Fern Springs, in the far west portion of Yosemite Valley, is often referred to as Yosemite’s smallest waterfall. As you can see, it is exactly that. The water comes from an underground spring and is fed into a small pond, then flows out of the pond and heads to the nearby Merced River.
It is a pure underground spring, meaning it is perfectly drinkable. Several time while photographing here, cars stopped to come over and fill their water jugs…as did I. The spring mountain water here is better than any water you buy in stores and just as healthy. I wish I would have brought more containers to fill before I headed home.
Getting to Fern Springs could not be easier. When you come into the valley either on Highway 120 or 140 (they join up), the two-way highway turns into a one-way road. At the split, the road crosses Pohono Bridge (more on that in a future blog) then makes a quick jog to left, then right. There, you will find Fern Spring just sitting there waiting for you, your camera, and your water containers.
As you might guess, this is an HDR enhanced photo. I used only 4 exposures to make this image instead of the usual 5. The last exposure was so blown out it wasn’t needed. I used a slow shutter speed to obtain the silky texture of the water. A few enhancements were added in Photoshop to complete the image. I must say I do like the way it turned out.
Back in February of this year, I wrote about Fern Springs and showed you a photo I took a couple of years ago in Autumn. At that times, the plethora of autumn leaves in the water were the dominant theme and the waterfalls were just a trickle. Not so in spring. All of Yosemite’s waterfalls are always changing.
Look for more HDR images from my Yosemite trip coming your way here soon.
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