Here’s the part two from our trip to Yosemite. When I was looking at the photos I wanted to share, I thought the division between “Trees” and “Rocks & Water” was a good way to split the photos into multiple posts. I think I’m more fond of the photos in this one; they are much more interesting. I figured that it was appropriate to make the header photo a very iconic view in Yosemite Valley. It’s far from unique or spectacular (as photography goes) but it reminds me of the trip. If you’ve been to Yosemite before, you know that standing in the valley is truly breathtaking.
Half Dome is a very iconic rock in Yosemite. Perhaps the most iconic, in fact. This is the side of Half Dome as viewed from Mirror Lake. It’s an easy hike from the campgrounds and has a nice established trail where we weren’t worried about the kids losing balance or falling anywhere. I love the coloration of the rock. It reminds me of a modern art painting where paint seems to have succumbed to gravity before drying. The abstraction feeling is cut with the natural trees. I admit that I embellished the colors a bit.
We really pushed the kids while at the park. We wanted to do as much hiking as possible and I’d say we succeeded in the endeavor. The most challenging route for us was Vernal Falls via Mist Trail. The trail is paved most of the way up to the falls and we were able to push the stroller up to that point and make everyone walk the rest of the way. I admit that we missed our turn-around point so we did make it much further than we planned but we were so very happy to see the falls. One woman stopped us toward the top and told us that her earliest memories were from this very same trail where she, herself, was in a hiking backpack being sprayed by the mist of the waterfall. We were very glad we slogged through that hike despite having 5 people and 4 legs for 90% of it. Mind you, that’s not 4 pairs of legs…just 4. Despite the fact that my wife is pregnant, I carried more kids up that trail than she did though I digress…
The light wasn’t quite right for a wide photo but I think this shot is really nice with the water and the sinusoidal pattern in the rocks in conjunction with the vertical lines on the left. I also like the bit of green wrapping around the bottom half of the photo. Getting exposure right for the water was tricky. I had to play with shutter speed a bit before I found a length I liked to make the water look the way it did. Thus far in my photography journey I haven’t based a photo off of shutter speed so it was fun to get to do it for the first time and see how the result changed.
Here’s another shot from Mirror Lake. I like that the trees frame this giant rock that has, obviously, cracked at some point in its history. I wish the tree on the right stood out a bit more. The underside of the rock (where it cracked) makes a nice division running through the photo. I am not sure what to do with the sand in the bottom of the photo. I tried cropping it out and it didn’t look right. Leaving it in feels like a distraction, though that’s probably the right choice now that I look at it.
I don’t know that this photo isn’t that wonderful on its own. This is a small section of El Capitan. If you’ve never seen it – it’s enormous. Larger than you can imagine. I took this picture to remind me of the scale of this monolith. You can see, in this photo, a single climber in red. Hanging beneath him is his gear in two separate ropes. I thought this was one of those sports that you really should do with a buddy but I don’t see anyone else near him though if I zoom way in, I’m able to see a small area below the climber that looks like a decent spot to rest. Perhaps his buddy is in there…napping? Scale is everything so allow me to show a shot from the same location that didn’t work out as a photograph but that does give some idea of the magnitude here.
You can see this log that’s terribly uninteresting (why I tried this photo, I don’t know) and you can see my kids standing by the river about 100 feet away. If you look in the upper right you may be able to see the pattern of the rocks in the zoomed in photo. We had lunch here on our way out of the Valley and, over our hour there, were able to spot about seven groups of people on this rock. You’ll never find them in the zoomed out photo. This rock is just that big…
I’ll end this week with this “trippy” photo. I thought it would be interesting to use the reflection of the river by our campsite for something. Though the water was certainly flowing, it was slow and calm enough to get some crisp reflections (for a river). I really like this photo because of how the rocks I’ve shoved in the top left corner ground the whole thing. It’s quite fun to look at for me. The initial glance is that it’s upside down and out of focus but once you see the rocks I think it’s a fun moment of realization. I tried to put the rocks a bit more in the center but the water behind the rocks was much more turbulent and the reflection was ruined.
Well that was more text than I usually put in these things. Thanks for reading. I’ll try and keep it shorter next week. Though still quite nice, there is less to say about Sequoia National Park than Yosemite. Cheers!