I spent a night in Yosemite Valley a few weeks ago. See 24 Hours in Yosemite. It was great to be back; no, it was fantastic to be back. Both sunset and the following sunrise were shot from Tunnel View, the parking area just as you emerge from the tunnel on state highway 41. You can always count on company, especially for sunset.
I’m working on one of the photographs taken there that weekend. But before showing you the image, let’s start with some comments about the light. Sunset was a near cloudless sky. The only clouds were a few cotton balls floating over Half Dome. The rest of the sky was clear. As the sun set the shadows filled the valley, eventually claiming to the tops of the cliff faces. But as they did beautiful warm light embraced the the mighty granite but gradually gave way to approaching night.
The morning was quite the opposite. During the night the anticipated storm rolled in and rain started to fall. The valley was now full of clouds swirling about, shrouding the eternal granite. And snow flurries came, keeping all of us at Tunnel View on our toes, protecting our camera gear and warming our fingers.
It was an image from the morning shoot that I selected to work on. There were long periods of waiting. The snow flurries passed over us and moved on up the valley obscuring most or all of it. Then they would pass but the clouds wouldn’t be in the right positions. Eventually a wonderful, exciting light came shortly after sunrise, imparting a very faint warm cast to some of the clouds. The rest of the scene was cool, both in light quality and air temperature.
This is the image I started from as it appears unaltered in Lightroom. I selected it because of the sense of mystery created by the clouds that just give us glimpses of Bridle Vail Falls and the Cathedral Spires on the right and towering El Capitan on the left. The hints of the beautiful warm hues in the clouds that I would try to pull from the image are present but not apparent in this image. Rather, we see the predominantly cool mood.
Over the next several posts I’ll take you through the process of trying to recreate what I saw and felt that morning as well as what I discovered in this image. There were some wonderful surprises in store. So stay tuned.
The journey continues – read part 2.
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