Artistic Dilemmas in Yosemite Valley
Cathedral Rocks on a Fall Morning, Yosemite National Park
Nikon F4 with 55mm lens; Kodak Ektar 100
Quick administrative note: I have extended my wedding print sale. Until August 31st, all prints are 20 percent off with the code “SUMMER20.” If you’re looking for a nice picture to hang on the wall and would like to help me and my fiancée pay for our wedding, you can find a link to my print shop here. Along with the last hardcover copy of my book, I have just added another batch of over a dozen photographs for sale.
This is part three of a three part series. If you missed the first two, you can find links here to part one and part two.
At some point in the process of putting together my last book, I made a conscious choice to separate my photographs of Yosemite National Park into its own project. Since then, I have started collecting and creating work from there with the intent of turning that into another book. While the prospect of a new project gives me some degree of excitement, I have to admit that I approach photographing Yosemite (and Yosemite Valley especially) with some trepidation. It is one of the most recognizable and photographed places in the world. Distinguished artists like Ansel Adams, William Neill, and Michael Frye have dedicated large portions of their portfolios to pictures of the park. In other words, I work in the shadows of giants. As a photographer, there is always an implicit pressure to look for and create something new, a difficult task in the best of times but one that feels nearly impossible here. After all, how truly unique can your personal vision of a place be when six million other people visit it each year?
In practical terms, I wonder about how my own style should evolve with the location. Much of my work focuses on a combination of fleeting light and grand, wide-open landscapes. While Yosemite Valley has some wonderful vistas, the area measures a mere seven miles long and a mile wide. There are some practical limits to how many truly different views the valley can contain. I would venture to guess that most people recognize El Capitan, Yosemite Falls, or Half Dome.
Compare this to the rest of the Sierra Nevada. The sheer geographic expanse of the mountain range, which stretches for hundreds of miles, means that I have an easier time finding scenes that neither I nor my audience have ever seen before. It can sometimes be far easier to create new and meaningful work free from the expectations set by someone else’s photographs.
With these tangled questions of artistic vision in mind, I set out for several days in the park in November 2024. For both creative reasons and a reluctance to tussle with crowds of tourists, I had actively avoided visiting the valley in the preceding twelve months. In any case, I decided to change my style. Instead of shooting broad landscapes, I focused instead on smaller, more focused photos—particularly of fall color. Part of this was dictated by circumstances. After all, the waterfalls had long since run dry this late into the year, but this type of photography would also slow me down and force me to look more closely at my surroundings.
Though Yosemite Valley is not generally known for its fall color, parts of it show a surprising number of red, orange, and yellow trees come autumn. Most of my success came as I stopped at several spots along the Merced River, where leaves collected along its banks and eddies.
Fallen Leaves in the Merced River, Yosemite National Park
Nikon F4 with 80-200mm lens; Kodak Ektar 100
Bed of Fallen Leaves in the Merced River, Yosemite National Park
Nikon F4 with 80-200mm lens; Kodak Ektar 100
Reflections of an Oak Tree With Fall Colors, Yosemite Valley
Nikon F4 with 35mm lens; Kodak Ektar 100
Canopy of Bigleaf Maple, Yosemite Valley
Nikon F4 with 80-200mm lens; Kodak Ektar 100
Oak Leaves in Autumn Sunlight, Yosemite Valley
Nikon F4 with 80-200mm lens; Kodak Ektar 100
For the two photos below, I hiked along the river some distance from the road, looking for standout trees with yellow or orange leaves. I found a few, but they stood on the other side of the river. Instead of photographing them directly with my telephoto lens, I tilted my camera down towards their reflection in the river. The water’s surface glistened and bobbed in the light breeze. I took a cue from Claude Monet’s Water Lilies, his collection of impressionistic oil paintings depicting flowers in his home garden. I clicked the shutter right away instead of waiting for the wind to die down. The results were indeed impressionistic, so much so that when I saw the film I could not tell whether or not the pictures were in focus.
Impressions of Fall Color in the Merced River, Yosemite National Park (I)
Nikon F4 with 80-200mm lens; Kodak Ektar 100
Impressions of Fall Color in the Merced River, Yosemite National Park (II)
Nikon F4 with 80-200mm lens; Kodak Ektar 100
My second visit came about much more unexpectedly. I found myself just two hours from the park after picking up some Galen and Barbara Rowell framed prints from someone who lived nearby. Rather than go directly home, I detoured to spend a few hours in the valley. I arrived at the right time of the year to see the dogwood blossoms.
I could not help but think of William Neill’s collection of dogwood photos and his ability to find and frame small scenes. Suitably inspired, I drove around Yosemite Valley, telephoto lens in hand, looking for signs of flowers. Though it was easy enough to find dogwoods all along the Merced River, framing them in a cohesive shot proved far trickier than expected. Arrangements that seemed to make sense to my eyes fell apart once I framed them in a photograph.
Dogwoods Above the Merced River, Yosemite Valley
Nikon Z7 with 80-400mm lens
Some ideas appeared to work best when I focused on one singular subject—like the long exposure below of the Merced River, swollen with spring melt.
Ripples of the Merced River in Spring, Yosemite Valley
Nikon Z7 with 80-400mm lens
In other instances, I found success when I embraced the chaos, as with the next scene where I picked out some white dogwood blossoms amidst a solid wall of green.
Blooming Dogwoods Above the Forest Floor, Yosemite Valley
Nikon Z7 with 80-400mm lens
Dogwood Blossoms Above a Roaring Merced River, Yosemite Valley
Nikon Z7 with 80-400mm lens with circular polarizer
Though I am now happy with the images from both trips, I must confess that it took me many months of sitting on these photos before I felt confident about them. In the moment, the search for these scenes often felt difficult and frustrating. I would walk along the trails looking for leaves or flowers that piqued my interest, only to find none. During the editing process, I struggled to reconcile my conception of how the photographs should look with the reality of the files in front of me.
I also realize the irony in beginning this essay with my concerns about defining my own personal vision while also talking about how other artists inspired me to photograph these scenes. In my mind, those questions remain unresolved as I continue to work on this Yosemite book. How should my work change (or not) in a place that has become well-defined in the popular imagination? I would be happy to hear your thoughts.
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