El Capitan in Clouds
Posted: Thu May 10, 2007 8:21 am
A 4x5 Provia image I took February 28 this year from the Bridalveil Creek South Loop Road area towards El Capitan. Crudely scanned here with my flatbed and adjusted closely to the transparency. Night before was the coldest snow storm of this weak winter, covering the valley floor with nearly a foot of snow. I'd exposed three earlier sheets along the North Loop Road then stopped here where I set up my 150mm Nikor and frustratingly waited about 30 minutes before clouds finallly began clearing enough for some blue holes. Took a modest insurance shot then waited for something much better hopefully. Sun was intermittently peeking through the passing left to right clouds off to the right, making clouds swirling about El Cap look like they were boiling off in the sun. Actually is was still below freezing with flurries.
Finally a blue expanse to the west moved in with the above shot taken just a few minutes before that ended any more possibly shots because it was already nearly 9am so sunlight on fresh snow would be way too bright. In my above shot, although the light on the south face of El Cap is bright, it was actually diffusely dimmed a fair amount by some clouds. A minute earlier I would have fired off a shot except it was getting direct sunlight. When the streamer clouds began moving across the top of the big rock, I held off actuating the shutter cable release till a cloud moving across the face was behind the top branches of the black oak.
The captured frame has a bright area on the left so I cropped about 1/8 of that side out. Then in order to balance the rectangle frame cropped out about 1/8 of the bottom that showed fresh snow on the ground below the oaks. Likely will process this with a drum scan within a few months and print a bit reduced from my usual LF sizes at about 24x30 inches. ...David
Yosemite! Thanx for sharing.