March/April 2021 - Yosemite NP, Saguaro NP, White Sands NP

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Yosemite NP

Moonrise over half Dome

Orange groves and nut trees line the roads heading towards Fresno.  Once through town we see development give way to open ranch land then rolling hills.  The snow topped Sierra Nevada mountains form the backdrop to the east.  Our route is one of the main roads entering Yosemite National Park.  We are here for a photography workshop lead by Gary Hart.  The next portion of my blog is an unsolicited story of our workshop experience.

Mirror Lake Reflection

I have been following Gary’s blog, Eloquent Images, for years.  I like his photography; accompanying an image he describes his technique, the science, or a story behind the shot.  Last September we saw an opening for the March 2021 ‘Moonbows and Wildflowers’ workshop in Yosemite NP.  I had been in Yosemite in October several years ago.  I enjoyed my short time there promising myself to return.  I saw great fall color around the park but there was little to no water in any of the falls.  I’m hoping a spring visit will bring active waterfalls.

Moonrise over Half Dome

This is his third workshop since the pandemic.  He offers a zoom version for our instruction.  Everyone has had at least one vaccination so we all opt for the real thing – fully masked.  There are 13 of us including Gary and Curt Fargo, his assistant.  Both have a vast amount of experience in the photography world offering answers in the instruction portion of our class as well as in the field.

Tunnel View

One of the other great advantages of taking a workshop is that the instructor knows where and when to be at a particular location for the best images.  Gary always had a plan B in his back pocket.  During this workshop we were not able to get any moonbow images; there was not enough water going over Yosemite Fall for a moonbow to appear.  We went to other equally scenic locations instead.

We stay at the Yosemite View Lodge.  A sprawling lodge in El Portal a few miles from the Yosemite Park entrance.

Moonlit Yosemite Fall

After introductions we learned our schedule for the next three days: We carpool to each location, again fully masked.  We are on the road early - early enough to catch sunrise in the valley, then shoot another location, followed by breakfast at the park cafeteria.  After breakfast we go out to another location for a morning shoot.  We return to the lodge late morning for free time.  Early afternoon we reconvene for instruction and image review/critique.  For the critique we select what we want to present for everyone to see.  The critique is optional, actually going out to shoot any of the park locations is optional.  Once finished we gather our equipment heading back into the park for the rest of the day.  We stop at a location or two, then dinner at the cafeteria then back out for a sunset or moon rise or moon illumination of the landscape.  On site Gary and Curt answer our operational questions with Curt offering mechanical help with cameras, tripods or any other hardware issue.  All the activities are very informative and we all walk away from each activity feeling we learned how to successfully do this again.

Bridalveil Fall

The first afternoon we stop at Tunnel View, one of the many iconic locations; from here one sees Bridalveil Fall, Half Dome, El Capitan and a few other sites.  Tunnel View is crowded with others recording the same images as us.  We hike up the rock behind the parking lot for a nicer, less crowded view.  We stop for dinner, then on to Mirror Lake for a closer view of Half Dome with reflections.  Happily shooting one of us notices an almost full moon rising over Half Dome.  We pull out our long lenses clicking away at the special placement of the moon and Half Dome.

Cascade Falls

The next morning we return to Tunnel View for some silhouette images of the valley.  The clouds are too thick and generally do not cooperate for our planned shots.  On to plan B….  We photograph El Capitan looking over the Merced River before moving on to the Upper Cascade Falls on Big Oak Flat Road.  We have to work quickly with the changing sun and shadows moving across the falls.  We return to our rooms for a few hours before classroom instruction and image critique.

The instruction centers on planning and shooting the moon as it rises and the terrain gets darker.  We are amazed at the critique images, each one of us has a our own version of Tunnel View, El Capitan or Cascade Falls.

Half Dome from
Mirror Lake

That afternoon we head back to Tunnel View expecting a quick stop before moving on to the next site.  We spend close to an hour there.  The clouds come and go illuminating different parts of the valley; highlighting Bridalveil Fall one moment El Capitan the next.  It was quite a show.

