Dogwoods and reflections along the Merced River, Yosemite NP, CA, USA

I found time to make the image above one afternoon last week, with dogwoods juxtaposed against reflections in the Merced River. This is good example of the kind of small-scale lighting event I wrote about recently; late in the day the sun hit trees and bushes along the opposite bank of the river, creating multi-colored reflections in the water behind this group of dogwoods.

This past Tuesday was a showery, misty day in the park. My students and I photographed clouds and fog at Tunnel View early in the morning, then later captured Upper Yosemite Fall dropping out of the mist (see the images below). In the afternoon we looked for, and found, dogwoods in fog along Highway 41 (bottom).

While the dogwoods in Yosemite Valley are fading, they still look fresh and beautiful at higher elevations. Look for these higher-elevation trees along Highway 41 between Oakhurst and Yosemite Valley, along Highway 120 between the entrance station and Crane Flat, and in the Tuolumne Grove of giant sequoias.

The Glacier Point Road is now open, and the Tioga Road is scheduled to open tomorrow. The waterfalls are still going strong, though the flow will gradually start to diminish soon. While everything is early this year, it’s been a beautiful spring so far.

— Michael Frye

Related Posts: Light and Mood With Intimate Landscapes; A Beautiful Week in Yosemite

Misty scene at Tunnel View on Tuesday morning

Clouds and Upper Yosemite Fall, Tuesday morning

Dogwoods and ponderosa pine in fog, Tuesday afternoon

Michael Frye is a professional photographer specializing in landscapes and nature. He is the author and photographer of The Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite, Yosemite Meditations, and Digital Landscape Photography: In the Footsteps of Ansel Adams and the Great Masters, plus the eBooks Light & Land: Landscapes in the Digital Darkroom, and Exposure for Outdoor Photography. He has written numerous magazine articles on the art and technique of photography, and his images have been published in over thirty countries around the world. Michael has lived either in or near Yosemite National Park since 1983, currently residing just outside the park in Mariposa, California.

The post Spring Continues in Yosemite appeared first on In the Moment: Michael Frye's Landscape Photography Blog.

Storm clouds over Yosemite Valley from Tunnel View, Yosemite NP, CA, USA

The dogwoods in Yosemite are pretty consistent performers. They always bloom, regardless of how wet or dry the previous winter has been. But some years are better than others, and this is one of the better ones I’ve seen recently, as most of the trees have more blossoms than usual. The dogwoods arrived early this year, and all of them are now leafing out, but the flowers were still fresh-looking yesterday. In another week or so they’ll start to look bedraggled in the valley, though they should just be starting to bloom at higher elevations along highways 41 and 120, and in the Tuolumne Grove of giant sequoias.

Temperatures are warm for the end of April, and the waterfalls are going strong. The flow will probably peak this week; after that most of the snow will have melted at higher elevations, so the water levels will gradually diminish. The Glacier Point Road is scheduled to open Friday, and the Tioga Road is expected to open May 11th.

I’m starting my Spring Digital Camera Workshop tomorrow, and I’m sure we’ll have a great time photographing dogwoods and waterfalls. I’ve already been out scouting and photographing, and you’ll find a few new dogwood images below that I made either last Thursday or yesterday. Also, the image at the top of this post was made last Wednesday from Tunnel View when those dramatic clouds rolled in.

— Michael Frye

Related Posts: Dogwoods and Lunar Rainbows; Light and Mood With Intimate Landscapes

Dogwoods over the Merced River at sunset, Yosemite NP, CA, USA

Dogwood in late-afternoon light along the Merced River, Yosemite NP, CA, USA

Backlit dogwood, Yosemite NP, CA, USA

Michael Frye is a professional photographer specializing in landscapes and nature. He is the author and photographer of The Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite, Yosemite Meditations, and Digital Landscape Photography: In the Footsteps of Ansel Adams and the Great Masters, plus the eBooks Light & Land: Landscapes in the Digital Darkroom, and Exposure for Outdoor Photography. He has written numerous magazine articles on the art and technique of photography, and his images have been published in over thirty countries around the world. Michael has lived either in or near Yosemite National Park since 1983, currently residing just outside the park in Mariposa, California.

