While in Yosemite Valley I was surprised to find that I had cell phone coverage. Just after taking this photo I shot out a quick tweet with a version of this taken on my iPhone camera as I thought this was going to be the best photo of my trip. While the iPhone version doesn’t even come close to this photo, I still stand by my initial reaction. I love the effect of this photo and it falls in the top ten from the trip.
Ribbon Fall is just to the east of El Capitan, so the right most stone face in this image is the eastern edge of El Capitan (photo was taken facing north). The fall comes down that stone face and is a bit hard to see in this image with the cloud (try clicking on the image for a larger view). The white that you see built up at the base of the fall (just above the tree line) is snow and ice from the water of the fall freezing on the rockface. As I stood there taking in this scene I would hear a loud cracking noise as a piece of ice broke off the top of the falls somewhere, it would appear as a denser white within he spray of the fall’s water.
I haven’t been to Yosemite since I was a kid – I would very much like to go back with my camera someday. Despite it being so heavily photographed, I still think I would find it breathtaking to be there myself.
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latoga Reply:
March 30th, 2009 at 8:32 pm
As the old joke goes, “Today’s photographs of Half Dome require an extra stop of exposure because the amount of light reflecting off it has been reduced by the absorption of so many negatives throughout history.”
Yet when you get there you still want to photograph it. And when you experience it in a snow storm or great changing weather conditions like last weekend, how can you resist?
If you ever decide to head back out let me know, I’m sure there are a number of California based photographers who we could get to join you…myself included! 🙂
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I have also never been to Yosemite. Really beautiful shot…it feels cold!
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