In the Moment:
Michael Frye's Landscape Photography Blog
by Michael Frye | Jan 1, 2013 | Announcements
Happy New Year! To all my readers, thank you so much for your readership, support, and participation during the last year. I really appreciate how so many of you have taken time out of your busy schedules to read this blog and write thoughtful comments. I look forward to another great year in 2013!
It’s becoming a New Year’s tradition on this blog to pick out my best images from the past year, and once again I’m inviting you to help make these difficult choices. I’ve posted 50 of my best photographs from 2012 below, and after you look through these please post a comment listing your ten favorites. (Click on the images to see them larger.) Once the votes are in I’ll put the top ten or twelve on this blog, and submit the finalists to Jim Goldstein’s blog project, where he’ll be showcasing the best images of the year from over 100 photographers. The voting deadline is Friday, January 4th at midnight Pacific time.
As always I reserve the right to override the votes if one of my favorites gets panned. But I have yet to exercise this power — the last two years I thought your choices were so good I just went with the votes.
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by Michael Frye | Dec 31, 2012 | Announcements
Three Brothers reflected in the Merced River on a moonlit night, Yosemite NP, CA, USA
It was 1985 — I think. My fiancé Claudia and I had started working at The Ansel Adams Gallery in Yosemite Valley in September. On New Year’s Eve it snowed, but after dark the storm broke, and a full moon appeared through rifts in the clouds.
Someone suggested going cross-country skiing in the moonlight. With a few co-workers from the gallery and other valley friends we gathered our ski equipment and headed out to the Ahwahnee Meadow. There were nine of us altogether (I only know that because a snapshot of the group has survived). Most of the group weren’t experienced skiers, and I remember a lot of flailing and falling while we were trying to cross a ditch in the meadow.
Then someone had the brilliant idea of skiing to Mirror Lake, about two miles away. In our youthful exuberance and folly we all thought this sounded great. We skied out past the Ahwahnee Hotel and along the old roads that lead to the lake. At one point Claudia, myself, and a few others got behind the rest of the group, only to be ambushed by snowballs as we entered a stand of trees.
We eventually made it to Mirror Lake around midnight. None of us thought to bring any champagne, but it didn’t matter — we were quite happy anyway, and thought it was a fitting way to greet the new year.
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by Michael Frye | Dec 24, 2012 | Announcements
Ponderosa pines at sunset after a snowstorm, Yosemite NP, CA, USA
Claudia and I are visiting family in southern California. It’s raining outside while we play Scrabble and Taboo and watch movies. I hope all of you are warm and safe, enjoying the beauty of the season and the company of family and friends. To all who celebrate it, I wish you a very Merry Christmas!
— Michael Frye
by Michael Frye | Dec 13, 2012 | Composition, Critiques
“Winter Mist Rising Beneath Half Dome,” by Vaibhav Tripathi
Here’s another long-awaited installment in my photo critique series. This time we’ll look at a photograph by Vaibhav Tripathi called “Winter Mist Rising Beneath Half Dome,” from my home territory, Yosemite National Park. It’s an interesting study in composition, and directing the viewer’s eye.
Light and Weather
The light is soft — no direct sunlight anywhere. Soft light is great for intimate scenes, but big, sweeping landscapes like this usually need sunlight to create contrast and keep the photograph from looking flat. Yet there’s actually a beautiful quality to the light here. This was made at dusk, and there’s a hint of alpenglow illuminating Half Dome, some blue in the sky, and of course the mist in the middle ground. The upper half of the photograph in particular has a luminous quality, and there’s a quiet, misty, mystical mood to the image. I also like the subtle hues and the warm-cool color contrast.
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by Michael Frye | Dec 7, 2012 | Announcements
Clearing storm, dusk, Tunnel View, Yosemite
I’m pleased to announce that The Ansel Adams Gallery in Yosemite will be presenting an exhibition of my photographs from January 6th to March 2nd, 2013. The show will be titled “Yosemite Meditations,” and will feature new work and some of my classic Yosemite images.
There will be a reception at the Gallery on Saturday, February 16th from noon to 2:00 p.m. — early enough for photographers to attend the reception and still have time to photograph Horsetail Fall afterward. I hope to see some of you there — mark the date on your calendar!
— Michael Frye
by Michael Frye | Dec 4, 2012 | Yosemite Photo Conditions
Upper and lower Yosemite Falls with a rainbow
For 20 years my wife Claudia and I lived in Yosemite Village, right underneath Yosemite Falls. In spring, when full from snowmelt, the roar from the fifth-highest waterfall in the world was the background music to our life in Yosemite Valley.
In late summer and autumn Yosemite Falls diminishes, sometimes dwindling to a wet stain on the cliff below Yosemite Point. This year it dried up even earlier than usual, a casualty of last winter’s meager snowfall.
