Thanks for the feedback on my last two photos of the skeleton trees. Having other eyes keeping me in color check is nice to have. After looking at a photo for a long time saturation creep gets the best of you and you don't even see it happening. Kind of like a frog in a slowly heating pot of water.
So after returning to camp and helping Lon break down and eating I headed out again. I had two choices for some high country work as both Tioga road and Glacier Point road were still open. For Glacier Point road I was planning a return to Sentinel Dome to try once more to best my panorama title
"The View" or hit tioga road and stop at Siesta Lake and Olmstead Point. I opted for Tioga Road. I had Siesta Lake to myself for the time that I was there and even though I made two photos there neither of which came out how I liked, or I have not been able to figure out how to develop them to bring out what I saw when I made them.
By the time I made it to Olmstead Point, the sun had already started to set. The wind was picking up and I honestly did not think I was going to make a photo. I had the 4x5 camera set up and composed on Half Dome, but the wind gust were so strong that I was afraid it would blow my camera over let alone allowing me to get a sharp photo, especially with the 500mm Telephoto lens.
However in the final moments with just a hint of light left I went ahead and just burned a sheet of film for the sake of giving it a try. I stood to the side of the camera and tried to buffet the winds as best as I could and made this exposure. In development I had to scan the transparency twice, once for the sky and once for the land including Half Dome at a much higher exposure just to get the faint glow. I used the lens wide open for minimize exposure time. I was shocked at how sharp the photo came out.
4x5, Nikkor 500mm Telephoto, f11, 1/15 sec, Fuji Provia 100F. Hand blended using TK luminosity masks.
Your feedback appreciated.
I hope you are not bored with Yosemite yet. I have 4 more photos from the trip, this one could be my last one for 2012, but I will have to see what happens tomorrow.
Comments
7 commentsI guess my biggest nit with this photo is that you don't see enough in the shadows. I you didn't let me know this was half dome, I might not have noticed it.
Still not a bad photo and certainly worthy of comments.
- Dan
It was an experiment in the field as the camera was really shaking with each gust of wind. So coming out of that I was pretty happy. The intent was the faint last glow on Half Dome. Perhaps it just not enough of a glow on its face to illicit any response.
Nick Bristol
Lone Rock, WI
Glad you were able to get up on Tioga after I left. Too bad about the Siesta Lake images, but I bet if you let some time go by and revisit them, they might work. I know I just scanned a couple new ones from the trip and earlier in the year that I originally passed over.
This image is a wonderful reward. I love your title! In fact, it made me come up with a different take on the classic riddle: "If you're not there to hear the sunset, does it make a sound?" (off chute of the falling tree in the forest riddle)
What's interesting to me is that indeed Half Dome looks pretty sharp here in the web presentation, yet all the trees on the granite slops just look like smudgy blobs (for lack of a better) term. And in this case, I'm not interested in any detail except for the granite dome. The solid color in the sky is wonderful and really simplifies the scene.
The only thing I'm really torn about is the lone snag. But it doesn't really bother me much and in the end I think works in the overall scheme of things. I suppose one alternative would be a square crop to just include Half Dome, but I'm not sure that would work any better.
Definitely a worth while image and again love the play on words with the title.... Here's more, Simon and Garfunkle's "The Sound of Silence" and "I Am a Rock"
Lon