Friday, May 6, 2005

It's all about light. For nature photographers, there's only one light, our good old sun, and that's a constant, unwavering source...with a catch: weather. So, while photography is all about light, both technically and aesthetically, weather places its creative "filters" – clouds, mist, fog, rain – between our light source and our subjects. And that's when an outdoor photographer's life really gets interesting.

Gentle rain greeted me at 5:00 a.m. this morning, well before there was any light to worry about. It persisted through sunrise, my drive down the hill and my initial tour of the valley. Then, as I climbed Route 120 toward Crane Flat, the rain clouds began to part. Warming sunbeams struck the wet cliffs, raising ghosts of mist that blocked, softened or directed spotlights onto the terrain, keeping us busy chasing an ever-changing light show.

I'd originally chosen that route with the idea of revisiting those purple flowers. I figured if they looked good dry, raindrops would give them a fresh, dewy look. But as I climbed higher, the light show began, and the flowers were forgotten. The three black-and-white images at the right took their place, and my scope switched from macro to massive as sunbeams played a visual symphony on Yosemite's majestic countenance. It's days like this one that reaffirm my love and awe for nature's incomparable magnificence.

Throughout the day, showers appeared and then cleared, repeating the performance in different keys and tempos, allowing photographers to participate as musicians perform in a jam session, adlibbing and inventing on the fly in response and harmony with the music of the moment.

The Merced River, overflowing its banks, created a perfect mirror in which I captured inverted images of fresh green-budded spring hardwoods, along with the towering granite spires of Cathedral Rocks.

A hike through the woods late in the afternoon yielded a sidelit tree of oddly-autumn colors against the north wall's blue-gray surface. Deeper in the glen, a towering Ponderosa Pine found itself embraced in a hug of white Dogwood blossoms.

Then, as we wistfully anticipated a sunset to rival the earlier show of light, another storm moved in from the west, gray and wet, and our light, rather than bursting in an appropriate climax of brilliant colors, simply faded back into the soft, gentle rain where it had begun.

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