But last week a series of warm, wet storms soaked northern California. Yosemite Valley received almost seven inches of rain between Wednesday morning and Sunday evening. Yesterday, after the storms finally departed, I drove up to Yosemite Valley, stepped out of my car at Swinging Bridge, and heard that familiar sound: the rumble of Yosemite Falls. It’s back, and so are all the other waterfalls in the Valley. It seemed more like May than December, except that the grasses were brown, and the trees were mostly bare with lingering splashes of fall color.
One of Yosemite’s photographic ironies is that in spring, when the thunder of Yosemite Falls rattles windows in Yosemite Village, the sun only hits the fall during the middle of the day. In winter the sun strikes the upper fall with beautiful, warm, low-angle light shortly after sunrise. You can even see rainbows from the right spot. But of course the flow is usually low during these colder months — except, that is, when heavy, warm rains fall, like they did last week.
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by Michael Frye | Nov 21, 2012 | Announcements
Upper Yosemite Fall and rainbow, December 2005
We all have a lot to be thankful for. Today, I’m especially grateful for all of you. I really appreciate your readership, comments, and support. Your participation, insights, ideas, and passion for photography make writing this blog fun!
And… I’m thankful for water. A few small storms have recently revived Yosemite Falls after a long absence, and it’s good to have it back. Last winter was exceptionally dry, so I’m hoping that the storms continue, and we have lots of that precious resource, water, throughout this winter and spring.
I hope you all have a wonderful holiday, with good food and lots of love in the company of family and friends. Don’t eat too much. Okay, it’s Thanksgiving — eat as much as you want!
— Michael Frye
by Michael Frye | Nov 21, 2012 | Announcements, Reviews
Even if you know a program well it helps to have a comprehensive guide, a book that covers everything from A-Z, so you can look up a keyboard shortcut, remember how to do that thing that you only do once a year, or learn some new tricks.
My favorite Lightroom bible has been Martin Evening’s The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 Book. I still think that’s a great resource, but I might have a new favorite: Piet Van den Eynde’s new ebook called Lightroom 4 Unmasked.
This is a truly comprehensive guide to Lightroom 4, from setting up and importing, to organizing in the Library Module, processing images, mapping them, exporting them or publishing them to Flickr or Facebook, and printing.
If you’re new to Lightroom there’s a lot of great information here to help you get started. For example, the Lightroom Do’s and Don’ts (page 20) offers some invaluable advice to help you make the most of the program and avoid some common pitfalls.
Even if you know Lightroom well you’ll undoubtedly discover some new tips. One that I’m anxious to try is on page 238 — using Lightroom’s Publish Services to automatically put images on my iPhone and iPad. Cool — I didn’t know you could do that.
This is another ebook by Craft & Vision, the publisher of my two previous ebooks. But this one is different. Craft & Vision is calling this a “big book,” and it is that: a full 312 spreads. Because this is roughly four times the size of their typical ebooks, the price for Lightroom 4 Unmasked is higher than normal — $20. But until midnight on Tuesday, November 27th you can get it for only $15. Just use the code LR4FIVE on checkout.
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by Michael Frye | Nov 15, 2012 | Yosemite Photo Conditions
Oaks in El Capitan Meadow yesterday
During last weekend’s snowstorm I saw maples and cottonwoods dropping leaves in bunches, and wondered how much fall color would survive. But while teaching a private workshop yesterday I saw that there was still some good color in Yosemite Valley. The oaks are in great shape, as you can see from this photograph in El Capitan Meadow that I grabbed yesterday afternoon. Most of the dogwoods also kept their leaves and their color. But the maples are now mostly bare, and some of the cottonwood leaves changed from vibrant yellow to rusty brown. Strangely though, some dogwoods, cottonwoods, and oaks are still partially green. We even saw some dark green cottonwoods near Swinging Bridge—an odd sight for November 14th.
While the peak color has passed, those green leaves suggest that we might still see some good fall foliage in the valley for another week or two. It’s been a strange, late, yet beautiful autumn in Yosemite.
— Michael Frye
Related Posts: Early November Magic in Yosemite; A Beautiful Autumn in Yosemite; Autumn Progress in Yosemite
by Michael Frye | Nov 13, 2012 | Yosemite Photo Conditions
Sunset from Tunnel View, Saturday, 4:48 p.m.
My friend Jeff Grandy talks about “edges of seasons” — how the transitions between seasons can create great opportunities for photographs. Early November in Yosemite Valley is one of those transition periods, as fall blends into winter. Autumn color lingers in the oaks and cottonwoods, the sun tracks lower and creates interesting lighting angles, and sometimes the first winter storms generate clouds, mist, or even snow. It might be my favorite time of year in Yosemite.
This year the autumn color was late, but exceptional, with all four major species of deciduous trees turning at the same time. That in itself would be great, but then, at the peak of fall color, a storm brought snow last Thursday night, Friday, and Saturday. Friday was gorgeous, but Saturday was even better: a snow squall ended just before sunrise, the sun broke through shortly afterward, and soon we had a classic Yosemite clearing storm combined with snow and fall color.
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