I had a shock today. I looked at a webcam in Yosemite to see how bad the water shortage in California affects the valley waterfalls. Click this link to see what shocked me. It is the beginning of July and the falls are almost gone. Yosemite Falls does dry up. I saw it dry in late September once, but not this early. It will be gone completely in a couple of weeks.
Obviously the above photo was not taken recently. I shot it in mid May of 2006 when the snowfall was about 30% above normal. This is Tamarack Creek Falls, located above the valley on the Big Oak Flat Road. If you take that road up from the valley, it is located to the right of the entrance of the first tunnel (or to the left of the third tunnel heading down). As we were heading down, it was my first indication that we were going to see a lot of amazing waterfalls on this trip…and we did! There were so many waterfalls in action, some of which are only seen for a few weeks in the Spring…some of which don’t even have names!
If you are wondering how I got the flowing water to look so silky, here is the secret. First, you need to set your shutter speed to 1/3 or 1/2 second. That slow, of course, required the camera to be absolutely still…which means you need a tripod. As it was a bright day, it was difficult to get a shutter speed that slow. Here is what I did…I set the camera’s ISO to the lowest possible setting (in this case 100). Then closed the shutter down to its smallest opening (in this case f22). It still was not quite enough as it was a very sunny day. So I put a neutral density filter in front of the lens to lower the light levels even more…its like putting a pair of dark sunglasses on the camera. I was finally able to get the shutter speed I wanted and took the shot.
I found the original color image to be somewhat boring…the colors being a distraction…so I converted it to black and white in Photoshop and made some additional adjustments to get the image right where I wanted it. Without the color to distract you, the flow of the water becomes the star of the show, which is what I wanted. Many times, black and white is a better solution than color. And black and white seems so appropriate when shooting in Yosemite. After all, it was where Ansel Adams took some his most amazing images.
If you are familiar with Ansel Adams, you probably think that he did all his images in black and white. And for the most part, you would be right. However, he was hired as an advisor to Kodak’s color film division and did many slide photos in color, using both Ektachrome and Kodachrome slide film. There is a book featuring those photos edited by John P. Schaefer, former President of the University of Arizona here in Tucson. It was he and Ansel Adams who helped create the Center for Creative Photography on the campus. Ansel’s work is stored here, along with many other great photographers.
As a young boy who visited Yosemite almost every summer, I spent a lot of time at Ansel Adams’ Gallery, which is still open today. It was the beginning of a life-long love of photography. If you are ever in the valley, be sure and pay it a visit.
(To see a larger version of this image, just click on it)
To see more of my work, both in photography and digital painting, please visit my website, www.corkrum.com…or visit my Flickr Page
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