Posts Tagged Oak
Win a few, lose a few
Posted by Doug Otto in Photography, Random Thoughts on November 23, 2009
Click to Enlarge
Last week brought what looked like a promising weather forecast for Yosemite. The first report had an 80% chance of precipitation and a snow level of 6,000 feet. By Friday morning, the forecast had changed to 100% chance of precipitation and a 5,000 foot snow level. Yosemite valley is just a touch over 4,000 feet so snow in the valley was still a long shot but at least there would be some interesting weather. All of this could only mean one thing: road trip!
(As I often do on short notice I made a reservation at Curry Village for Friday night. Since Curry village consists almost entirely of unheated tent cabins there are often rooms available in winter. While cots and blankets are provided, the trick to staying at Curry is to bring a warm sleeping bag. If you visit the park often, Curry is a great way to save some money as long as you can handle the no frills accommodations.)
Friday afternoon, clouds started to roll in but the storm never really materialized. Sunrise on Saturday morning greeted us with bright blue skies without a cloud for miles. There had been some rain over night but only patchy snow at the higher elevations. I knew that it was a gamble but I also knew that there was a 100% chance that I wouldn’t see snow if I’d stayed home. All in all, any day spent in Yosemite beats working around the house.
I snapped this shot of some black oaks on our way out of the park. This trip was the maiden voyage for my Canon 7D but I ended taking only a couple dozen shots. There will be other opportunities and I’m pretty sure that I’ll get to see more blank blue skies in Yosemite.
Cheers
Fire and life
Posted by Doug Otto in Photography on July 6, 2009
Click to Enlarge
Fire in Yosemite, or just about any other wild place, is a fact of life. Lightning and fire is natures way of taking out the trash. In our urbanized culture we see fire as a destroyer of life and property. In nature, while there is loss of life, fire is a birth process. The problem with our perception is that we operate on a different time scale than most of what we see around us. For the trees in the forest our little ~80 year life span is just a blink.
I spent a couple of days in Yosemite just prior to the Independence Day holiday. There are, as of this post, two wildfires burning in the park. While I rarely venture into the valley during the summer because of the crowds, I do still appreciate the view. Friday afternoon my wife and I hiked out to Dewey Point to have lunch. There was so much smoke that Half Dome was only a faint grey outline. It was still a good hike but it would have been nicer with a view to reward us.
I took this image a couple of years ago. It was from a stretch of Highway 41, North of the Glacier point road. The area had been burned, roughly a decade ago, but in that short length of time was already bursting with new growth. I’d driven by the area several times thinking, to myself, that there was a picture hiding there somewhere. The sky was grey, from some management fires in the valley, so I choose to exclude it. What struck me was the contrast of color. The green undergrowth, the yellow of the Elm, the gold of the Oak, the bright pink of the Dogwood all contrasted against the stark grey and black of the, still standing, burned forest. Color vs monochrome. Life vs death. Read the rest of this entry »
- Binary Emulsion on FacebookVisit my gallery to see more of my images.Binary Emulsion Gallery
Get Filter Calc for your iPhone or Touch.
Back up your computer, before you wish you had. I use it and you can try it free for 15 days.
