Proof that I have to be able to laugh at myself sometimes… I spent 10 days photographing in the Yosemite backcountry at the beginning of this month. At one of the locations we visited there is a large and beautiful granite bowl with tons of potential photographic subjects. At one point I was high on a ridge above the bowl, photographing small features in late-day light, including exfoliated granite slabs, tiny trees growing from narrow cracks, colorfully stained rock, and more.

Partway through the evening’s work I found a little divot in the granite, in which a small clump of grass grew. It was surrounded by colorfully stained and glacially polished granite, with interesting cracks and texture cutting through it at various angles. The low angle sun raked across the short clump of grass and created a shadow that stretched across the granite surface. It seemed like an obvious photograph of the “intimate landscape” type, and I spent some minutes working it and making a series of photographs in both portrait and landscape orientation, and trying various crops of this little scene.

Although I had admired the file earlier while scanning through the hundreds of images I brought back from this trip, it wasn’t until today that I finally got to it for serious post-processing work. I opened it up, converted the raw file, brought it into Photoshop and began to work on it. I liked those angles angled cracks and the intense color of the stained rock, and the short blades of grass cast shadows across the polished granite in just the way I remembered.

But wait, what is that lumpy shadow below and to the left of the grass? NOOOOO! There is a marmot turd in the little cleft in the rock! You’d think that Your Intrepid Photographer might have seen that while composing the shot, but no…

Morning Musings are somewhat irregular posts in which I write about whatever is on my mind at the moment.

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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