No sunlight hitting the plain yet.
Just after the sun hit the plain.
Erratics and Lake Evelyn at first light.
Glacial Erratic Boulders at First Light, Cathedral Range, Yosemite 10328 ft.
Glacial Erratic Boulders and Rocks, at First Light in The Cathedral Range, Yosemite National Park.
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The high plateau below the Cathedral Range Peaks is filled with erratic boulders left when the glaciers receded eons ago. Each jewell like lake is in it’s own tiny moraine and sometimes the moraines seem to stack up above one another. Ireland Lake is just to the east of Evelyn Lake and there are at least four or five more tiny lakes within a day’s hike. Each little habitat has it’s own, unique character; and this one near Evelyn Lake seems to be defined by gazillions of erractics.
About 35 years ago I came here and spent a long night listening to the frogs that live in one of the tiny lakes nearby. I’ve never seen or heard so many frogs and I’ve never laughed so hard in my life. It must have been mating season or something like that. We’d make a lame attempt at a croaking frog sound and then an entire chorus of frogs would kick in. The conversation was deafening! Then they’d go quiet and we’d start over. This year we saw hundreds of tiny tadpoles so I bet in a
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in this magical high plain will really be rockin again pretty soon (no pun intended).
Anyway, as you can see, the opportunity for compositional studies is endless. I’ve got to come back soon. Once the sun broke the horizon I was running just trying to photograph all the designs I was seeing in my mind’s eye. My style is deeply rooted in drawing with graphite on paper and later in Zone System Black & White techniques made famous by Ansel Adams, Minor White and a host of other geniuses so I tend to lean strongly towards “seeing” in Black & White. Although I miss film, hand processing and printing large format film in the darkroom, I have to admit it’s a gas experimenting with image and tonal options in the “digital darkroom”. I used to consume massive amounts of coffee to keep me going during long, late night darkroom sessions; and, that’s a tradition I’ve kept alive!There’s still a lot more to come.
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