Picture This: Yosemite Camping Then and Now

I don't know exactly what draws me to some photos. I could make up all sorts of fancy reasons why (cue the snooty voice); the composition of the frame intrigues me, the subject matter juxtaposed with the organic nature of the piece is stunning, drawing the eye to the infinite reality of the universe as a whole...

In reality, I just know what I like.  A lot of the time it has more to do with the era it was taken, or the good memories it conjures up while I look at it. I'm sure all of you have a photo that is the polar opposite of "art" but you proudly keep it on your mantel (or as the screen shot on your iPhone) anyway. Out of focus, off kilter, bad composition--it doesn't matter, it's a keeper. Because you like it.

This is one of those for me:

Yosemite Camping circa 1950's: (Photo Credit: William Miller)

I wasn't even there when this was taken: Heck, Mark and I weren't even alive when this was taken. It's a shot of Mark's family's campsite in Yosemite, probably sometime in the 50s. If you look closely you can see a play pen set up for one of Mark's uncles, and all the towels (both dish and swim) were strung up on the line between the pine trees. The family is gathered around the picnic table (playing Yahtzee, if my experience with that side of the family is any guide) and chatting it up. Mark's extended family went to Yosemite every summer and spent a week playing in the river and walking around the valley. That tradition has continued to this day: our Yosemite trip every summer is an extension of that when we join Mark's sister, cousins, mother, aunts, uncles and all the kids that have cropped up over the years for a week of swimming in the river, walking around the valley and eating popsicles whenever we can get away with it.

Mark's grandfather was a photography enthusiast, taking photos on vacations and bringing the film(!) back to his house in San Francisco to develop in his basement. Those were the good old days when you could have all those nasty chemicals laying around (come on in kids! I'll show you how to process film. Nah, you won't need gloves...) He probably dumped those same chemicals down the drain when he was through too. Things were simpler, if not more dangerous, back when we didn't know any better. Of course, Grandpa lived well into his nineties, so maybe there's something to this living dangerously thing. Hmmm...

Anyway, I really like this photo because for me it symbolizes the essence of camping. When I look at it I like to imagine camping in Yosemite before it was overrun and over-regulated. Even then it was hard to get a campsite--my mother-in-law tells me her father used to send her ahead of the family car to ask each family if they were leaving that day and could we have your site?--but it was still possible to get one the day you showed up.  None of this logging in from three computers five months in advance, frantically pressing the refresh button as you watch all the available campsites disappear before your eyes.

I like the way the photo is dark, and a little smoky. And I really appreciate the way you can barely make out any other campers in the background; the sites seemed more spaced out then or perhaps so much foliage has been trampled and ripped up now that there's nothing to shield you from your fellow campers anymore. It looks like you could walk to the end of the road and find yourself alone in the forest.

For comparison's sake, here's a photo of our campsite last summer in Yosemite:

Yosemite's Upper Pines Campground, 2013

Sure, it's a little less smoky--the park has put a moratorium on campfires in the daylight hours--but you could hardly call it secluded. A concrete pad with a picnic table and a bear bin to call your own, the invisible barriers known only to the seasoned campers to hold your place in the dirt. Of course, Yosemite is full of un-seasoned campers, so expect people of all nationalities to traipse right through your site at any moment. Privacy is not an option so it's best to just roll with it.

Even with the crowds though, I will never tire of Yosemite. It's one of those special places that cannot be compared to anywhere else on earth. It works to our advantage that most people don't have the time or the energy to get much past the turnouts and overlooks. If you're willing to go a bit farther, you can find yourself alone in some of the most spectacular scenery you will ever see in your lifetime.

So I will continue to press the refresh button madly (while reciting a few choice words) five months in advance of our next trip. Not because I enjoy it, but because I have to. To skip a year would be a shame and an early morning marathon session at the computer is worth a week in paradise, as crowded and overrun as it is. The family tradition has to carry on and it takes a concerted effort to bring everyone together for a week; Mark's sister gets on the phone a year and a day before the selected timeframe and keeps calling until she gets a reservation in the housekeeping units. When I start to wonder why we bother, I just look at that photo again and it helps me to remember.

And every year during all of this, somewhere up there Grandpa is looking down and smiling to himself:

"Sure didn't seem all that hard when I was doing it."

Staying Out of the Picture

My mom likes to look over the photos we've taken after we come home from a trip. If she has any criticism it's usually "Why aren't there any pictures with people in them?"

I've never been comfortable in front of the camera; I'd much rather be behind it.  Here's proof that I should really stay behind it:

Fourth Grade was very cruel to me...

Yup. That's me in fourth grade, sporting what I thought was the coolest outfit my mom ever made for me. My hair, alas, has not improved with the years (it refuses to comb itself) and there are only more freckles now. At least my teeth have gotten better: three years of braces and a cap over the left tooth (that I broke when I fell off a bike trying to do tricks and literally bit the curb) have greatly straightened my smile.

