Capturing Yosemite in HD

Time-lapse images' moving Yosemite views

James Temple

Yosemite National Park --
Check Out Video Below

Colin Delehanty had to go higher. He needed to see what worlds opened up on the next peak.

He and his party had spent a September morning climbing 1,500 vertical feet of switchbacks from the floor of Yosemite's Lyell Canyon, edging up the shoulder of Potter Point along a well-maintained trail. But near the top of the tree line, they struck off into unmarked terrain, guided only by a goal: up.

Delehanty, a 25-year-old photographer from Burlingame, had spotted the hint of a High Sierra vista. But once there, he saw something higher, more promising still. And on it went.

Dimming light and dwindling water eventually convinced most of the group to turn around. But Delehanty shouldered his pack and stepped onto the saddle leading to the next peak. He would spend hours on top, setting up special camera equipment to capture the setting sun and rising moon - alone, in the cold, as storm clouds gathered.

"Determination," he had answered on the hike up, when asked what separated his work from others.

Sheldon Neill enjoys a moment in the sun in Yosemite National Park on Saturday, September 22, 2012

Dancing light

Delehanty and his 21-year-old photography partner, Sheldon Neill, earned Internet acclaim this year when they released their online video project, "Yosemite HD." The pair used time-lapse imagery - playing through hundreds of still pictures like a flip book - to showcase the changing environment in a way the naked eye could never perceive: shadow and light dancing across the landscape, clouds shape-shifting through the sky, stars circling over the horizon.

Delehanty and Neill are heirs to a rich tradition of capturing the glory of national parks, following in the footsteps of famed photographers like Ansel Adams.

But they are among a small cadre of pioneers experimenting with newer techniques like "motion time lapse," where cameras slide slowly along tracks known as dollies that enable the frame to move across space as the pictures move across time.

The two were almost certainly the first people committed or crazy enough to haul two of the 6-foot-long dollies along for the rigorous hike up Half Dome. Since January, their stunning look at California's most famous national park has drawn more than 3 million views online.

Now they are hard at work on their sequel, reaching higher and deeper into the park in an effort to outdo their earlier work - and discover where photography can take them.

A challenging trek

Last month, the photographers invited two Chronicle journalists to follow them into Yosemite's high country for a three-day weekend of shooting. Late on a Friday afternoon, loaded down with more than 60 pounds of gear each, they began a roughly 20-mile trek.

Neill, from San Juan Capistrano (Orange County), looks and talks like the prototypical Southern California guy. He's blonde and rangy, with a lean, handsome face. Walking through the dry grasslands along Lyell Fork, he explained how he found his way to time-lapse photography.

"I just happened on 'The Mountain,' " he said.

For time-lapse aficionados, that's explanation enough. Norwegian photographer Terje Sorgjerd's piece renders El Teide, Spain's highest mountain, as a fairyland of super-saturated forests and psychedelic starry nights.

When Neill watched the video, at the beginning of 2011, he didn't own a camera. But within a few weeks, he dropped nearly $5,000 of his savings on camera equipment.

Two days after the dolly arrived, with only a rudimentary understanding of how it worked, he strapped it to his pack and stepped onto the foothills of Mount Whitney. At around 14,500 feet, it's the highest peak in the Lower 48 states. Neill managed to capture beautiful sequences as he struggled to the top.

He considers it a clumsy first attempt, but after he published it to a video-sharing site, another photographer took notice.

Catching the color

Four miles down the trail, as the sun slipped behind the Cathedral Range, the light changed suddenly and dramatically. A warm pink fell across the canyon.

Delehanty jumped into action, pulling off his pack and digging out gear: camera, filters, timer, tripod. He raced to set everything up, hoping to catch the color in the minutes before it went gray.

Delehanty has a friendly face traced by a brown beard. He's shorter than Neill but wiry, built like the rock climber he is.

He's the more experienced photographer of the two - and the better one, according to Neill. He began shooting seriously in 2009, during his senior year at Santa Clara University. He was spending most of his free time hiking and climbing, and wanted to bring back a bit of the beauty he found at places like Yosemite.

