Yosemite Valley
For landscape and nature photographers a trip to Yosemite Valley is filled with longing and dread. We long to stand in the spots made famous by Ansel Adams and so many other incredible photographers. We long to bask in those magnificent views. We dread having our images compared to those famous shots. We fear we will find our work so far short of the mark that we ask ourselves the existential question: “Why am I doing this?”
We visited Yosemite Valley for a few days in late February. We stood at some of the famous places. We stood in some unknown places. We made a lot of images. We hope we made some images that show Yosemite Valley in a way you might not have seen before or in ways that rekindle your own memories. And yes, the Valley smiled on us and we avoided the existential question of why. This trip.
(All these images are lightboxed so if you click on them they will open in a separate window. This should help you to see the whole image for vertical crops and larger images for horizontal crops)
Blue skies over Mirror Lake on a sunny afternoon
Yosemite Falls on a cold winter morning refracting the sun
Detail of Bridalveil Fall
The Captain’s Mirror
Ground fog and a hint of morning color fortell a return of winter
Red sky at night, photographer’s delight
Sunrise of gray
Gathering storm over the Gates of the Valley
Horsetail Fall
The blue sky is a memory as the granite is caressed with gray mist
The clouds release the rain
the gray mists envelope the Valley and force our retreat from the storm.