There were hundreds of people at the lake that day.  I was able to get them out by waiting, then maneuvering so they were hidden from view behind the trees.

But it's not just my unwillingness to be photographed that keeps me out of the picture. I really enjoy vast open landscapes and like to imagine what it was like before we all showed up to trample the view. So I sit, sometimes for a long time, waiting for people to clear out before I snap the shutter. I like to get up earlier than the crowds in Yosemite just to get a shot devoid of hikers and tourists. There's something distracting about Aunt Edna's hot pink track suit popping up in the middle of the neutral shades of Yosemite valley. Sometimes it's necessary to get some perspective in a shot, and that's when I make Mark walk ahead so he can be my "Mark-o-Meter." He's a good sport.

Here's an example of the Mark-o-Meter at work:

Figure A: Tenaya Lake

Figure B: Mark's Rock in Tenaya Lake

It would be hard to figure out how big that boulder is without the second shot. I liked the way his blue shirt blended with the colors of the scene. This particular Mark shot always reminds me of why we go to Yosemite: it's one of the few places on earth where we can completely relax and be happy. Our annual trip to Yosemite always starts with a swim in Tenaya Lake; it's where we rinse off the worries (I'm pretty sure we're not polluting--I think the cold water neutralizes them.)

Mark and John Muir, hanging out.

I'm hardly a professional photographer; Mark is my go-to guy when I have questions about the camera features and settings. But I really enjoy trying to get the camera to see what I'm seeing, and nature has the best stuff to practice on. I could never do portraits. I feel so uncomfortable in front of the camera I think it would rub off on my subjects. I can't even get a decent picture of the dog most of the time.

Mark will sneak in a photo of me once in a while, and I guess I'm glad there's proof that I actually made the trip. But I'd really just rather look at the view...

Resting on Stanford Point, camera equipment on my back.
Yosemite NP

The Bigger Picture

Yesterday I read a news story that made me sad. It certainly wasn't the first time a story in the news was horrible and I'm sure it won't be the last, but it really got me to thinking about the whole idea of presence. As in, are we ever present in the moment, or have our electronic gadgets taken over our lives?

The news story was of a man who pulled out a gun and shot a student in the back as he was exiting a Muni train in San Francisco. Sadly, it's not the fact that someone was killed that got my attention: the man that pulled the gun had been brandishing it in plain view for several minutes before picking his victim and shooting. This was all caught on security cameras; even though the train was crowded, no one saw the gun until the sound of the gunshot broke their attention away from the cell phones they were using. (Here's a link to that depressing story.)

This was close on the heels of a discussion I had with a fellow photography enthusiast. We were sharing the frustration of getting a good shot of nature--if the light isn't in the right place do you stay until the sun moves into a better position? Do you take the picture and try to alter it with software? How can you get the camera to see what you are seeing? Are we spending so much time trying to get a good photo that it's keeping us from enjoying the trip?

Our devices can be incredibly attractive, and really, what's the problem with playing around while you're on the bus or trying to get the best possible photo? Nothing's wrong with that--I completely understand wanting to avoid strangers in close quarters and certainly want to have good photos of my trips--so why my vague unease with the whole situation?

The first time I remember being struck by this was during the last Olympics. As each country's athletes marched out onto the track, almost to the person they were holding cell phones up, recording the huge crowd cheering for them. It felt disrespectful, like they only cared about showing their friends what they were "seeing." It seemed vaguely rude somehow, as if the crowds (who, incidentally, paid a steep price to be there cheering) were not important to them.

I think part of my discomfort with this new age of distraction is the way it disconnects people from the world. You'd think the "World Wide Web" would be bringing people together like never before, but the opposite seems to be happening. You can have 1,200 friends on Facebook, 3,200 people reading your tweets, and 6,000 reshares of your latest GIF, but have you actually talked to a real live person today? Or worse, did someone try to shoot you? No? How do you know?

I've found myself on a few trips getting so wrapped up in getting great photos that I'm not really enjoying the trip itself. It's as if the camera gets between me and the scenery. I'm viewing the scene through a tiny hole with a shutter and it's very confining. The world isn't constructed in 4x6 inch frames; even the mighty iPhone Panorama feature can't reconstruct nature.

Lately we've been on outings exclusively for photography--to work on technique and so forth--and that has actually helped free up my outdoor enjoyment time. Knowing how the camera works is very helpful; sometimes you can just look at a scene and know immediately there's not a good picture in it. But that doesn't mean it's not worth looking at. The human eye is an amazing thing, and nothing--not Google Glass, not even the most expensive digital camera in the world--will be able to match it. Because your eyes are connected directly to your brain, and your brain (if you're lucky) is connected directly to your heart.

So from my heart to yours: put down the devices for a while each day. You'll be amazed by what you might see.

Device-free crowd: These guys know how to live.