North Dome and Merced River Trees, Winter. Yosemite Valley, California. February 15, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
Black and white photograph of North Dome and bare winter trees reflected in the Merced River near the swinging bridge, Yosemite Valley, California.
After first getting distracted by dawn light on Yosemite Falls – and joining a small throng of other photographers shooting this exact same subject (he writes, somewhat embarrassed… ;-) – I pulled myself together and wandered off along the Merced on this frosty morning looking for scenes that were a bit less obvious. I’m not going to claim that this one is completely non-iconic – I can’t since North Dome, in the upper center of the frame, is a fairly well known feature of the Valley. However, the thing that mostly caught my attention here was the skeletal shapes of the dormant trees along the Merced River and the way they lined up across the scene creating some interesting symmetries and forms against the background of the upper end of The Valley.
This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.
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Technical Data:
Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Canon EF 35mm f/2
two blended images: ISO 100, f/11, 1/40 second and ISO 10, f/11, 1/10 second
keywords: yosemite, valley, national, park, california, usa, north america, meadow, swinging, bridge, cottonwood, silhouette, grass, sky, north, dome, royal, arches, snow, reflection, ripple, morning, light, black and white, monochrome, sierra, nevada, mountain, range, clouds rest, landscape, scenic, travel, nature, bare, forest, grove, stock
This is the best of your black and whites I’ve seen yet… though far from having seen them all… This is a great picture: it captures what I really like about winter in Québec. I don’t know how to put it, the wet, cold snow essentially says “there ain’t not’n happenin’ here bud!” yet the protruding fence posts, tree trunks and running brooks seem to say “shhhhh, who’s he trying to kid? We don’t have time for that kind of nonsense: get going!”