I arose very early in the mornings and drove to Lone Pine with hopes of a sunrise photograph of the Sierra. After four days of frustration when the mountains were blanketed with heavy cloud, I finally encountered a bright, glistening sunrise with light clouds streaming from the southeast and casting swift moving shadows on the meadow and the dark rolling hills.

I set up my camera on my car platform at what I felt was the best location, overlooking a pasture. It was very cold – perhaps near zero – and I waited, shivering, for a shaft of sunlight to flow over the distant trees. A horse grazing in the frosty pasture stood facing away from me with exasperating, stolid persistence. I made several exposures of moments of light and shadow, but the horse was uncooperative, resembling a distant stump. I observed the final shaft of light approaching. At the last moment, the horse turned to show its profile, and I made the exposure. Within a minute the entire area was flooded with sunlight and the natural chiaroscuro was gone.

Photo Details: Nikon Z7ii 70mm at ISO 100, f/9.0 1/40 second

Location: Here I cheated and found GPS coordinates from a fellow Ansel fan that provided the site across the street in Lone Pine, CA. However, the more I looked at this there are two parts of the equation that are wrong for this shot. I think that the shadows on the top of the mountain give away that I’m likely a couple miles south of where he actually took this shot. Again, even when you know something feels right, my source material led me astray as I was actually taking this shot altogether.

In practice this means that I should have been 2-4 miles to the right of the site I visited to take this shot. However, if I’m being honest I was racing to the site to try and catch the light and this was the first place I found that looked viable. This tells me I need to spend a lot more time scouting the location, and focusing on what elements are there and how the shot that he conceived in the first place is or isn’t correct.

Perspective: Secondly, is that he calls out the fact that he was on top of his vehicle above that gave him a better vantage point. This difference becomes more obvious as you focus on the trees and cows (horse in his). It is obvious he is higher than the field than I am and looking down on the shot more so that I am. I’ve exaggerated the difference here with arrows but the difference is clear.

Again, not that I would or could have done much differently, but I didn’t even notice this when I was on site. It was only once I got home and out of the cold to see the brilliance of the subtlety that Ansel provides. The pop of sunlight in the center of his image, filtering through the trees to give even his lonely horse some love makes a big difference.

Framing: I think given the fact I was not in the right spot at all the framing of the picture is ‘okay’. It is close to what he had in the frame and the right mountain range.

Exposure and Lens Selection: Here and post processing I’m still in the dark (so to speak) on. I think I have the right lens for the shot reaching across a long field from the road to get the right elements into the photo, but I have no idea how he creates the dramatic shadows against the strikingly dark foothills without drastic editing. Perhaps that’s the ticket, or waiting for different light? I’m not sure how this works yet, but will continue to see what I can do, and may circle back to this image later with better post skills.

Post processing: See confounded photographer commentary above. For this image I did the requisite dodge/burn with a specific focus on the foothills and mountain shadows.

Artistic quality: It was a crystal clear morning without a cloud in sight but the light was actually a really soft pastel orange that ran all the way down the mountain range. As the day warmed up it became even more beautiful, but I definitely want another go at this shot to see if I can capture different conditions and what possibility lies in other locations.

Out of my control: Oh so much. The road in and out of Lone Pine, CA has multiple pull off sites with some degrees of industry around that I think may pose a challenge to get to the exact site without some elevation control. Right now I don’t have a vehicle that would allow for an elevated platform, but will figure that out at some point. It was obviously winter in Ansel’s shot with the snow present, but I think that there is an element here that I’m missing that led to the different conditions.

Andy’s take:

2022, Andy Nikon Z7ii 24mm, ISO 100, f/7.1 1/80sec