After dinner we stop in a meadow across from Half Dome staying for another moonrise in the valley.  We return after dark after an enjoyable day.

The next morning we stop near Cathedral Beach for views of El Capitan and the Three Brothers for sunrise.  From there we stop at Yosemite Falls taking in several views of the upper and lower falls.

Half Dome from
the Merced River

Curt hosts our class on sensor cleaning.  He has a long history of working with cameras starting in the Navy and finally having his own company The Dust Patrol.  He cleaned the sensors of all our cameras before we head out for our afternoon/evening shooting.  He has a kit of tools and a procedure making the cleaning process quite easy.

Back on the road we head to another view of Bridalveil Fall.  The wind blows the water from side to side making closeups of the fall different every few seconds.  Dinner, then another sunlit view of Half Dome as the moon pops out from behind.  We finish the evening with moonlit views of Yosemite Fall.  With long exposures our cameras make the dark night look like daylight with stars in the sky.

Bridalveil Fall

Our last day we start out along the Merced River shooting Bridalveil Fall.  Turning our cameras upstream we catch the sun rising on El Capitan.  Moving up the Merced River to Swinging Bridge we shoot wide views of Yosemite Fall with its reflection in the Merced River.  Our other option is putting on our long lenses getting closeups of the Fall with ice clinging to the rock lining the falling water.  We break early for lunch; today is the last day of the workshop so unless we are staying in the lodge we have to check out of our rooms.  Our class today is about shooting closeup images using our long lenses with wide open apertures.  After class we head down the road to one of the poppy filled fields trying our new technique.  Almost two hours later we leave with many successful poppy images.

California poppies

After dinner we drive Up Big Oak Flat Road to get images of the moon rising over Bridalveil Fall and the Merced River flowing down the canyon.  In the dark we return to the lodge and say our goodbyes.  We have just spent 3 ½ days shooting Yosemite Valley from many different perspectives at different times under different conditions.

We move down the road to Indian Flat RV Park staying close to Yosemite so we can put all our class time into practice.

The next two days we take our time going through the park, even pulling over to enjoy lunch at the base of El Capitan searching for the movement of climbers.  Spotting odd colors against the gray granite we zoom into a group of climbers negotiating their way up the almost vertical rock face.  From our vantage point their pace looks agonizingly slow but we are sitting comfortably in our chairs dining on guacamole, hummus, crackers and fruit while observing – not hanging on for dear life a third of the way up the 3,000’ tall granite monolith.  We both agree, our place is on the ground, enjoying the view from the bottom of the valley.

El Capitan

Three Brothers

We revisit a few of the places we shot during the workshop.  We take our time composing images, changing settings, enjoying our solitude.  A few of these sites are off the beaten path so we are alone.

Poppies

Afterwards, Nicida and I compare our workshop experiences.  Both of us are extremely pleased we attended.  We learned a lot.  Some of the activities take more work: plotting where and when the moon rises and sets relative to the landscape.  Others make sense when you stop to think about the event: the intensity of the moon relative to the terrain and the best way to expose for it; using the full or almost full moon for night illumination of the terrain.  Still others are out of the box: using a long focal length lens for close-up images.  Each of these experiences gives us new ways of looking at the world then recording it if we are so moved.  As I mentioned earlier the other, non-educational benefit of a workshop is taking advantage of the instructor’s knowledge of the location; where to go and when to be there for the best conditions.  They may not always work; no moonbow due to low water flow; but we learned where to be and how to shoot it when a moonbow appears.

Upper and Lower
Yosemite Falls

Yosemite Fall

Yosemite Fall

Yosemite Fall

Lower Yosemite Fall

Poppies

Saguaro NP

Our Yosemite visit ends after six days.  We trace our way back to Bakersfield before deviating east on I-40.  Two days of travel puts us in Saguaro NP, outside of Tucson.  The park is split into two sections; east and west of Tucson.  We stop at the west side of the park, camping in Gilbert Ray campground.  The campsites are nice with the campground just outside Saguaro NP.