The post A Beautiful Week in Yosemite appeared first on In the Moment: Michael Frye's Landscape Photography Blog.

Advanced Healing Brush

The Spot Removal tool has received a major upgrade – finally! You can now brush over an area you want to retouch, instead of being confined to using only discrete spots.

I’ve tried this new feature on several images, and it works pretty well. It makes short work of relatively simple jobs, like getting rid of a jet trail in the sky, that used to require tediously placing a series of cloning or healing spots. Now it usually takes just one brush stroke to make a jet trail disappear.

Photoshop still has easier and more efficient options for difficult retouching jobs. But the new Advanced Healing Brush will make it possible to do more retouching in Lightroom, allowing you to keep a completely flexible, non-destructive workflow. I think that’s a big improvement; I’ll say more about that further down.

Cleaning up a jet trail like this would require a series of separate spots in previous versions of Lightroom

One brush stroke with the new Advanced Healing Brush…

… is all it takes to remove the jet trail

Visualize Spots

There’s another new feature in the Spot Removal tool, a checkbox that says, “Visualize Spots.” This allows you to see dust spots more easily so you can remove them. For someone with a lot of dust spots in their photos, like me, this is a great help. The hardest part about cleaning up dust spots is often just scanning the image closely to find them; is that a dust spot or just something on my screen? And there’s nothing more annoying than making a big print and then realizing that you missed a dust spot.

A zoomed in look at a photograph with dust spots

The same photograph with “Visualize Spots” on

Radial Filter

Think of this as a sophisticated vignetting tool. You can apply all the adjustments available in the Adjustment Brush and Graduated Filter tools to a circular or oval mask. You can adjust the size and shape of the oval, and also apply the effect to an area outside the circle or oval.

The Adjustment Brush, which we’ve had since Lightroom 2, can do almost everything the Radial Filter can do, and more. However, the Radial Filter does make it easier to apply a custom, overall vignette. I’m not into vignettes, but people who are, or who are familiar with similar tools available in some other programs, may like the Radial Filter.

Upright

“Upright” is an addition to the Lens Corrections panel, and allows you to automatically straighten converging trees or leaning sides of buildings. The functionality isn’t new – you’ve been able to do this in the Manual tab of the Lens Corrections panel for awhile – but the idea is to make this process a one-click operation.

Upright works well sometimes. I found a couple of images where it straightened converging trees perfectly. But with other images it over- or under-corrected, and I usually had better results using Vertical Transform slider under the Manual tab.

Smart Previews

In Lightroom 5 you can now create “Smart Previews” that allow you to work on images offline – that is, even when the hard drive the images reside on is disconnected from your computer. Previously you could do most things in the Library Module (like adding keywords or star ratings) with offline images, but now you can use the Develop Module too.

So how well does this work? Very well, actually. I was concerned that the performance might be sluggish, or that some tools wouldn’t work, but the performance is quick and you can use any tool in the Develop Module. The Smart Previews are not full-size, however, so when you zoom in you’re not going to see a true 1:1 (or 100%) view. That means you’ll still need to connect your external drive to see small dust spots, or adjust settings that affect fine detail, like sharpening and noise reduction. And you can’t export a full-size file from a Smart Preview. I can export offline images that are up to 2540 pixels on the long side, but I’m not sure if that’s universal or camera-specific.

Also, how much hard-drive space do the Smart Previews occupy? If they take up a lot of space that defeats the purpose – you may as well just keep the images on your internal drive. But the Smart Previews are surprisingly small. They take up less than half the space of standard-sized Lightroom previews. I created Smart Previews for a test folder of 247 images, each 16 MB, and the total size of the Smart Previews was only 70 MB. If you extrapolate, that’s about 280 MB for 1,000 images, or 2.8 GB for 10,000 images. Again, I don’t know whether that’s camera-specific; it’s possible that larger Raw files would generate larger Smart Previews.

Despite some limitations, I think Smart Previews are a welcome new feature for those of us who use laptops with external drives.

Worth the Upgrade?

