Trees and Boulders. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.
Trees grow behind a large boulder below Yosemite Valley cliffs.
This photograph and its companion (to be published here within a day) are both black and white — which I suppose connects to my earliest roots as a photographer. Decades ago when I was a child my father encouraged me and my siblings to make photographs, first using old-school Brownie cameras and later graduating to his loaners. Before long he took us into his home darkroom (a temporarily converted bathroom) and taught us to make prints. He also had a collection of photography books on a shelf that I could reach. The first landscape photograph I recall making — black and white of course — was in Yosemite Valley.
This one comes from my late May epic one-day up-and-back trip to photograph in the Valley. While the best light is early and late, on these quick visits there’s no time to waste, and I keep at it almost all day long. I made this photograph in the mid-afternoon, beneath cliffs on the north side of the Valley. This photograph posed a significant technical challenge, as the difference between the deeply shaded rock face and the brightly lit clouds at upper right was extreme. What to do? Approach like any old school photographer and make an exposure with sufficient image data to bring it to life in post!
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
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