Saguaros

Driving through Saguaro I get the feeling of being in a Roadrunner cartoon with the saguaros surrounding us.  The park is quiet, we don’t see any roadrunners, Wile E Coyote, or remnants of ACME devices for catching roadrunners.  We spot a family of quail near our campsite, a few vultures flying overhead, many, many saguaros, yuccas, ocotillos and other desert flora.

While in Saguaro we experience two days of 90°+

Saguaro love

 temperatures; it’s only early April.  One of the park volunteers enjoys his time here, even when it gets over 110 , “It’s a dry heat”, I’ve heard and experienced that before living in NM for so many years.  We do a couple hikes carrying our camera equipment, wanting to employ our new techniques.  A steep climb along with heat from a late morning start forces us to cut our Hugh Norris Trail hike short.  We take the time to shoot saguaros and ocotillos.  Returning to the truck we break for lunch then continue through the park looking for more photogenic locations for a late afternoon shoot.

White Sands NP

Our last planned national park stop is White Sands.  We have already stopped here a few times but now that it is a national park we have to make the ‘official visit’.  Arriving at the visitor center we find out all the national park stickers for the Passport books have been sold.  We can only buy the older, national monument stickers.  So… it’s either mail order the sticker or come back again – we’ll be back.

The park is quite crowded, this is spring break week.  Lots of kids; both young and old, sledding down the dunes, then running back up to do it again.  We pass on the sledding, our goal is to find dunes without foot prints.  A quarter to half mile hike into the dunes eliminates virtually all footprints.  Before we start I save a waypoint on our GPS and turn on tracking so we can find our way back to the truck.  It is easy to become disoriented among the dunes.  You start out going in one direction but the dunes become interesting and one does not keep track of their direction.  You can retrace your footprints but there are so many near the parking areas you aren’t certain which prints are yours.

We hunt for the iconic lonesome yucca in the middle of the dunes.  Some areas have several to choose from, others are bare.  Looking across the tops of the dunes, the horizon reminds me of layers of mountain ridges fading in the distance.  Sun and shadow make interesting patterns across the dunes.  The wind makes ripples in the gypsum.  They look like the sand along a shallow shoreline in the ocean.

We spend two days in White Sands with friends that have come down to visit from Albuquerque.  We haven’t seen them since the pandemic.  Everyone has received at least one of the vaccines so we feel fairly comfortable visiting outside but still keep our six foot distance.  We tell our stories of getting through the past years’ ordeal.

Sunset at White Sands is a nice time to shoot.  The colors of the dunes change as the sun sinks lower in the sky.  The unfortunate thing is the park closes shortly after sunset so you have to keep track of the time.  The park ranger informed us that we have to be on the highway outside the park by 8 PM.  Shortly after the sun sets the mad dash of vehicles starts, all heading for the front gate.  At times the cloud of gypsum is so thick we are forced to slow down; we can’t see the tail lights of the vehicle in front of us.  We made it out with time to spare but from the park entrance to our campground, Oliver Lee Memorial State Park we have another half hour drive.

We arrive at our campsite after dark.  Bright stars are easily visible, even dimmer stars can be seen.  We are able pick out Orion, the Big Dipper and Taurus with ease. 

Our return

During our entire trip we have been monitoring the vaccine site near home hoping to get our second Covid vaccine.  We spoke with a few people associated with the site but they were not able to update us on the schedule.  Good web connection along our drive coupled with Nicida’s persistence we find a pharmacy in west Texas where we can get the second vaccination.  While a far distance from home it is only a slight deviation from our route going home.  Successfully vaccinated, we drive home the next day hoping we will make it home before any of the possible vaccination symptoms appear.

We agree, a workshop is the best way to improve your photography.  Better equipment helps, but the equipment doesn’t improve your technique or your vision.  Try one.

BTW – we experienced little to no symptoms from the second vaccine.

Thank you for stopping by,

Mark