Posts Tagged ‘landscape photography’

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A Harebrained Idea

Thursday, April 11th, 2013
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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Posted in New Images | 29 Comments »

Light and Mood With Intimate Landscapes

Thursday, March 14th, 2013
Sunlight slanting across Crane Flat Meadow, Yosemite NP, CA, USA

Sunlight slanting across Crane Flat Meadow, Yosemite NP, CA, USA

A Trip to Crane Flat

Yosemite got some much-needed precipitation last week – over an inch total. I kept checking the radar and satellite images online, looking for an opportunity to photograph a clearing storm. Friday morning seemed promising, so I drove up to Yosemite Valley early, but found no snow. It looked like the snow level had been around 5,000 feet, higher than forecast. Worse, from a photographic perspective, the skies were clear and there was no mist.

Shortly after sunrise I noticed light striking a ridge near the tunnels on Highway 120, and on a whim decided to drive up to Crane Flat. I thought Crane Flat would at least have some fresh snow, since it’s at 6,000 feet.

Indeed there was fresh snow – over a foot of it. I parked at the Tuolumne Grove trailhead and walked along the plowed road. The sun had just reached parts of the main meadow, and I found some interesting small subjects to photograph, like tree-shadows on the snow.

Some shafts of sunlight slanting across the snow caught my attention, and then some mist began rising near the edge of the meadow, behind the shafts of light. I immediately recognized the potential to make an image that went beyond an abstract study of shadows – a photograph that had a mood.

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Posted in New Images, Vision and Creativity | 24 Comments »

A Rare Storm Approaching Yosemite

Tuesday, March 5th, 2013

Winter sunrise from Tunnel View, Yosemite NP, CA, USA

Winter sunrise from Tunnel View. With the right conditions Tunnel View can be great in the morning as well as the afternoon

January and February are the wettest months of the year in Yosemite. The average precipitation for January is 6.5 inches, while for February it’s 6.7 inches, which makes 13.2 inches for the two months combined.

But this year Yosemite received only a tenth of that: 1.33 inches total for January and February. The Sacramento Bee says it’s the driest January and February on record for the northern Sierra Nevada.

Since storms have been so rare lately, any forecast that calls for precipitation is big news, and we’ve got just such a forecast this week. Meteorologists are predicting a medium-sized storm to reach Yosemite tonight and tomorrow, with lingering showers on Thursday and Friday. The timing is hard to predict from the current forecast, but it’s likely that we’ll see clearing storm conditions either late Wednesday, Thursday or Friday. With the showery weather there may be several clearing-storm events during that time.

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Posted in Yosemite Photo Conditions | 23 Comments »

Hoping for Snow

Friday, February 22nd, 2013

Half Dome and clouds, Yosemite NP, CA, USA

Half Dome and clouds, Yosemite NP, CA, USA

Many people, including me, had high hopes for the snowstorm that came through Yosemite on Tuesday. The forecast called for six to twelve inches of snow, so it sounded like we would see some beautiful snow scenes, and maybe even get to photograph a clearing storm. And some moisture might help revive Horsetail Fall.

Around sunset on Tuesday it started snowing at my house in Mariposa — first lightly, then heavily. In no time we had three or four inches of snow, and eventually got six inches, which is a lot for our 2700-foot elevation.

But the storm looked very compact on radar, and the precipitation didn’t seem to be reaching Yosemite. I called my friend Kirk Keeler, who lives in Yosemite Valley, and he told me that they had received only half an inch of snow.

Wednesday morning Claudia and I cleared the snow off our car and drove up to Yosemite Valley. We found an inch or two of snow — not a lot, but enough to highlight every tree branch. I saw many beautiful scenes with trees etched in snow, including the pattern of cottonwood branches below.

The morning was clear, but later some evaporation clouds started to appear, and they kept building. By the end of the day all the cliffs were hidden by clouds. But between 4:00 to 4:30 in the afternoon Half Dome and the clouds put on a great show. Half Dome would vanish completely, then reappear, wrapped in clouds and speckled with sunlight. I made the photograph above just before Half Dome disappeared for good.

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Posted in New Images, Yosemite Photo Conditions | 16 Comments »

Latest Horsetail Conditions

Wednesday, February 13th, 2013
Horsetail Fall and clouds on a March afternoon, Yosemite NP, CA, USA

Horsetail Fall and clouds on a March afternoon, Yosemite NP, CA, USA

I’m happy to be up and running after dealing with some computer issues, and can give you a quick report on Horsetail Fall. During a private workshop on Monday I had a chance to check out the water flow. I’d say it’s a little below average for mid-February, but definitely better than last year. Despite six weeks of mostly dry weather there’s still some snow on top of El Capitan to feed the waterfall, and temperatures are supposed to rise a bit this week, which should help melt that snow and increase the water volume.

The window of best light for Horsetail Fall starts this weekend and lasts about a week to ten days. If our dry spell continues we should see some clear skies at sunset during that time — an essential requirement for the Horsetail light show. But the long-range forecast calls for precipitation next Tuesday and Wednesday, so we’ll see.

As a reminder, I’ll be at the reception for my exhibit at The Ansel Adams Gallery this Saturday from noon to 2:00 p.m., and also at the Yosemite Renaissance opening reception the following Friday, February 22nd, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the Yosemite Museum. I hope to see you at one of those events if you’re in the area!

