(“A Photograph Exposed” is a series exploring some of my photographs in greater detail.)
On the weekend of June 18-19 of this year I made a point of getting to Yosemite so that I could photograph the high country on the first day that Tioga Pass Road was open for the season. On a shoot like this, my subjects range from some that I planned to shoot ahead of time to some that were completely unanticipated. Among the many things that might affect my decisions is the light itself, and this is a story about that light… and perhaps a few other things, too.
I had driven to the park very early on Saturday morning and after photographing straight through the morning I finally made it over the pass and headed down to Lee Vining Canyon to find a campsite for that night. After getting up at 3:30 a.m. and driving to the Sierra from the SF Bay Area and then shooting all morning, I was exhausted! I pulled into the first available site, paid my fee, and promptly fell asleep in the car for perhaps an hour. When I woke up I set up my camp and at about 3:00 or so headed down to Lee Vining to get some “dinner” – on “photographer time,” dinner tends to either be very early or very late, and on this day I made it early so that I could be back up in the park well before the “good light” started.
Heading back up to Tioga Pass after my mid-afternoon dinner, I had a few subject ideas in mind. Tuolumne Meadows itself was one possibility, and I knew that I wanted to watch for any cascades or creeks that would be flowing in the spring snow-melt conditions. Tenaya Lake was another possibility, and a client’s interest in photographs of Mount Conness had me thinking about the possibility of a photograph from Olmsted Point that included ice-covered Tenaya Lake and this peak. Continue reading A Photograph Exposed: A Tale of Light→
The last evening light illuminates domes near Tenaya Lake and the summit of Mount Conness with briilliantly colorful alpenglow, Yosemite National Park.
The tall peak at upper left is the summit of Mount Conness, one of the highest peaks in Yosemite National Park. The peak is located on the park boundary and the Sierra Nevada crest a bit north of Tioga Pass, and is visible from many places in the Tuolumne/Tioga high country. It is also a popular destination for peak baggers. The left foreground granite dome is the lower face of Polly Dome, which drops to the shoreline of Tenaya Lake. The left slope of Pywiak dome is visible in the shadows at lower right and beyond is the more brightly illuminated Medlicott dome.
I forgive you if you don’t believe the colors that you see in this photograph. I barely believe them myself, and I was (obviously!) there for the show. What happened on this evening was a near perfect example of a light phenomenon that Sierra photographers watch for and are occasionally lucky enough to experience. I have learned to see the signs that indicate that this light is possible, but also to understand that even when the conditions offer this potential that they rarely deliver.
On certain cloudy evenings in the Sierra it appears that there will be no sunset color – everything is hazy and drab and washed out. But if things play out just right, this very set of drab conditions (that induce some photographers to put away their gear too soon!) can produce some of the most striking and intense color possible if a few things fall into place just right. On this evening I had stopped for a moment at Olmsted Point, thinking to photograph ice-covered Tenaya Lake with a long lens and including the mass of Mount Conness in the distance. When I arrived there, things were about as unpromising as they could possibly be. A dull, greenish-blue haze hung in the air, overcast washed out the light, and Conness was obscured by clouds. I had actually put my gear back in the car when I looked back up and noticed that the summit of Conness had briefly poked through the clouds, accentuating its bulk and the sense that it towered over the foreground mountains. The light was still awful (I have the photos to prove it! ;-) but I thought I’d see if I could get something with the peak emerging from its shroud.
But still nothing much happened. I turned the camera to photograph some nearby trees and a blackbird that was looking for snacks. Then I noticed that there was some brighter light to the southwest and I began to consider the possibility that the cloud cover might end a bit to the west – and that is requirement #1 for the light conditions I’m describing. If the cloud deck ends to the west, as the sun reaches the horizon it may briefly break under the clouds and send brilliantly colorful light up into the clouds in the Sierra from below, creating a miles-wide light panel of the most astonishing colors. But still, it was hazy and the peaks were shrouded in clouds. But then I noticed that the clouds around Conness were beginning to drift off to the east and thin a bit. I mentioned (knock on wood!) to one of the other photographers that there was a possibility of “miracle light,” but that I wasn’t making any promises!
Then the thinning clouds began to pick up a slight pink tinge and the left side of Conness began to get some light directly from the west. Then, within a minute or so, the colors went absolutely crazy. People around me were audibly gasping as the color changed. At one point several of us spontaneously looked up to the west when we noticed the light suddenly increase out of the corners of our eyes. At the same time, the clouds almost completely dissipated from the area around the peak and because the whole sky was filled with brilliantly colorful clouds, this light began to suffuse even the depths of the canyon and slopes facing away from the sunset with this amazing light.
Never put your camera away until the last light is gone. :-)
Alpenglow lights Mount Conness above Lower Young Lake in the Yosemite National Park back-country.
I was recently going through a large portion of my archive in search of a variety of photographs of Mount Conness, a well-known peak along the northeast edge of Yosemite National Park on the crest of the Sierra. This is perhaps not the best known peak in Yosemite for most people – they are obviously going to be far more familiar with the cliffs and domes around Yosemite Valley or with Mount Lyell (the tallest peak in the park) or perhaps Mount Dana (second highest peak, and towering above the Tioga Pass entrance.) Mount Conness is found a bit further “north” along the crest, and while it may be less known, it is certainly no less visible once you know where to look. You can see it in the distance towering above Tenaya Lake if you stop at the iconic Olmsted Point overlook. It is visible from many places along the road to Tuolumne Meadows. Once you get away from roads and into the high country it can be seen from almost any high point with an open view in the direction of the peak, including places like Vogelsang High Sierra Camp.
This photograph was made on a quiet late-season evening at Lower Young Lake, a place that I return to frequently, most of the time in the off-season when fewer people are there and the fall colors of the high country are starting to appear. The peak (and many other features in this area) are beautifully illuminated late in the day as this high ridge is open without obstruction to the west. The light on the peak was magical on this evening, being colorful and contrasting with the higher and more drab clouds, but not being as gaudily bright as it can be on other evenings.
Alpenglow lights the face of Mammoth Peak beyond a small tarn near the summit of Tioga Pass, Yosemite National Park.
This was very close to the last exposure I made on this productive late-July day last year. After photographing for a few hours in the vicinity of Tioga Pass, I ended up right at the pass as the day came to an end. Braving hordes of mosquitos – comes with the territory! – I worked the area around the pass itself, building compositions out of juxtapositions of the water in the small meltwater ponds, shoreline meadow and boulders, grasses growing along the edge of the water, the surrounding pine forests, and the more distant peaks of Kuna Crest. In this photograph, what is very nearly the very last direct light of the day is bathing the slopes of Mammoth Peak, which still had a fair amount of snow on its flanks even in late July.
This scene posed a few technical challenges. First, there is obviously a great distance between the foreground granite boulder and the very distance mountain. I wanted the foreground to be in optimal sharpness, so I used a relatively small aperture to maintain sufficient sharpness on the far ridge. There was also a fairly large dynamic range in the scene, ranging from soft but direct light on the snow fields of the peak to the dark areas within the forest on the other side of the pond. I wasn’t certain that I’d be able to handle the full dynamic range in one exposure, so I made three – one longer exposure to get a bit more light from the shadows and another shorter one on the dark side to avoid blowing out the brighter areas of the sky. In post, I discovered that there was enough detail in the shadows that I could get everything I needed from a single exposure, though I had to do some work with curves to get create an image the conforms more closely to the way I saw the scene at the time.
Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.
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