Lightroom 2 added the Adjustment Brush and Graduated Filter. Lightroom 3 gave us big improvements to the Raw-processing engine in the way it handled sharpening and noise reduction. Lightroom 4 completely revamped the Raw-processing engine again, with game-changing new controls for handling high-contrast images. This new version is still in beta, and it’s always possible that the final version will surprise us with some great new killer feature, but based on what we can see now, Lightroom 5 seems like a modest upgrade – especially when you compare it to those previous versions.

But even so, I’ll happily upgrade to Lightroom 5 when it comes out. The improvements to the Spot Removal tool alone make it worthwhile. I love being able to find those annoying dust spots more easily, but, more importantly, the Advanced Healing Brush will allow me to do more retouching in Lightroom, and keep a completely flexible and non-destructive workflow.

Why This Modest Upgrade is a Big Deal

I love the fact the Lightroom is a non-destructive editor. That means that any changes you make to an image are only a set of instructions that are applied if and when you export the image out of Lightroom. So your original file, Raw or JPEG, is never modified or lost, and, even better, every aspect of every adjustment you make to an image can be changed, tweaked, modified, or undone later.

In Lightroom you never find yourself going down a one-way road where you can’t turn back; you can always return to any previous point, or go forward and change only the things you need to change. You’re also working directly with the Raw data, allowing you to manipulate the highlights and shadows of high-contrast scenes in ways that aren’t possible in Photoshop, or any program that works with a second-generation derivative of a Raw file.

But the biggest obstacle to a completely flexible, non-destructive workflow is retouching. While taking out simple dust spots is easy in Lightroom, complex retouching has not been. So images that need serious retouching have needed Photoshop. And no matter how you do it, retouching in Photoshop is a one-way street: once you start, you can’t go back and modify the settings of your original Raw file without having to do the retouching over again. I’ve had to do that more times than I care to remember.

So that’s why this modest upgrade to Lightroom is a big deal: The Advanced Healing Brush removes, or at least lowers, one more obstacle to a completely flexible, non-destructive workflow. Complex retouching will still be easier in Photoshop, but with many images you’ll be able to do it all in Lightroom (or Adobe Camera Raw) – which means you’ll never have to do it again.

Working With Lightroom 5 Beta

If you want to try the Lightroom 5 Beta yourself you can download it here. I also recommend watching these videos from Julianne Kost. As always, you want to be a bit cautious with beta versions. Try it on a few images, but don’t import all your photographs and start changing them. Adobe won’t let you upgrade an existing catalog – a good precaution, I think – so you’ll have to create a new catalog. It’s a good idea to make copies of the images you want to try out in Lightroom 5, rather than using the originals.

Photoshop CS7?

I’m curious about whether Photoshop CS7 will be coming out soon. Adobe has been on a consistent two-year cycle lately, releasing new versions of Lightroom, Photoshop, and all their Creative Suite applications (InDesign, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, etc.) within a few months of each other in the spring. But it’s only been a year since they released Lightroom 4, and it seems unlikely that they’ll be able to upgrade all their Creative Suite applications that quickly.

If Adobe doesn’t release a new version of Photoshop soon, will they at least update Adobe Camera Raw? Adobe Camera Raw (ACR), which comes with Photoshop, is a twin sister to Lightroom’s Develop Module, and it’s hard to believe that people who have paid for a full version of Photoshop will lack features that Lightroom users have. Also, if they don’t update ACR, then Smart Objects taken from Lightroom 5 into Photoshop won’t be completely compatible.

But while we await news about Photoshop we have the Lightroom 5 Beta to work with. If you’ve tried it, let me know what you think!

— Michael Frye

Related Posts: Lightroom 4 Beta; Lightroom 4: The New Tone Controls; Lightroom 4: Working With the New Process

Michael Frye is a professional photographer specializing in landscapes and nature. He is the author and photographer of The Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite, Yosemite Meditations, and Digital Landscape Photography: In the Footsteps of Ansel Adams and the Great Masters, plus the eBooks Light & Land: Landscapes in the Digital Darkroom, and Exposure for Outdoor Photography. He has written numerous magazine articles on the art and technique of photography, and his images have been published in over thirty countries around the world. Michael has lived either in or near Yosemite National Park since 1983, currently residing just outside the park in Mariposa, California.

