I didn't want the Claudian effect of trees framing my picture. Instead, I moved right down to the shore, where the sky and the lake, washing the sides of my chosen image, gave the greatest play to the changing light. As the light turned amber, angling acutely through the atmosphere, I took the first of a series of exposures, lake, rock, trees, sky, and heaven-pointing peak. I left the camera on the tripod and watched the shadows lengthen and the colors change. Mountain sunsets pass through a fairly predictable series of color changes, but each is unique in the rate of change, the intensity of the color phases, the influence of clouds, and the local effects on rock, vegetation and sky.
Painters have the option of rearranging the scenery.
Muir hated this, especially when they changed the scene to something geologically impossible. He must have despised Bierstadt's most famous pictures of Yosemite, where the cliffs are moved closer together and the valley is flooded with crimson light rather than the delicate amber or rose of reality. A photographer must watch the light and take his pictures when it is most favorable in angle and hue. I sat there on the rock as so many times before, in mountains, deserts and sometimes in cities. I watched the light and took additional pictures at each incremental change.