10/12/2025
Every photograph we take teaches us something — about light, about our tools, and about ourselves. Reflections Shortly After Sunset reminded me that mastery isn’t found in the newest gear or perfect settings, but in learning when to trust our instincts and let the moment speak.
The Truth Behind “Reflections Shortly After Sunset”
By Zack Sleeper Photography
This photo, currently on display at the Midwest Museum of American Art in Elkhart, Indiana through December 31, 2025, was taken with a Sony A7 II and a Sony FE 50 mm f/1.8. By most standards, that’s an “obsolete” camera paired with one of the cheapest lenses ever made for the mount system. Yet what this image proves is simple: a truly competent photographer can far exceed the supposed limits of their equipment.
This photo is the first of what I hope will be many taken at the same location, exploring how the reflections play upon the water coursing through the park’s water feature each evening. I find it to be one of the truly magical aspects of the location — and also one of the most challenging things I could photograph there.
It was shot during the blue hour — that narrow window between sunset and nightfall — one of the hardest moments to expose correctly. The light drops by the second, artificial illumination begins to dominate, and dynamic range collapses fast. Even with a tripod, the window to capture perfect balance was narrow. No tricks, no long exposure, no artificial lighting — just timing, control, and understanding the fleeting harmony between sky, reflection, and shadow.
I’ve been asked if I used a long exposure when taking the shot. The truth is, had I done so, this photo would have looked very different. A long exposure wouldn’t have allowed me to rein in the halos from the string lights or the rays emitted by them. The reflections on the water would have been softer and far less defined. Only by getting both shutter speed and ISO dialed in precisely — and anchoring the camera solidly on a tripod — could a shot like this be created: crisp, balanced, and faithful to the moment.
While some may find it appalling, I did not manually set my shutter speed or ISO for this shot. In the blue hour, when lighting conditions change by the second, it’s often better to trust your gear’s capabilities than to lose the moment entirely by chasing the “perfect” manual setting. Mastery includes knowing when to relinquish control — and when to let the technology work for you.
I implore my fellow photographers to discuss camera settings in detail with those who are just learning the art. Our settings are not proprietary — the magic is in our individual perspectives, not in the mechanics that produce our art.
I often choose to focus on my composition and how I want the light displayed in my shot rather than obsessing over manual ISO or shutter speed adjustments. Those technical elements are tools, but composition and light are the language. However, when I’m truly shooting at night — when the light becomes constant and predictable — that’s when I take full manual control to shape the scene precisely as I envision it.
The truth is that gear has limits, but most of those limits are human ones. You can’t shoot in heavy rain without weather-sealed equipment, and no one’s hands are steady forever — sometimes you must use a tripod. But within those real-world boundaries, skill can push any camera far beyond its reputation.
Post-processing can rescue an image, but something is always lost in the trade. Done right, editing elevates what was already there — it doesn’t create what wasn’t. The goal is never to fabricate light or color, but to refine what the lens and the moment already gave you.
The last hard restriction I’ll touch on is how resolution affects print size. While upscaling technology has come a very long way, no matter how good your gear is or how well you upscale a photo, you can only print at 300 dpi to a fixed size based on how many pixels you have to work with. Beyond that point, you must lower the resolution and rely on viewing distance to create the illusion of equal quality. We see this every day when driving past billboards — from the highway they look sharp, but climb up close and you can count each pigment dot.
For example, with upscaling via Adobe’s Super Resolution, a 24-megapixel photo from my Sony A7 II can only be printed up to 16×20 inches at 300 dpi before beginning to lose critical sharpness.
Though we’d all love to print our photos at any size, it’s important that we learn the limits dictated by the pixel count we have to work with. I myself received a painful reminder of this last year when my submission for the same show was rejected. I printed at a size that, from a distance, looked excellent — but if you stepped closer, one corner of the photo was noticeably grainy while the rest remained smooth. That happened because the image simply didn’t contain enough detail for the size at which it was printed. It was a hard lesson, but one that strengthened my respect for technical boundaries and how they intersect with artistic intent.
What you see here isn’t the result of expensive gear or heavy editing. It’s the result of patience, precision, and respect for natural light. Photography is about understanding not only your craft but your gear. No camera is without flaws, and no lens is perfect — we must constantly juggle those limitations against our skill.
I encourage every photographer out there not to push the gear as much as you push your craft.
Sincerely, Zack Sleeper
