Pre-Dawn Sky Above the Clark Range – Glacier Point. Yosemite National Park, California. November 4, 2007. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell.
On this early November morning I woke up at my Yosemite Valley camp site at 4:45 and was immediately on the road, arriving at Glacier Point as the first light began to illuminate the High Sierra crest.
Autumn Sunset, Half Dome and Merced River. Yosemite National Park, California. November 4, 2007. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell.
I had planned a different photograph in an entirely different location on this evening. As I started up the road to the north park entrance to get there I saw that it would be obscured by thick smoke from a managed fire – so I quickly adjusted my plans and decided to head back into the Valley to photograph this classic scene. When I arrived there really wasn’t anyone else there yet, which surprised me since this is one of the more popular photographic locations in the Valley. I shouldn’t have worried! Soon many others showed up, ranging from folks with serious photography equipment to casual tourists who probably figured, “Hey, all those folks with tripods are set up here – must be a good shot!” :-)
A couple of notes about the photo: I employed the “multiple exposures” technique here since the dynamic range between the sky and the shadowed foreground was so huge. Portions of two exposures were combined to get the image you see here – which corresponds more closely to what you would have seen had you been there. Also, I timed several of my shots to capture the interesting ripples in the water as feeding trout rose to the surface – you see some of this in the foreground of this photo.
Autumn Dogwood Leaves, Yosemite Valley. Yosemite National Park, California. November 4, 2007. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell
Branches and Clouds, Merced River. Yosemite National Park, California. November 4, 2007. © Copyright 2007 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
Branches and clouds reflected in the surface of the Merced River
This photograph was taken along the shore of the Merced River near the “housekeeping” camp along the south side of the Valley. I had wandered over here to photograph a tree on the opposite bank that had dropped an interesting bunch of colorful leaves. (That photograph turned out to be, I’ll be honest, boring… ;-) As I got ready to take down the tripod and leave I noticed this interesting bunch of partially submerged branches along the waterline.
I recently (May 2015) reworked this photograph, and I like the newer interpretation quite a bit more than the original. Here there are “three worlds” in the photograph — the solid material of the branches and their crisp reflections in the water, the barely visible branches beneath the water’s surface, and the very light reflections of sky and thing clouds.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.