Location | Lake Tahoe, California
Camera | Phase One IQ4 150MP
Lens | Schneider Kreuznach 35mm
Shutter | 4 mins, 20 secs
Aperture | f/18
ISO | 100

When it comes to photography, everything is a balance of patience and persistence and as photographers our job is to capture nature’s light. When I set up for a shot it’s usually a 3-4 hour process from playing with aperture to getting the light balanced with filters. The end shot is one big math equation that results in a long exposure that either makes or breaks the day’s work. There’s no second chance at a long exposure sunset, there’s only one shot.

I began this image by finding my focal point of view. I typically look for an anchor or some type of foreground object to give the image a three dimensional feel. Our eyes usually wander from left to right so I use an anchor that will draw you into the photo, and I love going with a panoramic style image as it’s one of my favorite formats for viewing art. This is one of the main reasons I invested in a Phase One digital camera so I’d have 150 MP of details to work with when I crop.

The image you see is a 4 minute and 20 second exposure, giving the water a glass with mist effect and vivid colors. This is all done in camera using a method that was originally invented by Ansel Adams called the “zoning system”. I learned it early on in my photography because 15 years ago Photoshop didn’t have the ability it does today and I couldn’t afford the software at the time anyway. The zoning system however allows you to edit the natural world using neutral density grad filters to balance the light so your foreground matches your sky.

To take a long exposure of a sunset without overexposing your image is a technique that took some years of playing in the field to understand. I use what’s known as a Big Stopper filter which holds back 10 stops of light - it’s basically if you put the darkest tint on your sunglasses and tried to see out of them. In order to use this filter I have to set the lens to manual because I can no longer see out the viewfinder due to the heavy tint darkness. After the few hours of waiting for sunset my image is ready for the final shot, which is typically a four to ten minute exposure of the sunset.

With this image, envision keeping your eyes open for 4 minutes and 20 seconds while simultaneously absorbing all the colors and data and meshing it into one single image. This allows me as the artist to capture all the colors and hues of the sunset without ever going into editing to add color that wasn’t there.

While I was creating this piece and watching the sunset begin to form the purple hues over the water, I felt my art come alive. It’s always an incredible feeling when you finally capture a vision you had in your head using a camera. This is probably one of my favorite things about photography; It sometimes takes me a decade to get my image right because I have to be patient and wait for perfect conditions. It’s a very humbling experience to let nature dictate my art.