by Michael Frye | Dec 2, 2018 | Light and Weather
El Capitan and the Merced River at sunset yesterday evening
Several storms rolled through here last week. The largest of those dropped over two inches of rain in Yosemite Valley, and left a dusting of snow on the Valley floor Friday morning, but I couldn’t get up there early that day because Highway 140 was closed by mud and rock slides in the burn scar from the Ferguson Fire.
A smaller but colder storm was due to arrive Saturday, this time promising a chance for more significant snow. By noon Friday all the roads into the Valley had reopened, so I took a detailed look at the weather forecasts to see when this next storm might clear. Most of the information seemed to point to a clearing sometime after sunset on Saturday. But there was one item in the Hourly Weather Forecast on the National Weather Service website that hinted that the storm might clear before sunset. This graph showed sky cover (cloud cover) staying at 77% until 9:00 p.m., then dropping to 40% by 10:00 p.m. – well after dark. But the line showing precipitation potential dropped abruptly from 90% at 2:00 p.m. to 40% at 3:00 p.m. Hmm. Here’s what that looked like:
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by Michael Frye | Nov 15, 2018 | Announcements
Glacier Point Sunset, Yosemite
Just a quick reminder that the holiday print sale ends tomorrow (Friday, November 16th) at midnight Pacific time, so you still have time to get 25% off on three images: Glacier Point Sunset, Yosemite; Milky Way over Sand Dunes, Death Valley; and Aspens and Ferns, Kebler Pass, Colorado.
In case you missed the earlier post, you can see the available sizes and sale prices underneath the descriptions of each image below.
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by Michael Frye | Nov 7, 2018 | Announcements
Milky Way over Sand Dunes, Death Valley
The print sale has ended, but you can still order prints at the regular price below.
I’m pleased to announce that we’re having a holiday sale on three prints never offered before, at 25% off the normal price. For this sale we’ve selected three popular images: Milky Way over Sand Dunes, Death Valley; Glacier Point Sunset, Yosemite; and Aspens and Ferns, Kebler Pass, Colorado.
The discounted pricing will last until Friday, November 16th. You can see the available sizes and sale prices underneath the descriptions of each image below.
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by Michael Frye | Oct 31, 2018 | Advanced Techniques, Photography Tips
Swirling dogwood blossoms, Yosemite. I used a slow shutter speed (1/2 second) to deliberately blur the motion of these dogwood blossoms, but usually I’m trying to make my photos as sharp as possible.
It’s always disappointing to find out that one of your photos isn’t sharp – especially if it’s an image you like (and you weren’t trying to deliberately blur the image). Yet we all make mistakes. Even professionals like me sometimes take unintentionally blurry photos (as you’ll see below!). But after you’ve swallowed your disappointment, it’s important to figure out why the image is soft so that you don’t make the same mistake again.
There are basically five causes of blurry photos: camera movement, subject movement, missed focus, insufficient depth of field, and lens softness.
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by Michael Frye | Oct 28, 2018 | Uncategorized
Autumn Colors: Sunlit reflections of Aspens above Grant Lake, Inyo NF, CA, USA
I’m working on a longer post, but in the meantime here are some more autumn colors, this time from the eastern Sierra about ten days ago. This image was actually Claudia’s idea. It’s difficult to photograph directly toward sunlit reflections like this, but she liked the color palette of yellow, orange, green, red, and blue, so I decided to try it, and somehow it worked.
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