— Michael Frye

Related Posts: Horsetail Fall Questions; The Best Time to Photograph Horsetail Fall, Revised

Michael Frye is a professional photographer specializing in landscapes and nature. He is the author and photographer of The Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite, Yosemite 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.

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Posted in Yosemite Photo Conditions | 8 Comments »

Horsetail Fall Questions

Thursday, January 31st, 2013
Horsetail Fall at sunset, Yosemite NP, CA, USA

Low water, but ideal light on Horsetail Fall, February 20th, 2012

It’s almost February, so naturally I’ve been getting a lot of questions about Horsetail Fall. My thoughts about the best time to photograph Horsetail haven’t changed since I wrote this post last year: basically it’s February 16th to 23rd, or maybe a little beyond that.

This window was confirmed by my observations in 2012. There wasn’t much water in the fall last year, but we had a string of clear days, which allowed me to closely watch the light, and I think that February 16th to 23rd window is about right. You can, of course, take good photographs before or after that window; I’m talking about ideal light.

That ideal light requires clear skies to the west at sunset, something no one can predict at this point. And for good photographs the waterfall has to be flowing. Overall we’ve had a lot more rain and snow than last year, and Horsetail is flowing now. January, however, has been pretty dry, and there’s no precipitation in the forecast until at least next Wednesday. I think Horsetail will have more water this year than last, regardless of what happens over the next couple of weeks, but it would be nice to get some more snow on top of El Capitan soon to help feed Horsetail.

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Posted in Yosemite Photo Conditions | 39 Comments »

Creating Depth: Beyond the Wide-Angle Formula

Wednesday, January 23rd, 2013
El Capitan and the Merced River, autumn, Yosemite NP, CA, USA

El Capitan and the Merced River, autumn, Yosemite NP, CA, USA

Depth can be a powerful tool in photography. Our medium is two-dimensional, but a sense of depth, an illusion of space and distance, can make the viewer feel like part of the scene, and literally and figuratively add another dimension to a photograph.

A Common Formula

This image of El Capitan follows a common formula for creating a three-dimensional effect in landscape photographs: find an interesting foreground (preferably with some leading lines), get the camera low and close to that foreground, and use a wide-angle lens.

A wide-angle lens by itself can’t create a sense of depth. Wide-angle lenses make things look smaller, and therefore more distant, but if everything looks small and distant there’s no sense of depth. The 3-D effect only happens when you put the wide-angle lens close to something in the foreground. That proximity makes the foreground look big, but things in the background still look small. The optics create an exaggerated size difference between near and far objects, and our brains interpret that as depth and distance.

This wide-angle, near-far look is common today, but it wasn’t always so. Though he wasn’t the first to use this perspective, master landscape photographer David Muench popularized this technique through his many beautiful books, and a lot of people have followed his lead.

But this look has become so popular that I think landscape photographers have stopped looking for other ways to create a sense of depth, and by doing that we’ve limited our options. We owe it to ourselves and our viewers to explore other paths, and create images with depth and meaning that go beyond this one formula.

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Posted in Advanced Techniques, Vision and Creativity | 106 Comments »

A Few Spots Left in the Eastern Sierra Fall Color Workshop

Monday, January 14th, 2013

Aspen grove, late afternoon, Lee Vining Canyon, Inyo NF, CA, USA

Aspen grove, late afternoon, Lee Vining Canyon, Inyo NF, CA, USA

If you’re not subscribed to my email list you missed the announcement of my Eastern Sierra Fall Color: Composition and Creativity Among the Aspens workshop next fall. We had such a great response to this offering that it sold out the first day! But the good news is that we decided to run a second edition of this course from October 20-23, 2013, and there are still a few spots available.

I made the accompanying photograph during the first edition of this workshop last October. We photographed this aspen grove late in the afternoon as the lowering sun backlit the yellow leaves. This was my favorite image from that spot, but I saw many interesting, unusual compositions by everyone else that afternoon, both on the back of people’s cameras and later during image reviews. You can see some of the participant’s photographs in this Flickr group.

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Posted in Announcements, Workshops | 6 Comments »

New Book Coming Soon

Sunday, January 13th, 2013
Yosemite Meditations for Women

Yosemite Meditations for Women

My wife Claudia and I just got an advance copy of our new book, Yosemite Meditations for Women, published by Yosemite Conservancy. Claudia did a wonderful job of editing this — finding quotes, pairing them with photographs, and getting permissions from the authors. I’ll let you know when it’s available — it should be sometime next month!

— Michael Frye


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2012: My Top Ten Images

Saturday, January 5th, 2013

The polls are closed, the votes are in, and here are my top ten photographs of 2012!

I thought last year’s response was amazing, but this year it was even better: 240 people looked through my initial selection of 50 images and posted their picks here on the blog, Facebook, Google+, and by email. A big thank you to all of you who took the time to look through these photographs and voice your opinions — I really appreciate your help with this! And thanks also to my wonderful assistant Claudia who tallied the votes.

To express our gratitude to all of you we’ve decided to give away another print to one of the voters. We assigned each person who voted a number, and used a random number generator to pick the recipient. And the winner is… Frank Field! Frank will receive a signed, numbered, matted 16×20 print of his choice from among the 50 original selections. Congratulations Frank!

So here’s the list of the ten images which received the most picks, and the number of votes they each received:

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Posted in Announcements | 44 Comments »