Saturday, February 26, 2005

Nice light today! I got a slightly late start and headed immediately for the gas station in El Portal. The old Pathfinder was running on fumes, but luckily it was all downhill, and I made it to the pump before the engine quit. El Portal is in the west Yosemite Valley, just outside the National Park boundaries. There the valley broadens, and steep glacier-shaped rock is gradually replaced by tree-covered slopes. The Merced River runs right alongside Route 140, and the morning light slanted down the slopes, backlighting the trees beautifully.

Today is my last day in Yosemite. Sunday morning I'll pack, clean up the cabin, and head south toward Los Angeles, homeward bound. I'm ready for that. I've captured more than 3,000 images since my February 12 arrival date, and now I'm ready to start processing them on my desktop computer at home (the one with the color-corrected monitor). This laptop isn't calibrated, and I'm sure it's way off standard. (I hope the pictures I've been posting with it don't look too bad...)

The good light continued, highlighted by a slight mist in the valley, which made the rays visible. I walked across the bridge to the north loop (closed to traffic but somewhat tolerant of photographers), and shot a series of images in El Capitan Meadow, mostly of the surrounding trees and valley walls.

I visited the Yosemite Museum Gallery in the early afternoon and discovered that not only had my "Granite Cascade" picture been sold that morning, but they'd also taken an order for another print of it! Not a bad start for a show that's going to be here until May, then travel on to five other venues over the next year.

Well, that's about it for round one of my Yosemite Renaissance Artist-in-Residence program. I get to go home and rest for a couple months, and it's a good thing. I'm tired! The excitement of working in Yosemite every day for two weeks kept me in motion from (typically) 5:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. and in several cases after midnight. Little by little, it's worn me down, but now I'm excited about reviewing all those images and developing them into good prints. There is no finish line.

« Back  |  Next »