Spring, Dana Fork Meadow, Mounts Dana and Gibb. Yosemite National Park, California. June 7, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Spring returns to the high country as new growth begins in a meadow along the Dana Fork of the Tuolumne River with snow-dusted Mounts Dana and Gibb in the distance – Yosemite National Park, California.

After photographing Mono Lake early this Sunday morning on the first weekend of June and then packing up my camp, I headed up over Tioga Pass into Yosemite to do some photography in the park before starting my drive back to the SF Bay Area. As I came over the pass it was a beautiful morning… but now one that promised many obvious photographic opportunities. I love the very early spring conditions shortly after the trans-Sierra roads open; there is still a lot of snow around, the plants are just barely beginning their growth spurt, and there is water everywhere. However the lighting was very tough on this morning. Interesting clouds were beginning to build and a thin dusting of new snow from yesterday’s storm coated the highest peaks, but the atmosphere was filled with very bright bluish haze and the light was harsh – more like noon than mid-morning.

I had almost decided to not bother stopping for photography when I passed this meadow on the Dana Fork of the Tuolumne Meadow. I stop here often, many in the early evening later in the summer when the setting sun illuminates these peaks. When I saw that this part of the meadow was largely flooded by the high water of the river and that Mounts Dana and Gibb were backed by clouds I decided to stop and see what I could do with the scene. The technical challenge of the scene was the tremendous dynamic range between the eye-squinting brightness of the clouds and the shadows in the foreground of the meadow. So I made several different exposures and applied the “ND grad filter in post” technique of combining the properly exposed portions of each.

This photograph is not in the public domain. It may not be used on websites, blogs, or in any other media without explicit advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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