Clouds Mimicking the Mountains and Trees Yosemite National Park, California Willie, Zack, and I were a bit crazy and ventured to Yosemite for a weekend in winter wonderland. I had wanted to attend the SmugMug holiday party on Thursday night and we wanted to be in Yosemite by Friday morning, so we all caught a few hours of sleep (or an hour of sleep), and then left at midnight to head to Yosemite. On the way we finally hit the snow-storm that was blanketing the area and it was slow going from then on. We made it to Yosemite Valley about an hour before sunrise and promptly took a nap. The weather forecast had predicted the storm would break just before sunrise, which would have been perfect for photography had it actually happened. Instead, the storm lingered and all we saw was fog and cloud. After some breakfast, coffee, and hot-chocolate we were ready to head back out and see what we could photograph. The storm did eventually break and we made our way to Valley View to witness the storm clear. We all took a few nice photos and were ready to head back to the car when we looked up and saw a very crazy scene: the clouds were mimicking the shape of the trees! Both Willie and I raced to the car to grab our 200mm lenses and hurried to get them attached. It was then a battle to setup the tripod (or not) and snap away before the clouds changed shape. 30 seconds later and the clouds had blown away and were gone. Such an amazing fleeting moment! Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8: 185mm, f/11, 1/250 sec, ISO 100
Stormy Sunrise over Badwater Salt Flats Death Valley National Park, California Interestingly, the tallest point in the United States and the lowest point are separated by only 85 miles. Mt Whitney peaks at over 14,500 feet but further to the south, the Badwater Basin sits at 282 feet below sea level. I spent a lot of time at Badwater on my first visit to Death Valley National Park, but I had never seen a beautiful sunrise or sunset there. Willie and I spent a long weekend exploring the park and finding scenes we’d been hunting. David Thompson played an excellent tour guide for us and the trip turned out to be one of the best photography trips we’ve had: mostly because Mama Nature played nice! On our last morning here we kept particularly attention to a patch of clouds that were rolling in and made our way to a specific section of Badwater Basin. We couldn’t have asked for a better sky. The clouds were full of texture and color when the sun did rise and hit it. Hexagonal honeycomb shaped salt rose out of the ground thanks to a nice wet winter the previous year. Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8: 14mm, f/13, 1/15 sec, ISO 100
Sunset over Kirkjufellfoss and Kirkjufell Mountain Grundarfjörður, Iceland I spent almost 2 weeks in Iceland with 6 friends: 5 of whom were not photographers. This meant that rather than following the weather like I would have preferred, we followed our itinerary instead. Mama Nature had the perfect chance to attach a rope between our RV and the rain clouds and boy did she take advantage. It wasn’t until 9 days into our trip that I finally saw the sun. The first 8 days were filled with rain, fog, more rain, more fog, and grey grey sky. Fortunately the last 2 nights ended quite spectacularly. There’s a few places in Iceland that photographers love and Kirkjufell Mountain is one of them. Of course it was high on my list of places to visit and we saved it for almost last. We arrived at Grundarfjörður, the town next to the mountain, parked the RV in their marina and made dinner. Dinner seemed to last for hours. Every few minutes I would get up, look at where the sun is, and say “guys, can we hurry up?!” Of course the non-photographers responded with “relax, it’ll be fine!” Finally I jumped into the drivers seat, told everyone to hold on, and drove us over to the spot. Surprisingly, this view is right off the road (you can, in fact, see the road at the bottom of the mountain) and offers countless compositions. As we arrived though, the clouds started to thin out and it forced our compositions to move to the left, towards the 3-pronged waterfall and the bridge. Fortunately the sky lit up beautifully long enough for us to snap a few photos. About 20 minutes after this photo was taken, a marine layer moved in, the clouds disappeared, and the beautiful sunset was gone. Thanks, Mama Nature, for a yummy bit of dessert! I loved the way the mountain looks like a witches hat while the waterfall and river brew below it. Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S: 17mm, f/9, 1/6 sec, ISO 100
