In the Moment:
Michael Frye's Landscape Photography Blog
by Michael Frye | Nov 16, 2016 | Announcements
Ice on Shell Lake, Inyo National Forest; from the 2009 Yosemite Renaissance exhibit
This is a quick post to let you know that the deadline for entering the 32nd annual Yosemite Renaissance competition and exhibit has been extended to November 20th, so you still have time to enter. You can find out all the details and enter online here.
This is a great organization and competition, and the opening reception (February 24th, 2017) is always a really fun event. The competition is “intended to encourage diverse artistic interpretations of Yosemite.” I’ve been honored to have my photographs accepted into the Yosemite Renaissance exhibit a number of times, and always felt I was in good company with many wonderful artists in each show. The photograph above was in the 2009 exhibit.
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by Michael Frye | Nov 13, 2016 | Light and Weather
Moonrise over the Cathedral Range from May Lake, Yosemite
There’s been a lot of talk about the “supermoon.” The moon will be full tomorrow morning at 5:52 a.m. here on the west coast, and will be the closest, largest full moon since 1948. The moon will be 7% larger and 15% brighter than the average full moon – not a huge difference, and not obvious to most observers. Photographically, a small change in focal length has a much larger impact on the apparent size of the moon than how close the moon is to the earth.
Nevertheless, all this talk about the moon (along with some urging from Claudia) got me thinking about photographing it. The Tioga and Glacier Point roads are open, allowing me to reach some areas that are normally inaccessible this time of year. Since the full moon rises further to the north (left) in November than in July, I thought it might be possible to find an interesting juxtaposition of moon and mountains that I wouldn’t see in the summer. After consulting Google Earth and The Photographers’ Ephemeris I decided to go to May Lake yesterday. That seemed like a good spot to see the moon rising over the Cathedral Range – without the smoke from backpacker’s campfires along the lakeshore that you’d usually see in summer.
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by Michael Frye | Nov 6, 2016 | Composition, Vision and Creativity
Autumn forest with dogwoods and ferns, Yosemite, October 13th. I stood on a log to see over the foreground dogwoods and into the forest; the focal length was 35mm.
I’ve made many images of intimate landscapes over the years, and the vast majority of them were taken with a telephoto lens (usually my 70-200mm zoom). It makes sense to use a lens with a narrower angle of view when focusing on a small piece of the landscape and trying to eliminate clutter in complex forest scenes. Telephoto lenses are also great for compressing space and emphasizing patterns – typically key components of intimate landscapes.
But lately I’ve found myself using wide-angle lenses more and more for smaller scenes. Part of the impetus for this was just buying a new lens. This past July I purchased a new wide-angle zoom (the Sony Vario-Tessar FE 16-35mm f/4 ZA OSS), and it’s natural to want to use and test a new piece of equipment, so I started pulling this lens out in many situations just to see what it could do. But another part of the impetus was just the desire to do something different. I’ve had plenty of practice composing intimate landscapes with telephoto lenses, and I wanted to force myself to look at these scenes in a new way.
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by Michael Frye | Nov 2, 2016 | Yosemite Photo Conditions
Big-leaf maple overhanging the Merced River in autumn, Yosemite, Monday morning
It was a wet weekend in Yosemite. From Thursday night to Sunday night Yosemite Valley received almost three inches of rain, and higher elevations probably got more.
Skies cleared Sunday night, so Claudia and I drove up to the valley early Monday morning, hoping to see fog, mist, and fall color. But what we found most striking was the water levels. It looked like spring, but with autumn color. The Merced River was ripping along, and the flat rock just above the old dam (the 120/140 junction) was completely submerged. The waterfalls were roaring. We didn’t find much mist, but there was a little fog in El Cap and Leidig meadows, and the sun created evaporation mist as it hit various spots on the valley floor.
