© All Rights Reserved

Tunnel View - Yosemite National Park, California

Explored on 10/16/2014. Thanks for the visits, comments and faves.

Tags:   Yosemite Yosemite National Park national parks sunset sunrise Half Dome Tunnel View landscape granite rocks trees Yosemite Valley Nikon D600 scenic colorful clouds sentinel rock sentinel dome

© All Rights Reserved

My first attempt at shooting the Milky Way. This shot was taken from Glacier Point. Unfortunately, from my vantage point, the Milky Way was not ideally positioned over Half Dome or any of the other granite formations overlooking the valley as I had hoped. Instead, the best shot was over the tall pines and oaks behind the overlook. Nevertheless, I still like how this shot turned out. One thing that I did not realize was just how big the full Milky Way is. This shot only shows about half of the Milky Way. I also did not realize just how long it would take to process this shot, which required significant work with curves and masks, which I typically do not use. Due primarily to my own learning curve, I spent about 3 hours trying to get this right. Would appreciate any comments, suggestions, etc.

Tags:   Yosemite Yosemite National Park National Park California Stars Milky Way Night Long Exposure Moon Trees Pines Glacier Point Nikon NikonD600 Rokinon 14mm wide angle

© All Rights Reserved

Half Dome and the "Diving Board" viewed from Glacier Point
Yosemite National Park, CA.

A new attempt to process an old shot from a 2014 trip to Yosemite. Admittedly, this is a composite. Unfortunately, the sky was cloud free and very unappealing as taken. While I am not typically a fan of replacing skies, this shot certainly benefits from the addition. While replacing a sky is not too difficult in and of itself, doing it correctly is much tougher as there is quite a bit of refinement to the mask to ensure that there are no visible artifacts or ghosting that would detract from the shot and scream out that its a composite. It is also very important not to use just any old replacement sky. Instead, the replacement sky must match the color and tonality of the original or the picture just won't look natural. I think this one works pretty well.

Whether your a fan of composites or not, this exercise allowed me to practice some new blending and masking techniques that will be able to put into use when blending bracketed exposures (and hopefully improve upon past efforts). I hope you like the shot(s) and as always, thanks for visiting.

Tags:   Yosemite National Park Yosemite National Park Rock Formations Rock Half Dome Diving Board Glacier Point JMK/Photography Landscape Landscape Photography Beautiful Nature Sky Sun Sunset Mountain granite California

© All Rights Reserved

Giant Sequoia, Mariposa Grove, Yosemite National Park

Although a great many photographers seem do it very successufully (for example, check out some great work by DKNC ), I've always struggled to take interesting shots of trees and/or plant life in the forest. Im not sure whether its due to the "clutter" created by surrounding vegetation and debris or if I am simply unable, creatively speaking, to "see the forest through the trees." Nevertheless, I decided to go back through some old shots from a 2014 trip to Yosemite and give it another try. I like this one better than my numerous other attempts, though it is still lightyears behind those of many of the photographers that I follow.

As always, thanks for taking a look and for any comments!

Tags:   Yosemite Yosemite National Park Tree Sequoas Sequoia Giant Sequoia Trees JMK/Photography Landscape Landscape Photography Beautiful Forest National Park Green Bark California Light and Shadow Nikon Nikon D600 Nikon 16-35mm

© All Rights Reserved