Tioga Lake

• Jean Anouilh.

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While we lived in California for over six years, we only managed to properly explore the Tioga pass section of the Yosemite National Park. We have crossed the Tioga Pass road many times while en route to other locations, and we always try to time our trip so that we are passing the are during golden hour. It’s still a challenging location to shoot, there is not much in the form of accommodations and summer months the area is immensely popular, but the real challenge is from the ever-changing weather conditions, a mountain pass in the Sierras means that the wind and clouds are constantly changing light conditions. Places and events like this used to frustrate me a lot as a traveling landscape photographer, but as I learned the tricks of the trade, I managed to adjust my photography to the elements.

A pro tip here: always assume that nature will not cooperate!

Now about this shot, on this day, the pass was experiencing strong winds. The winds meant that the lake was choppy and that the pass was getting pumped full of clouds. The clouds pretty much eliminated any chances of getting a decent sunset shot. But we had an abundance of quickly changing light conditions and pretty strong contrast. So I decided to try using my ten-stop ND filter, which allowed me to make the lake a bit more exciting and get the substantial dynamic range under control. Processing as a back and white image also helped in getting some beautiful reflections on the lake surface as well as capturing the strong contrast of the scene.

• Henry James.

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While Yosemite Valley is a spot that we have been to many times over, the same is not true for another equally majestic and easily accessible part of the park, the Tioga pass. We have been to Tioga Pass only twice, and both time we were passing through the park as part of bigger trips. Both trips occurred fairly early in my landscape photography career, and recently, while cataloging my old photos, I had a chance to revisit some of the old pictures from our first trip.

I took this shot during our first visit, which was during a trip to Crater Lake. Since we were in a hurry, we only allocated an afternoon to explore the whole pass, and we picked the 4th of July week to hit the park. Every parking lot was packed, but finally, as we were driving back, the sun started to put some color on the clouds, and we managed to find a parking spot near the Tioga lake. I don’t know what forced me to abandon this shot, but I am glad I managed to get back to it.

• Henry David Thoreau

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Another shot from the Tioga Pass road at Yosemite National Park. By the time we reached the location the cloud cover over the sky was pretty sparse. And we were about an hour away from sunset. I was really impressed by the clarity of t hater and the shape of the clouds and the surrounding mountain peaks. The light was pretty dim and the mosquitoes fierce but I managed about three shots here and coupled with the Singh Ray polarizing filter the water gave me nice reflections.

I really liked the dead wood in the foreground and wanted to get close to it so had to slide down through a pretty narrow path with about $5k worth of gear till I reached the base and managed a nice compo. I did use the big stopper here for some shots but forgot to cover my eyepiece and managed to get some nasty purple flares. Hopefully some other day I will be able to return. Thanks a lot for visiting and your encouraging words.

• Martin Buber.

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This was another shot from Yosemite’s High Sierra region, we were actually trying to get back to the hotel before it was completely dark and on the way we saw this amazing lake and it calm clear waters. It was bit of a hike from the road down a gravel path but I found this awesome drift wood and used it as a leading line to get this capture. I took two pictures from this location and both were in my best shots on this trip and I literally had to do nothing else other than just aim, compose and shoot.

Sometimes these things just fall into your lap and sometimes you can try everything you know and still strike out. I guess that’s the way it is. Thanks for visiting everyone have a happy Tuesday.