• Ansel Adams.

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Today’s shot is an interesting one. In the winter of 2014, my wife and I had a chance to visit Yosemite Valley over a long weekend. The goal was to try and get some classic shots of Yosemite Valley in all its winter glory. Unfortunately, the year was extraordinarily dry, and we didn’t see even a bit of snow. But as we drove around the park, we saw park rangers putting up new parking signs on some locations. A quick chat reminded us that it was the time window for the firefalls phenomenon. If you have never heard about the firefalls, it’s a tiny waterfall within the Yosemite Valley where the setting sun lights just the waterfall in warm light against the towering granite walls. Firefalls only happens for two weeks in February and only when there are no clouds on the horizon. In the past, they used to pour hot embers from the top of Glacier Point to the valley 3,000 feet below. From a distance, it appeared as a glowing waterfall. But that practice is no more, and you are dependent on nature to provide the show.

On a whim, we decided to check it out and assumed an excellent position early enough waiting for the sunset to approach, There were a lot of people visiting the park for just this event, and we all quickly settled down waiting for the perfect light. We didn’t get a good firefall event that day as some clouds moved into the horizon, diffusing the intensity of the sun. I was still grappling with my photography at the time, so I didn’t believe that I got a good shot. I chalked it up as a bad day and moved on. Recently I was looking at the images realized that there were quite a few useful ones due to my bracketing habit. Now my ability to process an image has improved drastically from 2014, and I was able to select a faster exposure that showed more intense colors. Lesson learned, expose for your subject than for the whole scene, and don’t be afraid of shadows in your images.

Many photographers know about Horsetail Falls in Yosemite and that every February it lights up into a "Fire Falls." In fact, I photographed this...

Robert W. Service.

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So while we visited Yosemite Valley last month we saw a lot more tourists that the time of the year warranted and I realized that we were there just in time to see the fire falls phenomenon. I am a huge Galen Rowell fan but I hadn’t even thought about this at all. The outlook points were filling up fast with cars and we made a decision to stick around and at least watch this happening. Fortunately, I had my telephoto lens and so we waited in the small camping area with photographers from all over the world to watch the fire falls.

Unfortunately just as the sun was setting a small patch of clouds diffused the sun and we were not able to watch the falls in all its intensity. This was the best I could get out of that day. Many of the photographers decided to stick around on Sunday too but we had to get back to work so we hightailed it out of there. But one day I will be back to get this shot.

What looks like a scene out of a J. R. R. Tolkien novel is in reality the natural phenomenon of Horsetail Fall at Yosemite National Park. In February each year for about two weeks, the angle of the setting sun, along with the shadow from El Capitan, come to the edge of the falls and set it ablaze. I met people who had been chasing the Firefall for years so I feel very lucky to have arrived when the conditions were perfect.

*** Explored #373 on 2/25/2013! ***

Although Galen Rowell first photographed the Horsetail Falls "Fire Falls" in 1973 it was only until recently,...