In the Moment:
Michael Frye's Landscape Photography Blog
by Michael Frye | Dec 31, 2016 | Announcements
I’ve closed comments on this post, since the voting deadline has passed. You can see the final selections here. Thanks to all of you who voted!
Happy New Year!
Like champagne, Auld Land Syne, and the Tournament of Roses Parade, it’s become a New Year’s tradition on this blog to pick my best images from the past year, and once again I’m inviting you to help me make these difficult choices. I’ve posted 47 of my best photographs from 2016 below, in chronological order. After you look through these, please post a comment listing your ten favorites.
You don’t have to list your ten favorites in any order, or even name them – just numbers will do. (The numbers are in the captions underneath the photographs. Also, you can click on the images to see them larger.) Once the votes are in I’ll post the top ten on this blog, and submit the final group to Jim Goldstein’s blog project, where he’ll be showcasing the best images of the year from over 300 photographers. The voting deadline is this Tuesday, January 3rd, at midnight Pacific time.
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by Michael Frye | Dec 31, 2016 | Announcements, Night Photography
Moonlit winter night with Half Dome, Glacier Point, and the Merced River, Yosemite NP, CA, USA
Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all have a wonderful year in 2017.
Tomorrow I’ll be posting the nominees for my best photos of 2016, and you’ll get a chance to vote for your favorites and help me pick the top ten. Keep an eye out for the post! You can see last year’s nominees here, and the winners here.
I made this image around 4:20 a.m. last Saturday morning (Christmas Eve) after a few of inches of snow fell in Yosemite Valley. I actually drove up to the valley around 9:30 on Friday evening, since it looked like the storm was about to clear. But clouds and snow flurries persisted for awhile, and skies didn’t start to clear in ernest until after midnight.
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by Michael Frye | Dec 28, 2016 | Vision and Creativity
Reflections along the Merced River, winter, Yosemite NP, CA, USA
It’s become a tradition on this blog to ask my readers to help pick my best images of the year, so on January 1st I’ll be posting the nominees for 2016 and asking all of you to vote for your favorites. It’s always fun to see what people pick!
Last year readers voted this snow scene into the top ten. It actually got the fifth-most votes, which was a pleasant surprise for an intimate landscape like this. (You can see last year’s nominees here, and the top ten here.)
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by Michael Frye | Dec 24, 2016 | Announcements
Moon over Yosemite Valley
Claudia and I wish you a very Merry Christmas! And happy first day of Hanukkah! We hope you have a wonderful holiday, full of peace, joy, and the love of family and friends.
I made this photograph on the same night as the moonrise from Gates of the Valley image in my last post. After leaving the Gates I headed up to Tunnel View. For some reason I thought the moon would be behind Cathedral Rocks from there, but instead the moon was plainly visible right over the valley. I would usually avoid photographing right into the moon, for the same reasons I would usually avoid photographing right into the sun: a high probability of lens flare, and extreme contrast. But on that night the backlit mist and clouds were beautiful, so I gave it a try.
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by Michael Frye | Dec 20, 2016 | Light and Weather, Night Photography
Moonrise from Gates of the Valley, Yosemite
As I described in my last post, I drove up to Yosemite Valley last Friday afternoon to see and photograph the high water. Then after sunset I hung around for awhile, waiting for the moon to rise.
The 86% moon was due to rise just after 8:00 p.m. When photographing a moonrise, moonset, sunrise, or sunset, one of the most important considerations is the exact angle or azimuth of the sun or moon. We all know that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Most people also know that in the summer, in the northern hemisphere, the sun rises and sets further north, and in the winter it rises and sets further south. The moon, of course, also rises in the east and sets in the west. But compared to the sun its path changes much more rapidly, varying as much in two weeks as the sun does in six months.
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