The post Lightroom 5 Beta appeared first on In the Moment: Michael Frye's Landscape Photography Blog.

Dogwood blossoms and reflections in the Merced River, from May 2012

You want to catch the dogwoods early. The flowers last for several weeks, but they start to look ragged after awhile, and they don’t stand out as much after the trees leaf out. With the weather predicted to warm up this weekend I expect the dogwoods will progress rapidly, and many, perhaps even most, will be in full bloom a week from now. Next week or the following weekend might be the best time this year.

Also, there will be a full moon next Thursday, so let the lunar rainbow madness begin! You can visit Don Olson’s web site to see his predictions for when lunar rainbows will be visible from Cook’s Meadow and from the bridge below Lower Yosemite Fall. You can read my tips about photographing lunar rainbows here, and see what it’s like to spend a moonlit evening in Cook’s Meadow with 200 other photographers here.

Spring has arrived!

— Michael Frye

Related Posts: Tips for Photographing Lunar Rainbows; Lunar Rainbow Images, and the Upcoming Annular Eclipse

Michael Frye is a professional photographer specializing in landscapes and nature. He is the author and photographer of The Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite, Yosemite Meditations, and Digital Landscape Photography: In the Footsteps of Ansel Adams and the Great Masters, plus the eBooks Light & Land: Landscapes in the Digital Darkroom, and Exposure for Outdoor Photography. He has written numerous magazine articles on the art and technique of photography, and his images have been published in over thirty countries around the world. Michael has lived either in or near Yosemite National Park since 1983, currently residing just outside the park in Mariposa, California.

The post Dogwoods and Lunar Rainbows appeared first on In the Moment: Michael Frye's Landscape Photography Blog.

El Capitan after an autumn snowstorm from El Capitan Meadow, Yosemite NP, CA, USA

I know many of my readers have a close connection with Yosemite, so I thought you would want to know about some proposed changes to El Capitan Meadow. In most of the proposed alternatives for the park service’s Merced River Draft Management plan, fencing and signs would be installed to keep visitors from trampling the meadow.

John Sexton wrote a thoughtful post on Facebook about this issue, which I recommend reading. El Capitan Meadow has long been a favorite spot for photographers in Yosemite. Ansel Adams made his Oak Tree, Snowstorm photograph from there. Galen Rowell captured one of his most famous images, Clearing Storm Over El Capitan, from this meadow. John posted one of his wonderful photographs on his Facebook post. El Capitan Meadow is certainly a favorite place of mine too, and I’ve made many images there, including all the ones included here.

I know that the park service has a difficult job. They have to balance preservation with public use and enjoyment of the parks. Meadows are fragile, and are easily damaged by too much foot traffic, and the easiest way to prevent that damage is to fence off the meadow.

On the other hand, what makes Yosemite Valley so wonderful, so extraordinary, is the juxtaposition of soaring cliffs with the serenity of the meadows and meandering river on the valley floor. There are other places with magnificent cliffs. There is no other place with an idyllic valley surrounded by such high walls. The quintessential Yosemite experience is to wander out into a meadow, stare up at the cliffs and waterfalls, and soak up the tranquility. I would hate to see that experience taken away. There has to be a better solution than fencing and “Keep Out” signs for the valley’s meadows.

John has a good suggestion for El Capitan Meadow: to move the parking further away. One of the reasons this meadow gets so much foot traffic is that there’s a parking strip along the road for the entire length of the meadow. Removing this parking and making people walk, even a short distance, would greatly decrease the foot traffic, without installing unsightly and restrictive fences.

The comment period for the Merced River Draft Management plan ends Thursday, so there’s still time to make your voice heard. You can submit your comments here.

— Michael Frye

Oaks in autumn, El Capitan Meadow, Yosemite NP, CA, USA

Swirling mist, El Capitan Meadow, Yosemite NP, CA, USA

Snowy oaks, Yosemite NP, CA, USA

Oak tree in fog, autumn, El Capitan Meadow, Yosemite NP, CA, USA

Oak, pines, and mist, El Capitan Meadow, Yosemite NP, CA, USA

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Rainbow over Yosemite Valley from near Old Inspiration Point, Yosemite

It was a harebrained idea, but sometimes harebrained ideas work.

