This weekend we drove the 4 hours up north to Ithaca, NY for a mini camping break. Technically it should be ‘glamping’ because we slept in the Subaru, but I received a plethora of bug bites so it balances out.
Ithaca and the surrounding area is a hypothetical photography paradise. It’s littered with ridiculous gorges and multi-level waterfalls, like this one at the very LOTR-esque Robert Treman State Park:
I say ‘hypothetical’ because, aside from the location above, the light was very challenging to work with. The vertical scenery and bright sunlight contrived to make significant differences in light and shadow for nearly every composition. The image below is unedited, straight out of camera. You can see how the rock on the right is well exposed, while the far wall of the gorge is almost in darkness:
One of the many things I love about photography: the dichotomy between a camera’s precise geometry and the organic chaos of the world it tries to capture.
Cameras work in stops, defined iterations of numbers that represent physical realities about the setup of your equipment. Every photographer knows the sequence of f-numbers: 1.4, 2, 2.8, 4, 5.6, 8, 11, 16, 22. Each one is separated by a stop, which is the same as the stop between halvings and doublings of ISO and shutter speed. 800, 1600, 3200. 1/30, 1/60, 1/120.
Maths and geometry. Ratios and relationships that never change.
Contrast that with the world we try to capture within our precise little instruments. Light is ever-changing, in turns harsh and soft, blue and golden, direct and reflected. Humans, water, leaves, clouds, cities, nature, none of these things conform to the expectations of a camera’s internal system. The challenge of photography is to match your geometry to the world’s chaos and create something beautiful.
Sort of like life, wouldn’t you say?
