Persistence and Perfectionism
This past summer, a few friends regularly asked me about weekend plans, to which I invariably replied with some version of, “Oh, I’m visiting the Sierra.” I often got quizzical looks, followed by a familiar refrain: “Wait…again? Didn’t you just go?” We photographers can be famously stubborn; we will return to a location again and again with the hope of witnessing and recording a fleeting, seemingly perfect moment of natural brilliance that does not often materialize. I often answered my friends’ question by saying that the scenery looked different on every visit and my enjoyment increased as I became more familiar with the area. However, I realized the difficulty of conveying that by words alone.
I want to share two examples from this past summer of how photography helped me find and see an extraordinary landscape. They speak to the value of visiting a place multiple times and highlight the benefits and limitations of persistence and perfectionism in landscape photography.
I first photographed this scene from Yosemite National Park in June 2021, during my first-ever camping trip. On this attempt, I misjudged the selection and placement of my graduated neutral density filter, so the photograph turned out too bright. I knew I was on to something here but thought I could do better. I planned on photographing the scene again that summer, but my next opportunity came too late—by August the green meadow had turned yellow. The picture stayed in my head for nine months as I counted down the days until Tioga Road opened and I could finally access the Yosemite high country again.
In May of this year, I photographed the scene twice (see above) during my Memorial Day weekend trip—once on the drive to the eastside and another on the drive home. The trip coincided with a late spring storm. My first attempt looked promising, but the thick clouds eventually precluded any chance of direct sunlight at dusk.
On the second try, clearer skies prevailed, and the sun bathed the meadow in warm, golden light. When I received my film back, I liked the result, but felt that the scene could look even nicer with some more clouds. While I felt somewhat satisfied, I now wanted to find an opportunity when good light coincided with a clearing storm. I waited again for another chance to revisit the scene.
A month later, I drove through the area again on another weekend trip as a summer monsoon began to clear. Initially I drove past the meadows, intent on making it across Tioga Pass before dark. I stopped when I noticed that the clouds seemed perfectly positioned for a vivid sunset. Sensing a photographic opportunity, I turned my car around, drove to the trailhead, then jogged to my now very familiar spot by the edge of the creek. The light show began as I set up my tripod. For a few minutes, the storm clouds glowed orange and pink as they caught the last rays of sunlight that day.
The resulting picture above combines all the elements that I could have hoped for; the stormy skies and strong alpenglow match up well with the reflection in the perfectly still water. Even though I had to wait more than a year, I made one of the most satisfying pictures of the entire summer.
It had required multiple trips, and each time I learned more about the area and what kind of weather conditions would be ideal. In the end, it required more than my fair share of luck for the photo to come together, but my persistence paid off.
Sometimes, persistence isn’t enough. Though it is always satisfying when a slew of trips culminates in a final, portfolio-worthy photo, life often doesn’t work out that way. For months, I had my mind set on photographing Little Lakes Valley, a relatively accessible alpine valley in the Sierra Nevada. Over a three-month period during this summer, I made five different trips to that area and slowly learned the lay of the land. However, photographing this beautiful area satisfactorily proved surprisingly difficult. The geography of the valley meant that there were only so many conceivable angles you could find without bushwhacking through the forest, which complicated my desire to create a truly unique photograph.
The first few times passed by relatively uneventfully. My first visit during Memorial Day weekend came too early in the season, as snow still lingered on the trail and a late-spring snowstorm obscured the mountains.
On my second trip a month later, I day-hiked up to one of the lakes before dawn to look for wildflowers that I could photograph alongside the sunrise. Finding none, I settled on looking for any strong foreground element to incorporate into a picture and found a piece of driftwood, which I used for the photo below.
I hiked up again later that afternoon to camp overnight at Gem Lakes, located at the end of the trail, only to find a high ridge obscuring any view of the surrounding peaks. I arrived too late in the day to look for another place to camp, and so resigned myself to staying the night there. In the morning I hiked out in search of a clearer view, but only managed to find a flowerless meadow. With sunrise approaching, I stayed put and photographed the alpenglow. Though it was by no means a bad picture, I still thought that I could do better.
By the end of July, I felt determined as ever to see and photograph wildflowers in Little Lakes Valley, and the limited information I found online suggested that I had good odds. I impulsively set out on another weekend backpacking trip and hiked all the way up to the flowerless meadow I had photographed in late June. This time I found a field full of Lemmon’s Paintbrush flowers. Unfortunately, stormy weather forced me to consider my options: I could camp as originally planned and endure potential rain and thunderstorms as I waited for sunrise, or I could go back down into the Owens Valley, stay in a nice, air-conditioned motel room, then hike back up early the next morning. As rain drops started to fall on me, I opted for the latter option.
The next morning, I woke up at 3 AM to a blaring alarm across the room. I rushed over and turned off my phone, then contemplated going back to bed. If I stayed up, a 45-minute drive and an hour-and-a-half-long hike awaited me that morning. I sighed, took a deep breath, then packed and headed out the door.
I arrived at the trail about an hour-and-a-half before dawn and started the hike in pitch black conditions. Though I brought a headlamp, it began to dim fifteen minutes into the hike. The batteries were running low—and I didn’t bring any spares. Undaunted, I continued the hike with the headlamp running at its dimmest setting, praying that the batteries would hold out just a bit longer. The sky eventually brightened enough so that I no longer needed illumination, but it was then that I noticed the heavily overcast skies.
At this point, I did not have high hopes for sunrise, but I figured that since I had already hiked out halfway to my destination, I might as well follow through to the end. I scrambled up the trail and arrived at the meadow with time to spare. Then I set up my tripod in the approximate spot I had located the day before, and waited with bated breath for the light, any light, to appear on the horizon.
To my surprise, I noticed a very faint pink glow on the peaks, which slowly grew in intensity. Soon a sliver of alpenglow illuminated the tops of the range. I gasped in surprise and marveled at the scene unfolding before me. After a few moments, I looked back down at my camera and elatedly snapped several photos of the scene with a variety of filters and exposure settings, hoping that I had calculated everything correctly. A minute or two after the light appeared, it faded away, and the mountains returned to their original dull gray color.
I must be honest, the perfectionist in me is not completely satisfied with the photographs from that morning. The smattering of wildflowers made it difficult to frame a picture free of distracting clutter on the edges. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t find a way to simplify the scene without making significant visual compromises. From a technical standpoint, I don’t think this picture ranks among my best work.
Yet it remains one of my favorite photographs from this summer because of the story behind it. The photo reminds me of the anticipation and excitement I felt that morning. I had no regrets about trekking two-and-a-half hours’ round trip to witness a mere minute or two of wonderful light and hiked back down satisfied that I had witnessed something special that no one else saw.
It is easy for us photographers to fall into the snare of disappointment when a trip fails to produce any meaningful work. At several points throughout the process of making the photos shown here, I felt disappointed that conditions didn’t turn out as I had hoped. But I realize now that disappointment is no longer the end of the story. Persistence and the pursuit of perfection can be powerful motivators that keep us looking for those special, fleeting moments, but they can also limit us from enjoying them for what they are.