On Easter Sunday the forecast called for showers and thunderstorms, with a 100% chance of rain. So I decided it would be a great day to hike 6 miles and climb over 2,000 feet up to Old Inspiration Point.

I could have just gone to Tunnel View. Tunnel View is a wonderfully photogenic spot, where I could have waited out any rain showers in the car, then walked 50 feet to the viewpoint if something interesting happened. And if the light didn’t cooperate, well, no big deal – it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve struck out at Tunnel View, and it wouldn’t take much effort to come back and try again.

On the other hand, I have lots of photographs from Tunnel View, and every other easily-accessible viewpoint in Yosemite Valley, but I’d never been to Old Inspiration Point. And I was in the mood for an adventure. I asked Claudia if she wanted to come with me (carefully explaining what she might be in for, I swear), and she said sure. She’s always up for a hike.

We started from the Tunnel View parking lot at about 1:00 p.m., with snowshoes strapped to our packs in case we encountered deep snow up higher. There were, surprisingly, quite a few people on the Pohono trail; it was Easter Sunday after all.

We climbed steadily up the steep switchbacks toward the first landmark on this trail, Inspiration Point, or New Inspiration Point. There have actually been four different places named Inspiration Point in Yosemite. (Hank Johnston lays out this history in his article in the Yosemite Journal.) Our destination, Old Inspiration Point, was the second spot to get the name, replacing the original Inspiration Point 0.3 miles to the east. Then, after the Wawona stage road was built in 1875, people started calling the first view of Yosemite Valley from that road Inspiration Point, and the previous version – 1,000 feet higher – became Old Inspiration Point. Then in 1933 the mile-long Wawona Tunnel was completed, bypassing the new Inspiration Point and emerging at Tunnel View. (Actually, the official name for this spot is Discovery View – but nobody calls it that.)

Inspiration Point, or New Inspiration Point, isn’t so inspiring anymore, since it’s become overgrown with trees and there’s no view. But there’s a spot several switchbacks lower, off a little unmarked spur from the main trail, that has a great vista. It’s similar to Tunnel View, but almost 1,000 feet higher. When we reached this point there were some interesting clouds, and we needed a rest, so we stopped to take a few photographs. Here’s one, just to show you what this view looks like:

View from Inspiration Point, or New Inspiration Point, Yosemite

We didn’t see any other hikers beyond overgrown New Inspiration Point. As we climbed higher, we encountered some rain showers. As we approached Old Inspiration Point we heard distant thunder, and we had to reconsider our plan of going to a high, exposed spot. But luckily we found another, less-exposed point nearby with a great view. As we neared this location the sun broke through, and a full rainbow appeared over Yosemite Valley, but by the time I found a good view and set up my camera the rainbow had faded. Then, ten minutes later, the rainbow reappeared, and I captured the photograph at the top of this post.

As the showers came and went we saw two more rainbows, and some beautiful dappled light. Then the clouds became thicker, and darker, and the rain more persistent. I kept thinking that the sun would break through again, but it never did. Just before sunset though I captured the photograph below with one high cloud lit by the sun, and a rain squall over Yosemite Valley.

It was a long hike down in the dark with headlamps, but we were happy. We were lucky that our efforts were rewarded with some good light. More importantly, we had a great adventure, and saw a new perspective on this valley that we both know so well and love so much. Watching the changing clouds, light, and rainbows from this high vantage point made me feel as if I was seeing Yosemite Valley for the first time.

I’ll be going back, despite the long climb. Maybe I’ll actually make it to Old Inspiration Point proper next time. And I’ll try to think of other harebrained ideas; it’s fun to try something new.

— Michael Frye

Related Posts: A Rare Storm Approaching Yosemite; Spring Storm

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Rain showers over Yosemite Valley from near Old Inspiration Point, Yosemite

Rain squall over Yosemite Valley from near Old Inspiration Point, Yosemite

Michael Frye is a professional photographer specializing in landscapes and nature. He is the author and photographer of The Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite, Yosemite Meditations, and Digital Landscape Photography: In the Footsteps of Ansel Adams and the Great Masters, plus the eBooks Light & Land: Landscapes in the Digital Darkroom, and Exposure for Outdoor Photography. He has written numerous magazine articles on the art and technique of photography, and his images have been published in over thirty countries around the world. Michael has lived either in or near Yosemite National Park since 1983, currently residing just outside the park in Mariposa, California.

