It had been way too long, too many years, since I was last in Yosemite Valley. I’ll tell you how long it was. I didn’t even have a decent camera at the time. So a chance to spend just one night there was, well, something I was not going to pass up.
It was late Saturday afternoon when we arrived in the valley. The sky was clear with a few scattered clouds. My wonder at the immensity of the walls was reawakened as I drove to Curry Village. There was enough time to check in and make it back to Tunnel View for what was to prove to be a very nice sunset. It wasn’t one of those million dollar sunsets but nice nevertheless.
I put on my long lens and shot Half Dome with a couple of clouds hanging above it. I’m uploading the pictures now to my computer and am eager to see them.
During the night the front that everyone was dreading rolled in. Warm and snug in my sleeping bag inside my tent I was lulled to sleep by the spatter of raindrops. What a cozy feeling. Sleep came easily, occasionally punctuated with the sound of a passing shower.
It was still raining when the alarm went off at 5:00 the next morning. There was no need to jump up and rush out. Our carefully crafted sunrise plans from the night before were inoperable. But on the other hand, this was Yosemite Valley and not a place for sleeping in.
If landscape photographers are anything, they have to be flexible and patient. With our sunrise plans dashed it was time for some improvisation. We abandoned our plans to shoot Cathedral Rocks and returned to Tunnel View, this time for angry clouds swirling around El Cap. You know what photographers say about bad weather.
We endured, barely noticed, the snow and sleet that pelted us out there. Actually, we noticed it enough to keep our cameras and lenses covered. Then when the light was right off came the covering, a few shots got snapped and the covering went right back on. Snow was accumulating on my camera bag. And during the waiting (remember the part about patience) I noticed my fingers and toes were really cold. But then the light came back and the anticipation and excitement was an opiate to all the discomfort.
I had an interesting conversation one of the other photographers out there in the cold. He was a wildlife photographer and we were waiting for the light. I commented that wildlife photography is totally different from landscape. His comment was that with wildlife you get one change at an image and then it’s gone. I agreed with him. The implication was that landscape photographers aren’t under such pressure. They wait for the light.
But later that day I thought that landscape and wildlife photography are really not all that different. In both you wait around – wildlife for wild animals, landscape for the light. When the moment comes you have just minutes or even seconds to act. Well, maybe the light isn’t quite as fleeting as a bird on a limb but there are times when you literally have just seconds to get your shot.
And get shots we did. We were out there for well over an hour watching the clouds and light dance with each other. We were entertained, enthralled, enchanted. ‘Wonderful’ doesn’t begin to describe the feeling and without realizing it I had gotten chilled to the bone by the time we finally went back to Yosemite Village for breakfast. Yep, now I noticed it.
After breakfast and before packing up the car, we paid homage to the master by visiting the Ansel Adams Gallery. Then it was time to work in a little more shooting before facing the inevitable reality of the long drive home. Departure time kept on slipping because. well, there was always just one more image to capture. By the time I packed my camera away for the last time and hit the road I had been in the Valley for nearly 24 hours.
With my soul refreshed and my spirit reminded of how magical this place really is, I started home knowing that there’s no way on earth that it will be years before I return.
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