Boulders and Spring Torrent, Cascade Creek. Yosemite National Park, California. May 7, 2011. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
Runoff from spring snow melt rushes over boulders of Cascade Creek, Yosemite National Park.
This is a subject that I return to several times each year – a particular section of creek that can be viewed from overhead and which can vary from nearly dry to a wild torrent depending upon the time of year and the character of each new year. During the past year I was inspired by Charles Cramer’s stunning photograph of this subject to look at it more closely and from some different perspectives. (A small bit of “Charlie’s scene” appears in this photograph. I wonder if you can find it? :-)
In some ways, the view of this scene is limited in that you can only see it from a particular range of positions – unless you have the skill of levitation! In another way it is hardly limiting at all since the larger view contains many possible smaller views of rocks and plants and water and light. I still have in mind a horizontal composition in this general area, but so far it hasn’t quite worked. Guess I’ll have to keep trying.
I made this photograph in the morning before any direct light had worked its way around the mountains and down into the stream bed. Beyond the stream, which drops precipitously into the Merced River far below, there was open sky and that is the light that reflects on some of the wet rocks. By playing around to find an appropriate combination of ISO values, aperture, and shutter speed, I tried to get the water to hold some detail but to also be blurred enough to reflect its wild motion as it tumbles down this rocky canyon.
As is sometimes the case, I still cannot decide for sure between this monochrome version and a color version that will appear here before long.
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Thanks, Curt. So far, I think I favor the black and white of this one – though I have a bit more work to do on it to get it where I want it. I haven’t printed it yet, so the web version was sort of a snapshot of where it was after the basic conversion and post work was finished. Once I do test prints there will undoubtedly be further work to do.
Dan
Beautiful! I love the B/W conversion for this and the contrast it made between the rocks and the water.