After we left Monterey, we headed east toward the Sierras. We wanted to visit Yosemite National Park but we had the dogs with us. National Parks don’t tend to be very pet friendly which makes since given their reason for existence. Dogs are allowed in some but they are pretty restrictive. We also heard that the crowds at the park would be large and we should plan accordingly – which we did. The plan was to find a camping spot as close to the park as we could without being in it. The dogs could run around off-leash and we could still be camping in beautiful areas. On our departure day, we’d leave as early as possible to maximize our time in the park. This way we could let the dogs get plenty of play time before being mostly cooped up in the RV while we explored the park. We found a campsite nearly on the border of Yosemite National Park and Stanislaus National Forest. It overlooked a meadow and had a view of some mountains out in the distance. Nothing phenomenal but peaceful and very quiet.
The first morning we were there I woke up early to take photos. Since the plan for the following morning was to pack up and go to the park as fast as possible this was my only chance for sunrise photos at this location. Unfortunately a layer of rather fog made actually seeing a sunrise impossible. However, fog has some of its own benefits. It creates a feeling of infinity. Though you cannot see what is past the trees it feels possible that they go on forever. These two trunks were so large they could only have been Sequoia trees at one point. I expect they were logged in the late 1800s and this is what was left after forest fires since. The scale of these things is poorly shown but I could’ve easily gotten the whole family inside one of these stumps.
Perusing forward I found a fallen sequoia that had not yet been in any fires. Its bark was still red and had no char marks on it. It did however, support a large amount of this moss. I liked the moss quite a bit. I don’t think I did a great job at capturing the moss itself but the picture does show how much of the tree was covered. The composition here needs work so I’m looking for input. I wanted to show the quantity of moss as well as it’s texture. Perhaps if I had put the foreground in better focus I would enjoy this photo more.
Fighting the morning fog and the sky is hard. I have found myself taking a number of photos lately with fog or overcast skies. They tend to saturate the camera sensor and make for ugly photos. I had to doctor this photo a bit to bring the sky and fog back to a reasonable color. I could not pass up the photo though. When you see a thousand trees that are either vertical or horizontal it is hard to not photograph one that is diagonal!
Later in the day, we took the kids on a ‘hike’. The hikes got much more intense once we got to Yosemite (next week’s post) but we walked up the road some and then went off road a bit to see what else we could find. We wandered about an eighth of a mile away from the campsite – that was all that was needed for kids to feel like we were on an adventure. I found these two Sequoia trees standing next to each other. I love the coloration and the texture in this photo. If you’ve ever seen a Giant Sequoia, you may have noticed that they’re tall… So tall, in fact, that there is no way to make out the shape of a Sequoia leaf. This photo shows an adolescent tree with the bright red bark as well as the leaves from a very young tree next to it.
Given that our campsite overlooked a meadow, there was quite a lot to look at! Especially using my new 300mm lens, there were plenty of compositions I could construct while relaxing in my camp chair. This is one of them! I like the variation of trees here and that their tops seem to make a diagonal line in the photo even though two of them are out of the frame. I wish I had played with focus a bit more to get the first tree a little more crisp but I think the photo looks nice anyway.
The last day, as mentioned, we tried to pack up as fast as possible to get to Yosemite. Heavy dew fell during the night and temperatures dropped below freezing which put a beautiful layer of frost over the ground and I had to delay our leaving by a few minutes to get a few photos. The header photo and the above photo are what came of that. I enjoy the perspective of this one in particular. I like how the wood itself has shrunk over the years while the bark has not. The frost on the top of the bark was my focal point in this photo and is quite pretty. There were logs around of pure charcoal that all had a layer of frost on them as well. I tried to capture the juxtaposing elements there but none of those photos quite worked out.
Next week, I’ll post the photos of Yosemite. Please subscribe below if you’re interested in seeing new posts as they become available. Thanks for reading!