Clouds Rest and Fog, Alpenglow. Yosemite National Park, California. October 5, 2008. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
Alpenglow illuminates fog in the valleys below Clouds Rest at twilight. Yosemite National Park.
Luck was with me on my drive back from Aspen hunting in the eastern Sierra during the first weekend of October 2008. Although I originally planned to return to the Bay Area via Monitor Pass, I made a somewhat spontaneous decision to instead return over Tioga Pass. After passing through Tuolumne Meadows a half hour before sunset, I continued on and near Tenaya Lake I noticed that fog was forming in the aftermath of the weather front that had come through a day before.
When I arrived at Olmsted Point and its famous view of Tenaya Lake and Half Dome, the fog had completely blocked the view. I wasn’t really planning on shooting here so I continued on. A few seconds later after rounding a bend in the road I saw that the fog was barely blocking the light of the setting sun, and that rocks and trees were being gently illuminated through the fog. I’ll post that photo later along with a bit more information about the scene.
In any case, I finally got back to my car and began what I thought would be a direct drive home, since the light was now fading quickly. I drove on for a few more minutes, came around a bend at the top of a rise, and saw this stunning scene of Clouds Rest rising above the valley fog and illuminated by alpenglow. Not willing to pass this up I stopped again and set up the tripod/camera and made a few exposures of this incredible and rare view.
keywords: clouds, rest, mountain, ridge, fog, mist, evening, twilight, alpenglow, forest, tree, cliff, snow, fall, autumn, tioga, road, yosemite, national park, california, usa, travel, scenic, landscape, night, sierra, nevada, stock
Thanks Dan and this is the sort of stuff I have been learing about this hobby lately. Being there at the right place and the right time is everything. Well, almost. I still need to avoid mangling the shot. And I sure wish I could have been there to photograph this scene too! It’s a lovely shot!
Aaaarrrrgggghhh, indeed! I feel your pain, having done similar things myself. (Once I shot a whole sequence of such images on a camera I no longer use… with the camera set to record small, low quality, jpg images. Double-aarrgg…)
Those alpenglow situations are notorious for changing very quickly, and also for emerging from otherwise unremarkable scenes. I have a bunch of stories to tell about that!
This “clouds rest and fog” shot is certainly in that category. I was certainthat I was done shooting for the day when I came upon this shot. I’m sure I literally said, “Oh, my God!” outloud when I saw it!. I pulled across the road into the very first turnout (at the edge of a cliff) and, as fast as I could, got out the camera and tripod and set everything up right there. I couldn’t trust this light to last long at all – it could have disappeared in seconds. I quickly got one “in the can” that wasn’t terribly well composed and then move quickly to try to get a few different compositions (hopefully more effective than the first one) as the light began to go. I probably made a half dozen exposures or so… and then it was gone.
This was another of those situations that might be unexpected by those who haven’t done some landscape work: this landscape was anything but static, and I had to work as quickly here as I did photographing the Blue Angels this past weekend, and I had fewer opportunities to get it right!
Dan
It’s amazing how photographic scenes can pop up almost completely by surprise. On my trip there a few weeks back I passed through Tuolumne Meadows right at sunset and the scene before me was just absolutely amazing. The hills were painted with alpenglow and there was this misty fog rising up off the meadow and it made for a scene to die for. I quickly stopped, got my tripod out and decided to first take a few shots with my XPan. Being a rangefinder camera you don’t look through the lens but you look through a separate viewfinder instead. I snapped 3 quick panoramic pictures and then the alpenglow disappeared. The great light is just so fleeting. Anyway, as I went to change cameras to my digital, I saw that I still had the lens cap on the XPan. AAARRRGGGGHHHH!
I lost the shot entirely! And now who knows when I can get back there to try again but it’ll have to be next year. Oh well. This is still a great hobby!