Merced River

• Pablo Picasso.

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One of my favorite locations in all of California is the Valley view outlook point at Yosemite National Park. I have posted many photos of this location which provides a stunning view of the majestic El Capitan to the left, the stunning Sentinels with Bridal Veil Falls to the right and the serene Merced River as foreground interest. It’s pretty tough to beat a view as spectacular as this but the real reason I fell in love with this location is the fact that I always got amazing light whenever I was at this spot. This was my go-to spot when the weather was bad or if we are providing a quick drive-by for our relatives or friends who are visiting.

This photo was taken in the past summer when we did a quick tour of Yosemite, As usual, the golden hour kind of coincided with our stop and I managed to get some good shots.

• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

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The iconic Valley view of Yosemite Valley, I have taken so many pictures at this location that it has practically become a tradition to go here and shoot whenever we visit Yosemite Valley. This time I switched it out though and visited the location just b fore sunset, unlike the usual sunrise shot. Merced River had a decent water flow for this time of the year and there were a huge bunch of photographers setting up for sunset, we were planning on another location for sunset so it was a quick setup and shoot for me. I tried to get some foreground details in the picture to get some depth to the image but there is not much you need to do at this stunning location.

Thanks for visiting, hope you all like it..

• John Muir.

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Valley View at Yosemite National Park, CA. We visited Yosemite valley last weekend on a two day trip and was rewarded with some stunning sights and vistas all around this amazing natural wonder. I have been planning this trip since I moved to the USA and finally after 6 years in the east coast when I finally moved to San Francisco I wanted to make this trip as soon as possible. Finally we made the time for the trip and even though most of the park is closed for winter the valley was open and we thoroughly enjoyed the trip. Thanks for visiting more pics to follow..

• Walt Whitman.

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Another shot from the Valley view location at Yosemite Valley. This shot was taken just minutes after I took the reflection shot which I posted earlier. As you can see the water flow has been increased and the wind picked up disturbing the calm water. I took this shot just to prominently focus on the cool foreground interests which were visible from this angle.

I didn't had much expectation with this trip to the Yosemite but me and my wife both enjoyed this visit immensely. First we stayed at Curry Village campground and living in a tent even if it’s for two days is a pleasantly surprising experience. This time we just drove around viewing all the amazing scenic points and it was a much more relaxing trip than the last time.

• Thomas Carlyle.

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Another shot from the spectacular valley view scenic vista point at Yosemite Valley. I took this shot when we visited the Yosemite National Park this winter. This is a pretty popular destination and I myself have posted pics from this location before. So I wanted to capture this shot a bit differently and I my opinion his location is spectacular shortly after sunrise. I reached on time and as ready, I also had planned to take a panorama stitch using a slightly normal focal length instead of the Wide angle I usually go for.

While setting up the tripod I realized that the wind had died down and it resulted in almost perfect reflection of the epic peaks on Merced River. This almost never happens for me and I was quick to keep clicking and got about 100 odd pictures before the wind picked up and the reflections were lost. Funny thing was that I had amazing reflection shots at three different locations at the valley that day. Felt pretty cool about that. Thanks for visiting and the encouragement. Hope you all have a great weekend.

• Leonardo da Vinci.

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Yosemite valley, so far, has been one of my favorite places on the west coast. But I have had very little luck with conditions every time we visited the valley. Due to the location of the valley, smack in the middle of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, the sky tends to be either plain or windy with choke-full of clouds. The first time we visited was immediately after our move to San Francisco, and to be brutally honest, the trip generated only two images that truly stood out.

The second time we visited, timed perfectly with a storm that passed through the valley. We saw clouds piling into the valley as we were shooting the sunset at tunnel view. So we didn’t have much hope for the rest of the weekend, but we decided to soldier on with our plan. We had planned the Valley view photo for the evening, but a very overcast sky and pretty drab conditions greeted us at this classic location. I have about 40 shots here where I persisted with my original plan.

But after a while, I got frustrated with the results and started to think about the conditions. I noticed that both the river and the clouds were moving fast due to the windy conditions. Thankfully I had enough experience with the Lee Big Stopper to know what conditions suit the particular filter. I loved the golden color of the long grass and the contrast it made with the steel blue-grey ambient light. The 10-stop ND filter also helped me bring out some of the details in the movements of the clouds. Changing the type of photography according to the conditions helped me create a decent photograph even in pretty drab conditions.

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• John James Audubon.

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If I have to pick one viewpoint in all of Yosemite National Park, I will pick the Valley View viewpoint to emphasize the grandness of the Yosemite Valley. To me, the view from the valley floor with the majestic El Capitan and the Cathedral Rocks anchoring the composition on both sides with the Merced River as foreground interest tells the story of Yosemite Valley better than any other viewpoint.

Over the years, I have taken many images from this location, but we had overcast conditions on this trip, so I had to try something new. I decided to limit the sky in my composition to a minimum and focus more on the Merced River. I had to experiment a bit with the angling of the camera to include more of a mid-ground and making sure I had edge-to-edge focus. Thankfully it all come together in the end.

• Plato.

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One of the main challenges of planning a trip to Yosemite Valley is efficiently managing your time to cover the multitude of photo opportunities at this park. You have this fear of missing out while at already famous and well-established locations. I have always felt that every single viewpoint of the valley deserves the best possible light. The problem with the best light approach is that you will probably need a year to cover all the excellent photographic opportunities at Yosemite. Plus, Yosemite Valley is one place where the mood and beauty of a location drastically change in different weather conditions. Every time you visit, it is not easy to forego a site you already photographed instead of something new.

Hanging Valley viewpoint is a location that has the unfortunate luck of being close to Valley view. Often photographers pass this viewpoint in their hurry to get to the valley view and secure a parking spot. Also, the parking lot for this spot is tiny. Another trouble is Yosemite’s one-way traffic policy making it almost impossible to get to this location after shooting sunrise at valley view as you will have to complete the whole drive to get back here.

During our visit to the valley in the winter of 2015, I managed to secure a parking spot at the Hanging Valley viewpoint just before the sunset. The light had some great warm tones, and the Cathedral Rocks were being spot lighted with the best kind of side lighting. I included the Merced river as the foreground for the image and took a quick panorama image of the mountain peaks. As luck would have it, some low-lying clouds in front of the rock cliff give the picture a little x-factor along with the golden light.