Wow. Yosemite. I was awed by the magnificence of Yosemite Valley and the towering waterfalls. Who isn’t? I was stoked to be going to one of the most beautiful places on the planet at a time when the falls were gushing, but it turned into a real photographic challenge for me.
I like to shoot moving water with slow shutters, and a lot of my images came out over exposed, even the ones that were shot at .4 and .3 seconds. Software couldn’t even correct it, so I was disappointed with many of the images I made. But, I did come back with a few killers, and of the ones that made it into the gallery, I’m really happy with them.
With powerful falls at Yosemite, it isn’t always good to let a long exposure be the best way to capture a waterfall. When I shot McWay Fall at Big Sur earlier this year, a long exposure worked for that “stream” of a waterfall. At Yosemite, the falls thunder down with such power that splash, spray and burst, a fast shutter is needed to make the images of the drama – softening those falls just doesn’t work and takes away from their brilliance.
I think my favorite was not actually a waterfall, but of bustling Bridalveil Creek. I would have passed the shot by if my brother didn’t suggest it to me. I look at the image and see motion. Even though the water images are still, I look at the water lines in the creek over the rocks, and they scream smooth poetic motion.
Shooting the valley was difficult because the second day we were there it was extremely hazy, so landscapes were tried, but they ended up being out of the question as far as presenting any of them in the gallery. Unfortunately, this included shots of Half Dome. They just looked too over exposed, while the foreground was crisp, clear and beautifully saturated.
The image of Bridalveil Fall that is in sepia was too washed out in color and was actually part of a larger image that had the valley off the left, but even as early in morning as it was, it was way too hazy to make a good shot of the valley. That was too bad. I think the shot really works in sepia, but I really wanted to come back with vibrant color.
The best waterfall shot is of Yosemite Falls with all three upper, middle and lower in the frame. It was magnificent to see.
One of the issues of shooting the falls close up was all the mist created by them. You could be hundreds of feet away, and still get really wet, which for myself I could handle, but not my gear. That was too bad, especially at Vernal Fall, where I came back completely soaked from the mist the fall created. It was like rain.
I made about 140 images, but less than ten made it to the galleries. That was unfortunate. As mentioned, some of it was due to me leaving the exposures set too long on some waterfalls, but the majority was due to the crappy weather both days we were there.
The first day we were there, we hiked to Vernal Fall, but the real objective was Nevada Fall. We got caught high up in a thunderstorm and had to turn back. The water started rising around us with the rain coming down, and we found ourselves in areas prone to flash flooding. We made the wise decision to not hang around, as the storm worsened.
To see the images I made, check out my website in the new images gallery.
One of the challenges in shooting the tombstones was figuring out how to shoot them on the hill and get a very large number of them in the frame. Shooting them diagonally was what worked for me in delivering the impact I wanted. That impact was the shear numbers of those who died either in combat or at one time had served their country. The images don’t need words; they speak for themselves. The same goes for the “Eyes Wide Open” image I took around a year ago in Sacramento when the boots of soldiers killed in Iraq were on display at the Capitol.
