In the Moment:
Michael Frye's Landscape Photography Blog

A Beautiful Week in Yosemite

Storm clouds over Yosemite Valley from Tunnel View, Yosemite NP, CA, USA

Storm clouds over Yosemite Valley from Tunnel View, Yosemite NP, CA, USA


Yosemite Valley has been exceptionally pretty lately. Last Wednesday some dramatic clouds rolled in, and it’s been a great year for dogwoods.

The dogwoods in Yosemite are pretty consistent performers. They always bloom, regardless of how wet or dry the previous winter has been. But some years are better than others, and this is one of the better ones I’ve seen recently, as most of the trees have more blossoms than usual. The dogwoods arrived early this year, and all of them are now leafing out, but the flowers were still fresh-looking yesterday. In another week or so they’ll start to look bedraggled in the valley, though they should just be starting to bloom at higher elevations along highways 41 and 120, and in the Tuolumne Grove of giant sequoias.

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Lightroom 5 Beta

As many of you know, Adobe released Lightroom 5 Beta last week. Now that I’ve had a chance to give it a thorough test drive, here are my thoughts about the new features:

Advanced Healing Brush

The Spot Removal tool has received a major upgrade – finally! You can now brush over an area you want to retouch, instead of being confined to using only discrete spots.

I’ve tried this new feature on several images, and it works pretty well. It makes short work of relatively simple jobs, like getting rid of a jet trail in the sky, that used to require tediously placing a series of cloning or healing spots. Now it usually takes just one brush stroke to make a jet trail disappear.

Photoshop still has easier and more efficient options for difficult retouching jobs. But the new Advanced Healing Brush will make it possible to do more retouching in Lightroom, allowing you to keep a completely flexible, non-destructive workflow. I think that’s a big improvement; I’ll say more about that further down.

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Dogwoods and Lunar Rainbows

Dogwood blossoms and reflections in the Merced River, from May 2012

Dogwood blossoms and reflections in the Merced River, from May 2012



The dogwoods are just starting to come out in Yosemite Valley. I was up there Tuesday, and saw that perhaps 30 percent of the dogwoods had new, green blossoms. A couple of trees even had fully white – though small – blossoms. Also, the cottonwoods are leafing out with those beautiful new bright-green leaves.

You want to catch the dogwoods early. The flowers last for several weeks, but they start to look ragged after awhile, and they don’t stand out as much after the trees leaf out. With the weather predicted to warm up this weekend I expect the dogwoods will progress rapidly, and many, perhaps even most, will be in full bloom a week from now. Next week or the following weekend might be the best time this year.

Also, there will be a full moon next Thursday, so let the lunar rainbow madness begin! You can visit Don Olson’s web site to see his predictions for when lunar rainbows will be visible from Cook’s Meadow and from the bridge below Lower Yosemite Fall. You can read my tips about photographing lunar rainbows here, and see what it’s like to spend a moonlit evening in Cook’s Meadow with 200 other photographers here.

Spring has arrived!

— Michael Frye

Related Posts: Tips for Photographing Lunar Rainbows; Lunar Rainbow Images, and the Upcoming Annular Eclipse

Michael Frye is a professional photographer specializing in landscapes and nature. He is the author and photographer of The Photographer’s Guide to YosemiteYosemite Meditations, and Digital Landscape Photography: In the Footsteps of Ansel Adams and the Great Masters, plus the eBooks Light & Land: Landscapes in the Digital Darkroom, and Exposure for Outdoor Photography. He has written numerous magazine articles on the art and technique of photography, and his images have been published in over thirty countries around the world. Michael has lived either in or near Yosemite National Park since 1983, currently residing just outside the park in Mariposa, California.

Proposed Changes to Yosemite’s El Capitan Meadow

El Capitan after an autumn snowstorm from El Capitan Meadow, Yosemite NP, CA, USA

El Capitan after an autumn snowstorm from El Capitan Meadow, Yosemite NP, CA, USA



I know many of my readers have a close connection with Yosemite, so I thought you would want to know about some proposed changes to El Capitan Meadow. In most of the proposed alternatives for the park service’s Merced River Draft Management plan, fencing and signs would be installed to keep visitors from trampling the meadow.

John Sexton wrote a thoughtful post on Facebook about this issue, which I recommend reading. El Capitan Meadow has long been a favorite spot for photographers in Yosemite. Ansel Adams made his Oak Tree, Snowstorm photograph from there. Galen Rowell captured one of his most famous images, Clearing Storm Over El Capitan, from this meadow. John posted one of his wonderful photographs on his Facebook post. El Capitan Meadow is certainly a favorite place of mine too, and I’ve made many images there, including all the ones included here.

I know that the park service has a difficult job. They have to balance preservation with public use and enjoyment of the parks. Meadows are fragile, and are easily damaged by too much foot traffic, and the easiest way to prevent that damage is to fence off the meadow.

On the other hand, what makes Yosemite Valley so wonderful, so extraordinary, is the juxtaposition of soaring cliffs with the serenity of the meadows and meandering river on the valley floor. There are other places with magnificent cliffs. There is no other place with an idyllic valley surrounded by such high walls. The quintessential Yosemite experience is to wander out into a meadow, stare up at the cliffs and waterfalls, and soak up the tranquility. I would hate to see that experience taken away. There has to be a better solution than fencing and “Keep Out” signs for the valley’s meadows.

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A Harebrained Idea

Rainbow over Yosemite Valley from near Old Inspiration Point, Yosemite NP, CA, USA

Rainbow over Yosemite Valley from near Old Inspiration Point, Yosemite


It was a harebrained idea, but sometimes harebrained ideas work.

On Easter Sunday the forecast called for showers and thunderstorms, with a 100% chance of rain. So I decided it would be a great day to hike 6 miles and climb over 2,000 feet up to Old Inspiration Point.

I could have just gone to Tunnel View. Tunnel View is a wonderfully photogenic spot, where I could have waited out any rain showers in the car, then walked 50 feet to the viewpoint if something interesting happened. And if the light didn’t cooperate, well, no big deal – it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve struck out at Tunnel View, and it wouldn’t take much effort to come back and try again.

On the other hand, I have lots of photographs from Tunnel View, and every other easily-accessible viewpoint in Yosemite Valley, but I’d never been to Old Inspiration Point. And I was in the mood for an adventure. I asked Claudia if she wanted to come with me (carefully explaining what she might be in for, I swear), and she said sure. She’s always up for a hike.

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