Sunrise over Yosemite Valley

I recently returned from a short vacation in California with my wife where we visited Yosemite. We had a great time and I got some great photos. My wife was very patient with my photography and I'm very grateful to her for that.

Above is one of my favorite photos from the trip (see it here against a black background). The view of Yosemite Valley from Tunnel View is probably one of the most photographed images of Yosemite. It's a beautiful vista and it's hard to take a bad photo from that location. However, it's also deceptively hard to take a good photo.

One of the things that I've discovered about landscape photography is that skies are very frequently boring. A sure way to ruin a beautiful landscape photo is to fill it with solid blue sky. When the sky is solid blue, my usual solution is to frame the photo without any sky. However, this solution doesn't work with something like Yosemite Valley because much of the interest comes from the peaks surrounding the valley, and you can't capture the peaks without capturing some sky.

We were cursed with clear blue skies for most of our trip to Yosemite, so I had to get creative. In the shot above, you can see that I used the sun to create interest in the sky. When the sun rose just behind Half Dome, it shot of rays of light all over the rim of the valley. The rays of light add interest to an otherwise boring sky. I really like the effect.

Over the next few weeks, I'll share some more of my favorite photos. I'm still processing many of them.