But static images didn't do justice to the sprawling landscapes and towering walls he encountered. He started experimenting with video and time lapse, emulating work he found online. He had climbed Mount Whitney once and began to wonder if he could lug a time-lapse dolly to the top. Then he stumbled on a video online and realized someone had beaten him there.

He shot Neill a note complimenting his work. Neill mentioned he had permits to climb Half Dome that fall.

And like that, "Yosemite HD" was born.

Giving and taking

Ansel Adams began shooting in Yosemite as a teenager, with the Kodak Brownie his parents gave him in 1916. He spent the next few decades obsessed with the subject. In a 1937 letter to a friend, he described what drove him.

"It is not charity, which is the giving of things," he said. "It is more than kindness, which is the giving of self. It is both the taking and giving of beauty."

Time passes and techniques change, but artistic impulses remain much the same - part selfish, part selfless.

At one point Delehanty said his goal is "to make people curious about what's out there and realize that there's a lot of adventure to be had in their lives."

But late one night on the trail, he acknowledged the determination to trudge up hillsides and film through the cold night partly lies in the desire to be the first to pull off shots.

"I want to give it my all and go out and document things that no one else is," he said.

"The last thing your body wants is to get up in the middle of the night," he said. "But something punches me in the face and says, 'You have to get up.' "

A new frontier

Time lapse exceeds the capabilities of standard photography in one major respect. It doesn't simply capture reality, it unveils something normally hidden.

"It reveals the beauty and patterns of things we don't perceive in everyday life," said Jay Burlage, co-founder of Dynamic Perception, which developed the time-lapse dolly that Delehanty and Neill use.

The "Stage Zero" was considered the first track affordable for hobbyists, at less than $1,000. But it's merely one example of the converging technological forces that have put time-lapse tools into the hands of average consumers in the past few years, resulting in an explosion of content and viewers online.

High-quality digital cameras have become cheaper and better, particularly in their ability to capture clear pictures in the dark of night. Basic editing software now comes baked into most computers. And any smartphone owner can produce simple time-lapse clips with the right app.

Equally critical has been the emergence of online screening rooms like YouTube and Vimeo, where anyone can potentially achieve Internet fame.

But making time lapse easier has also raised the expectations. Earning plaudits increasingly demands reaching more remote locations with ever-more complicated gear.

"Every step in the time-lapse evolution pushes the creator to a new frontier," said Richard Koci Hernandez, an assistant professor of new media at UC Berkeley.

Building a following

Yosemite officials are well aware that Delehanty and Neill are striking off into ever deeper reaches of the park. So long as they follow the rules and don't tip into commercial work requiring administrative approval, the park is supportive of their efforts, said ranger and spokesman Scott Gediman.

"It's wonderful that people are taking all this new technology, applying their passion and using Yosemite National Park as a backdrop," he said.

The popularity of "Yosemite HD" helped Delehanty and Neill snag a few sponsors, including Dynamic Perception. But basically, the videos are passion projects.

For now, both live in their family homes. Neill, who is studying business at a junior college, still isn't sure what will win in the battle between a corporate career and his passion for photography.

But Delehanty is determined to avoid a desk job. He is striving to establish a freelance photography career, with hopes of working on nature documentaries. He hopes the next project gets him closer to that goal.

The next shot

On Sunday, the morning after Delehanty's solo summit, the party slowly emerged from sleeping bags near the shores of Evelyn Lake. The prior evening, Neill had stayed one peak behind Delehanty to take his own shots. Over oatmeal, the two traded notes on their results.

Neither was thrilled. The clouds dissipated before the light descended, and the rich colorful sunset they'd expected flipped through gray swatches instead. They learned long ago that it doesn't matter how much physical effort you expend getting to the right spot if the time-lapse gods aren't smiling.

But determination does matter. It's what punches Delehanty in the face in the middle of the night; it's the voice that says "try again" after a shot fails.

The morning was perfect for time lapse, with deep blue skies and puffy clouds. And the next opportunity, Vogelsang Peak, was just another mile down the trail.

Online

View "Yosemite HD" and "Capturing Yosemite," a video of Colin Delehanty and Sheldon Neill working in Yosemite, at blog.sfgate.com/techchron.

James Temple is a San Francisco Chronicle