Trees and Granite, Morning. Yosemite National Park, California. July 27, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
Morning light shines on the trees clinging to massive granite domes in the high country of Yosemite National Park.
This photograph was the result of an odd little sequence of events. While driving along Tioga Pass Road in the afternoon I looked more closely at an area that I have passed by many times and noticed that it was filled with glacial erratics, “loose” boulders left behind when glaciers retreated. It seemed like these boulders might be an interesting subject and since they were in a position where morning light seemed likely, I made a mental note to return in the morning over the next couple of days and see what I could photograph here.
The next morning, after photographing at dawn nearby, I decided to go to this spot and see what I could come up with. I arrived without a specific idea in mind beyond the plan to look around and see what I could find. My first idea was to photograph the boulders themselves, and I did make a few mediocre exposures of individual boulders and groups of boulders. As I played around with this idea I noticed that the light slanting across granite slabs a bit to the north of me looked interesting, especially since this light was also side- and back-lighting some of the trees. So I turned my attention to this potential subject.
Working with this idea I gradually became less interested in the boulders and more interested in the trees of the lodgepole forest that extended beyond the slabs, so I found a somewhat higher spot to shoot from and made a series of exposures that included layers of backlit trees extending beyond the granite. Beyond the trees was the base of Pywiack Dome, a subject that I have worked with a number of times in the past. Now I looked a bit higher than the forest that led my eye to the dome, and I photographed the boundary between the forest and the base of the dome. (Producing, I might add, a really, really boring photograph!) Looking a bit higher I saw the solitary tree near the lower left of this photograph, and I made a vertical exposure that included mostly just the tree and the expanse of granite above and around it. (This photograph will be here in a few days.) They I thought I would try a landscape orientation photograph, and as I worked with this I got the idea to include the right face of the closer granite dome against the darker shape of a more distant cliff. And, finally, I found this photograph.
(There is also a black and white version of this photograph. The text accompanying that version talks a bit about the black and white versus color issue.)
G Dan Mitchell Photography
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On this shot (and I think on the previous shot as well) … I indeed arrived at the site after you…for the photo above, it was months behind you. Don’t worry though, I absolutely had no idea that I was shooting from somewhere near the location from which you shot the image above. I recall that I was driving on the Tioga Road, and as I rounded a curve I saw this in the distance, in the flatter light of mid-morning but it struck me as interesting. In fact, I’d passed the turnout, and with little traffic on Tioga Road (October), I actually backed perhaps 50-100 feet back up the road to where I pulled off. I then shot this scene with my 300mm – and got quite a different view. My goal was to capture the magnificent older tree – breaking the rock apart and providing fertile ground for new, younger trees. The image you’ve captured here provides a far different view, better capturing the depth of the scene, with some nice compositional elements and balance.
I’m actually almost surprised that when I was looking at your 2011 favorites, I saw this and took a second look and wondered if it was the same pair of trees I’d shot. I’m just glad to know that I can’t be too bad if I’m atleast finding shots in the same neighborhood where you get such great images!
Dan –
This is too amazing…I photographed exactly this same tree (also)…but my image is a close-up of the large tree and the small tree behind. Please see:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/touchinglightphotography/6327477367/in/photostream
It is interesting to me that we have now done this twice, once near North Lake, and then again here. Clearly we must be drawn to similar scenes, but interestingly have different interpretations (and that is the fun part!).
Richard
Are you following me? (Or maybe I’m following you… ;-)
Dan