Autumn storm clouds swirl around the Upper Yosemite Fall, Lost Arrow, and the cliffs of Yosemite Valley.
Shooting with a long lens, I watched as the clouds floated in and out of this scene, at times almost completely obscuring Upper Yosemite Fall and then clearing. At this instant the clouds cooperated for a few seconds, lining up so that the fall was completely visibly, parting enough to let the pinnacle of the Lost Arrow appear at upper left, and revealing just a bit of the tree covered ridge in the background. A few seconds later the clouds again thickened and this view was gone.
I posted a black and white version of the same photograph perhaps two weeks ago. I have since printed the monochrome version and I like it a great deal. Today I returned to these files and since I feel that it also works in color I decided to post it again.
This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.
Mist from an autumn storm flows across the crest of a curving ridge high on the walls of Yosemite Valley.
The mist from this late-October storm is flowing over the edge of a curving ridge high above the floor of Yosemite Valley, leaving just a hint of the higher, curving ridge above this pinnacle through the clouds at upper left. This photograph, like one I posted very recently, was made as I alternated my attention between the image of Upper Yosemite Fall alternately transitioning between filtered sun and obscuring clouds and small details of the closer Valley walls as seen in this image. From moment to moment there were many interesting combinations of light, cloud, trees, and rock… but they came and went quickly and almost without warning.
I usually post photographs here before printing them, and not all of the posted photographs necessarily get printed. This one is an exception in that I made the first print of it yesterday. I’m also happy to say that some very subtle details that are barely or not visible in this web jpg reproduction are there in the print, including some faint outlines of trees in the upper left portion of the frame and some details of the rocky face at lower right.
This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.
Thin morning ground fog floats above the dry autumn grasses of Ahwahnee Meadow below the granite cliffs of Glacier Point, Yosemite Valley.
During the cooler and wetter months of the year, ground fog often forms in the meadows of Yosemite Valley. Ahwahnee Meadow is one of the places I like to photograph these conditions, and since this was the morning after a damp and rainy day, I arrived here very early in anticipation of conditions that might produce the fog. It was very cold when I arrived, certainly below freezing by at least a few degrees. At first the fog was much denser and a bit deeper. I have photographs from this earlier pre-dawn period when a herd of deer passed through the meadow. Eventually, as the sun rose high enough that the light beams began to clear the mountains to the east of the Valley, the first light began to strike the upper slopes and walls of Glacier Point. As this happened and the air began to move and the temperature stopped dropping, the fog began to thin. This photograph was made shortly before the fog actually dissipated completely, and thin streamers of mist are broken up by clearer areas.
I have to admit that I do not know what the foreground plant is. (Hint: I won’t mind even a tiny bit if someone wants to write and tell me! :-) Cottony tufts are found at the top of long stems, growing out of odd shaped pods. I shot this with a very wide angle lens so that I could include some of this foreground foliage and the fill width of Glacier Point.
On a technical note, this image incorporates a blend of two exposures. Portions of the sky at the left side of the frame were very bright, while much of the rest of the scene was in shade and a lot darker. Almost the entire frame is from the 1/15 second exposure, but I have manually blended in a bit of the 1/40 second exposure in the area of cloudy sky at upper left in order to retain a bit of detail there. Also, though it should be obvious, this was shot with an ultra-wide angle lens – a 17mm focal length on a full frame DSLR. If you are at all familiar with this location in the Valley you will recognize that this is a bit of an unusual view.
This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.
As an autumn storm begins to clear, fog and mist swirls among trees and ridges along the rim of Yosemite Valley.
After a few days of gaudy fall color, I am returning briefly to non-gaudy fall black and white! This is another – and perhaps the last for a while – in the series of misty and cloudy photographs from my visit to Yosemite in late October as a fall storm was passing over the Valley. I was happy when I saw that my planned visit would coincide with a storm, since I love shooting the Valley in the fall in cloudy and wet conditions. As much as I enjoy the beautiful and wam late-summer days, I find the “bad” weather a lot more interesting photographically. The Valley did not disappoint during this visit – I had light rain, clouds ringing the valley, fog both on the Valley floor and among the ridges and trees along the rim, and even some cloud-filtered sunlight.
The subject of this photograph could be any of what seems like an infinite number of scenes of cliffs and ridges and trees along the upper walls of the Valley. The specific spot isn’t important, though it was just to the west of Glacier Point. At times the clouds almost completely obscured the cliff and trees, but as they moved across the face they would periodically clear enough to make bits of the scene momentarily visible. This was another of those situations in which the landscape was emphatically not static – instead it was in a constant state of flux, and it required close and constant attention to catch the photographable moments.
This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.
Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.
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