I had the great fortune to visit Yosemite National Park in California in January. I enjoy our great national parks, but this was my first visit to Yosemite. Walking in the footsteps of John Muir, seeing this fabulous valley, and turning my camera on this beauty to try capturing some of the awe I felt was amazing.
I was there to attend the first session of Moose Peterson’s final season of Digital Landscape Workshop Series. Moose is an incredible wildlife photographer who’s landscape shots are also breathtaking. He has a few friends who aren’t too shabby, like Joe McNally, who attend DLWS as instructors. For this event, Joe wasn’t available and RC Concepcion filled in. I’ve known RC from his work at Kelby Media (Kelby Training, NAPP, Photoshop User TV, etc.), and I sort of met him at Photoshop World in September. But he is a hoot to hang around, especially when you both have cameras.
Also filling the instructor ranks was Kevin Dobler. I met Kevin and Moose in Hawaii two years ago along with Joe and Laurie Excell, when I attended the DLWS in Kauai. That event provided me a huge photography boost just from the inspiration and photo zen. I absorbed something there, for sure, so having a chance to attend another DLWS, this time at a park I’ve wanted to visit for years, was great. I had forgotten Kevin is a pilot and works for Cessna. He recently flew to Yellowstone and captured some amazing in-flight shots which he shared with us.
But we were there to shoot the scenery in Yosemite. It doesn’t hurt that this is essentially Moose’s backyard. He lives nearby in the Sierras and knows this area – and its history – inside and out. We stayed in the lodge that’s right in the park. You walk out of your room and look around and think, “this is not real – it can’t be.” There’s Half Dome nearby, and you can see Yosemite Falls from the doorways of many of the rooms. My room faced south, so I had to take a few steps to see the falls.
You never know what to expect in the mountains in January. There had been some large storms in December, but it was dry during my stay. The earlier snowfall provided lots of good moisture to feed the waterfalls around the valley, though. We also happened to be there during the full moon. I’m sure that factored into the schedule. We had a fun moonlight shoot, and we later watched the moon rise from Tunnel View.
From there, you have a beautiful view of El Capitan and Half Dome. As the moon rose and I snapped away, I suddenly noticed the color. It was staggering. I’m not sure I’ve seen such a magenta sky, and there it was all around the rising moon. This and many other shots might make great black and white photos. I think of the work of Ansel Adams whose Yosemite photos have become iconic. But the colors. How could I rob my photos of the colors on display?
There was the cool blue of the moonlight shots. There was the magenta sky, and the bright red that pulls your eye to Moose Peterson, standing in the meadow. And there was a rainbow in the morning sun nearly surrounding the upper Yosemite Falls as the wind whipped the water into a great mist.
Yes, I have some nice black and whites with the textures of thousands of years of erosion on ancient granite born deep under the crust of the earth. But it’s the colors that I witnessed and captured that I’ll remember. And those colors I’ve chosen – for now at least – to preserve in the majority of my photographs.