The post A Harebrained Idea appeared first on In the Moment: Michael Frye's Landscape Photography Blog.

Visual Flow: Mastering the Art of Composition
by Ian Plant, with George Stocking
287 pages
24.95

Visual Flow: Mastering the Art of Composition is an ambitious eBook that delves deeply into what could be the most important aspect of photography: composition. But composition is a difficult subject to talk about, and teach, because of its complexity. Every situation a photographer encounters is different, and no rules or formulas can encompass all the variables.

Ian puts this well: “The ‘rules’ do not dictate whether a composition is good or not; rather, a composition either works or it doesn’t, and the ‘rules’ are merely an attempt (with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight) to assess common features of successful compositions. This is vitally important to remember: the ‘rules’ flow from successful compositions, not the other way around.”

I couldn’t agree more, and Ian and I are in complete agreement about this too: “Learning to think abstractly about visual elements is the single most important thing you can do to improve your compositional skills.” The less you think about the subject, and the more you think about the underlying abstract design – the lines, shapes, and patterns – the better you compositions will be.

While just reading any book won’t make you a master of composition, this volume presents a lot interesting ideas, and fresh ways of thinking about this subject that will help any photographer make better compositions. The type can be a little difficult to read at times, but that’s a small flaw, and the overall content is exceptional. Visual Flow is available directly through Ian Plant’s online store.

Photographing California: Vol. 1 – North
by Garry Crabbe
432 pages
29.80 list price (usually less through Amazon)

Gary Crabbe has written an impressively large and comprehensive guide to photographing northern California. Although he includes San Francisco, and a few other manmade subjects, the book is primarily focused on the beautiful and abundant natural landscapes of the state.

These include, of course, northern California’s three national parks – Yosemite, Lassen, and Redwood – but also lesser-known, highly-photogenic sites like Bowling Ball Beach, Mt. Shasta, Mossbrae Falls, and many others. There’s enough material in this book for a lifetime of photographic exploration.

There’s probably nobody better qualified to write this guide than Gary. He’s been the principle photographer for six previous books on California, so he’s spent a lot of time exploring the state looking for great photo locations. And the book is filled with beautiful images. It’s one thing to read a description of a place; it’s another to see a photograph that shows the true potential of a location.

But having said that, a photography guidebook like this works best when you think of it as a starting point, rather than a recipe book. Use it to help you find some great locations, and give you ideas about how and when to photograph those spots, but from there you can explore and find endless new possibilities.

If you live in California, or plan on visiting, this book will fuel your imagination and lead you to some great spots that you might not otherwise find. Photographing California: Vol. 1 – North is available through Amazon.

Craft & Vision 2: More Great Ways to Make Stronger Photographs
45 speads
free

Last but not least, Craft & Vision has released another free eBook. This new volume has nine articles by six different authors. I particularly liked Martin Bailey’s piece, “Shoot in Manual Mode.” Many people assume that they should use aperture- or shutter-priority mode for photographing moving subjects, but Martin clearly explains why manual mode will give you a higher percentage of good exposures in these situations.

There are three articles by David duChemin, who always has interesting things to say. His piece, “Learn to Isolate,” tackles one of the most essential aspects of photography composition. And Piet Van den Eynde, author of the Lightroom 4 Unmasked ebook I reviewed last November, talks about the virtues of getting it right in the camera in his article, “Shoot More, Develop Less.”

Yes, Craft & Vision 2 is free, and if you haven’t done so before you should pick up a copy of Craft & Vision’s first free eBook, which includes my article “Learn to Direct the Eye.”