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by Michael Frye | Oct 30, 2016 | Night Photography
Mobius Arch at night, Alabama Hills, CA, USA
We just finished a nighttime workshop in the Trona Pinnacles and Alabama Hills. The forecast for our last evening wasn’t promising, calling for mostly cloudy skies and a 70 percent chance of showers. But I told the group that as long as it wasn’t raining there was still a lot we could do, and if we got just a few small breaks in the cloud cover the mix of stars and clouds could be really beautiful.
As sunset approached we headed out to the famous Mobius Arch in the Alabama Hills. We photographed some interesting cloud formations in late-afternoon light, then at dusk set up our cameras to frame the arch with the sky above. The skies were mostly cloudy, just as predicted. Radar images showed showed heavy rain falling west of the Sierra crest. But from our position in the Alabama Hills, in the rain shadow created by the mountain wall, a patch of sky to our west-soutwest stayed partially clear, and remained that way most of the evening. Something about the trajectory of the wind and rain created that rift in the clouds and kept it in place.
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by Michael Frye | Oct 23, 2016 | Yosemite Photo Conditions
Autumn hillside, Bishop Creek Canyon
We just finished our Eastern Sierra Fall Color workshop, and start another workshop tomorrow, so I just have time for a quick post. But we had a lot of fun last week with our group. Autumn arrived early on the east side, and then a storm came through just before the workshop, closing many Sierra passes and blowing leaves off the trees. But we still found some beautiful color; I’ve included a few photographs here made during and just before the workshop.
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by Michael Frye | Oct 9, 2016 | Vision and Creativity
Aspen-covered hillside, Bishop Creek Canyon
During our recent trip to the eastern Sierra I hiked up a trail I’d never been on before. I hoped the trail might lead to view overlooking a hillside full of aspens. It didn’t – at least not directly. I had to leave the trail and work my way out on some rock outcrops, where I did finally reach a spot with a view of that aspen-covered hillside, and made the photograph above.
I was pretty happy with that image; I liked the curving line of bare trunks, and the way the clumps of pines in the lower-right and upper-left corners played off each other. But my eyes kept getting pulled to some aspens next to the rock outcrop. The leaves on these trees displayed a wonderful kaleidoscope of hues – yellow, orange, red, green, even a bit of maroon. I realized that these aspens right in front of me had at least as much photographic potential as the ones on the distant hillside.
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by Michael Frye | Oct 6, 2016 | Composition, Light and Weather
Sunrise on Mt. Whitney from the Alabama Hills, CA, USA
On our trip to the eastern Sierra last week Claudia and I made a detour down to the Alabama Hills. This area is a bit further from home than our usual eastside haunts, so we don’t go there often, and I sometimes forget how amazing it is. The jumbled rocks of the Alabama Hills are interesting and photogenic in their own right, but combined with the abrupt escarpment of the mountains to the west… well it’s just spectacular.
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by Michael Frye | Oct 2, 2016 | Digital Darkroom, Yosemite Photo Conditions
Sunset clouds over North Lake, autumn, Inyo NF, CA, USA
Claudia and I are back home, but we had fun photographing on the east side last week. Every day we saw more color in Bishop Creek Canyon, and the high-elevation aspens were looking great when we left yesterday.
I made this photograph Friday evening. We had been photographing intimate scenes along the south fork of Bishop Creek for a couple of hours, but there were some clouds hugging the crest of the mountains, so I headed to North Lake where I could get a wider view if the clouds turned color at sunset.
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by Michael Frye | Sep 28, 2016 | Yosemite Photo Conditions
Aspens, reeds, and reflections, Bishop Creek Canyon, Inyo NF, CA, USA
Claudia and I are over on the eastern side of the Sierra checking out the early fall color. The high-elevation aspens typically start turning over here in late September, and they’re right on schedule, or maybe even a little early compared to some years. We drove up Bishop Creek Canyon yesterday, and found lots of color near the 9,000-foot level around Lake Sabrina and North Lake. I’d say these areas are near peak already, with a few bare trees, and some green, but probably 70 to 80 percent of the aspens turning.
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