— Michael Frye

Related Posts: New eBook by Jim Goldstein; New eBook: A Deeper Frame by David duChemin; New eBook: Exposure for Outdoor Photography

Michael Frye is a professional photographer specializing in landscapes and nature. He is the author and photographer of The Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite, Yosemite Meditations, and Digital Landscape Photography: In the Footsteps of Ansel Adams and the Great Masters, plus the eBooks Light & Land: Landscapes in the Digital Darkroom, and Exposure for Outdoor Photography. He has written numerous magazine articles on the art and technique of photography, and his images have been published in over thirty countries around the world. Michael has lived either in or near Yosemite National Park since 1983, currently residing just outside the park in Mariposa, California.

The post Noteworthy Books appeared first on In the Moment: Michael Frye's Landscape Photography Blog.

Poppies, lupine, and oaks, late yesterday afternoon

I made the photograph above yesterday, and I’m sure many of you will notice the similarity between this image and one I posted two weeks ago. These are the very same trees, and again I’ve used the radiating pattern of the shadows. When I went back to this spot yesterday there were more poppies mixed with the lupine, and the trees had new leaves. So I worked on the same idea, but with different conditions.

I’m not afraid to repeat myself if I think I might be able to improve on a previous photograph. Sometimes I just don’t execute the photograph perfectly on the first try. Other times the conditions are better the second or third time around. What are the odds that you’ll visit a place for the first time and find perfect conditions? Pretty slim, I’d say. And the more times you visit a location, the more you’ll see, and the better you’ll understand how the light changes and affects the area at different times of day.

Is this new version of the oaks, flowers, and shadows, better than the previous one? That’s hard to say. I’ll have to let them sit for awhile until I can look at them with fresh eyes. But I wouldn’t have that choice unless I tried again.

As you can see from these photographs, there are still flowers in the Merced River Canyon west of Yosemite. About half the redbuds are still in good condition, but they’re leafing out rapidly, and won’t last long. As for poppies, the spots where they bloomed earliest, like the beginning of the Hite’s Cove Trail, have faded, but there are still a few good patches around, mainly at the eastern end of the canyon near El Portal. It’s likely that these will also fade within a week or so.

California poppy, Sierra Nevada foothills near El Portal, CA, USA

The next major bloom to look forward to is the dogwoods in Yosemite Valley. They typically start blooming around the end of April, but if we have warm and dry weather they could begin earlier than that. The deep-rooted dogwoods shouldn’t be affected by our dry winter, so let’s hope it’s a good year for them.

— Michael Frye

Related Post: Surprising Wildflowers

Michael Frye is a professional photographer specializing in landscapes and nature. He is the author and photographer of The Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite, Yosemite Meditations, and Digital Landscape Photography: In the Footsteps of Ansel Adams and the Great Masters, plus the eBooks Light & Land: Landscapes in the Digital Darkroom, and Exposure for Outdoor Photography. He has written numerous magazine articles on the art and technique of photography, and his images have been published in over thirty countries around the world. Michael has lived either in or near Yosemite National Park since 1983, currently residing just outside the park in Mariposa, California.

The post At the Risk of Repeating Myself appeared first on In the Moment: Michael Frye's Landscape Photography Blog.

Redbud along the Merced River, Merced River Canyon, near Briceberg, CA, USA

Sunday afternoon it was very windy in the canyon. I found the scene above, with a redbud against the flowing river, and waited for half an hour for the wind to die down before giving up and walking upriver. On my way back to the car it seemed that the wind had calmed a bit, so I set up my tripod again, only to realize that it was almost as windy as before. I waited another half hour, and finally it became perfectly, completely still for about a minute, and I was able to make this photograph.

Later, while exploring another spot, I became interested in another redbud-and-water juxtaposition, with water swirling behind a lone branch. I tried every composition I could think of from every possible angle: wide, tight, vertical, horizontal, lower, higher, left, and right. But I kept coming back to this tight, horizontal framing (below), where a wave created a variety of curving shapes behind the branch.

Redbud and swirling water in the Merced River, Merced River Canyon, near Briceberg, CA, USA

I recently wrote about the magic of small-scale lighting events – how special light can transform intimate landscapes. But you don’t always need exceptional light to make beautiful photographs. The light just needs to complement the subject.

Soft light – shade or overcast – complements colorful subjects very well. Contrast between sun and shade can overwhelm colors, but soft light provides even lighting which emphasizes colors and color contrasts. It was perfect for the redbuds.

Soft light has another benefit: consistency. The sun is always moving, so the light it casts is constantly changing. This is especially true when things get really interesting; these moments are usually fleeting.

But soft light can last a long time. The amount may vary, but the quality is often consistent for extended periods. This allows you to slow down and concentrate on composition, without worrying about the light changing.

This consistency allowed me to wait for the wind to die down before making the first redbud photograph. Then I was able to try a variety of compositions with the second image, and make many exposures for each composition, trying to capture just the right swirls in the water.

Working with soft light can actually spark your creativity. You’re forced to rely on your eye and your imagination to make a compelling image, and you have time to explore a subject thoroughly. Sometimes ordinary light can lead to extraordinary photographs.

— Michael Frye

Related Posts: Surprising Wildflowers; Light and Mood With Intimate Landscapes

Michael Frye is a professional photographer specializing in landscapes and nature. He is the author and photographer of The Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite, Yosemite Meditations, and Digital Landscape Photography: In the Footsteps of Ansel Adams and the Great Masters, plus the eBooks Light & Land: Landscapes in the Digital Darkroom, and Exposure for Outdoor Photography. He has written numerous magazine articles on the art and technique of photography, and his images have been published in over thirty countries around the world. Michael has lived either in or near Yosemite National Park since 1983, currently residing just outside the park in Mariposa, California.

The post In Praise of Soft Light appeared first on In the Moment: Michael Frye's Landscape Photography Blog.

Oaks, lupine, and poppies in the Merced River Canyon near El Portal, CA, USA

Redbuds have deep roots, so they’re not affected by drought as much as some other flowers. But the poppies in this area are annuals, and dependent on winter rains, so I was surprised to see quite a few poppies blooming up and down the canyon. The display doesn’t approach last year’s, or the even more spectacular bloom in 2009, but any flowers at all seem like a miracle after our dry winter. And who knows – maybe the show will get better.

Right now the most eye-catching hillside of poppies is about a mile east of Savage’s Trading Post on the opposite side of the river. You can reach the base of this hill by driving to the end of Incline Road and continuing on foot for about a mile down the old railroad bed. But getting up among the poppies requires climbing a very steep hillside. (There are directions to Incline Road in my Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite, which most of you probably have, but if not the road is easy to find. Just cross the bridge at Foresta Road, about four miles east of Savage’s, then turn left along the river on Incline Road.)

There are also poppies near the beginning of the Hite’s Cove Trail. This spot is a little more accessible since the trail goes right through the flowers. Claudia and I hiked up another hillside near El Portal and found a nice patch of lupine along with some scattered poppies. I made the photograph above as the sun sank behind an oak tree, casting long shadows across the field of flowers.

There’s rain in the forecast for tonight and tomorrow. It’s hard to say how that will affect the poppies. Sometimes a storm will cause the poppies to shrivel up and disappear, but since the bloom is just starting maybe the extra moisture will help.

The approaching storm is expected to be warm, so there probably won’t be any new snow in Yosemite Valley, but a clearing rainstorm can be quite beautiful too. From the forecast it looks like the storm will clear late Wednesday or Wednesday night.

Let’s hope that it turns out to be a better year for wildflowers than expected, not only in the Yosemite area but around California. If you’re looking for flowers this spring, you’ll find some useful links here.

— Michael Frye

Related Posts: Spring Conditions; More Poppies; Redbud and Poppies; Hunting Wildflowers

Michael Frye is a professional photographer specializing in landscapes and nature. He is the author and photographer of The Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite, Yosemite Meditations, and Digital Landscape Photography: In the Footsteps of Ansel Adams and the Great Masters, plus the eBooks Light & Land: Landscapes in the Digital Darkroom, and Exposure for Outdoor Photography. He has written numerous magazine articles on the art and technique of photography, and his images have been published in over thirty countries around the world. Michael has lived either in or near Yosemite National Park since 1983, currently residing just outside the park in Mariposa, California.

The post Surprising Wildflowers appeared first on In the Moment: Michael Frye's Landscape Photography Blog.