In the Moment:
Michael Frye's Landscape Photography Blog
by Michael Frye | Feb 13, 2013 | Yosemite Photo Conditions
Horsetail Fall and clouds on a March afternoon, Yosemite NP, CA, USA
I’m happy to be up and running after dealing with some computer issues, and can give you a quick report on Horsetail Fall. During a private workshop on Monday I had a chance to check out the water flow. I’d say it’s a little below average for mid-February, but definitely better than last year. Despite six weeks of mostly dry weather there’s still some snow on top of El Capitan to feed the waterfall, and temperatures are supposed to rise a bit this week, which should help melt that snow and increase the water volume.
The window of best light for Horsetail Fall starts this weekend and lasts about a week to ten days. If our dry spell continues we should see some clear skies at sunset during that time — an essential requirement for the Horsetail light show. But the long-range forecast calls for precipitation next Tuesday and Wednesday, so we’ll see.
As a reminder, I’ll be at the reception for my exhibit at The Ansel Adams Gallery this Saturday from noon to 2:00 p.m., and also at the Yosemite Renaissance opening reception the following Friday, February 22nd, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the Yosemite Museum. I hope to see you at one of those events if you’re in the area!
— Michael Frye
Related Posts: Horsetail Fall Questions; The Best Time to Photograph Horsetail Fall, Revised
Michael Frye is a professional photographer specializing in landscapes and nature. He is the author and photographer of The Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite, Yosemite Meditations, and Digital Landscape Photography: In the Footsteps of Ansel Adams and the Great Masters, plus the eBooks Light & Land: Landscapes in the Digital Darkroom, and Exposure for Outdoor Photography. He has written numerous magazine articles on the art and technique of photography, and his images have been published in over thirty countries around the world. Michael has lived either in or near Yosemite National Park since 1983, currently residing just outside the park in Mariposa, California.
by Michael Frye | Jan 31, 2013 | Yosemite Photo Conditions
Low water, but ideal light on Horsetail Fall, February 20th, 2012
It’s almost February, so naturally I’ve been getting a lot of questions about Horsetail Fall. My thoughts about the best time to photograph Horsetail haven’t changed since I wrote this post last year: basically it’s February 16th to 23rd, or maybe a little beyond that.
This window was confirmed by my observations in 2012. There wasn’t much water in the fall last year, but we had a string of clear days, which allowed me to closely watch the light, and I think that February 16th to 23rd window is about right. You can, of course, take good photographs before or after that window; I’m talking about ideal light.
That ideal light requires clear skies to the west at sunset, something no one can predict at this point. And for good photographs the waterfall has to be flowing. Overall we’ve had a lot more rain and snow than last year, and Horsetail is flowing now. January, however, has been pretty dry, and there’s no precipitation in the forecast until at least next Wednesday. I think Horsetail will have more water this year than last, regardless of what happens over the next couple of weeks, but it would be nice to get some more snow on top of El Capitan soon to help feed Horsetail.
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by Michael Frye | Jan 23, 2013 | Composition, Vision and Creativity
El Capitan and the Merced River, autumn, Yosemite NP, CA, USA
Depth can be a powerful tool in photography. Our medium is two-dimensional, but a sense of depth, an illusion of space and distance, can make the viewer feel like part of the scene, and literally and figuratively add another dimension to a photograph.
A Common Formula
This image of El Capitan follows a common formula for creating a three-dimensional effect in landscape photographs: find an interesting foreground (preferably with some leading lines), get the camera low and close to that foreground, and use a wide-angle lens.
A wide-angle lens by itself can’t create a sense of depth. Wide-angle lenses make things look smaller, and therefore more distant, but if everything looks small and distant there’s no sense of depth. The 3-D effect only happens when you put the wide-angle lens close to something in the foreground. That proximity makes the foreground look big, but things in the background still look small. The optics create an exaggerated size difference between near and far objects, and our brains interpret that as depth and distance.
This wide-angle, near-far look is common today, but it wasn’t always so. Though he wasn’t the first to use this perspective, master landscape photographer David Muench popularized this technique through his many beautiful books, and a lot of people have followed his lead.
But this look has become so popular that I think landscape photographers have stopped looking for other ways to create a sense of depth, and by doing that we’ve limited our options. We owe it to ourselves and our viewers to explore other paths, and create images with depth and meaning that go beyond this one formula.
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by Michael Frye | Jan 14, 2013 | Announcements, Workshops
Aspen grove, late afternoon, Lee Vining Canyon, Inyo NF, CA, USA
If you’re not subscribed to my email list you missed the announcement of my Eastern Sierra Fall Color: Composition and Creativity Among the Aspens workshop next fall. We had such a great response to this offering that it sold out the first day! But the good news is that we decided to run a second edition of this course from October 20-23, 2013, and there are still a few spots available.
I made the accompanying photograph during the first edition of this workshop last October. We photographed this aspen grove late in the afternoon as the lowering sun backlit the yellow leaves. This was my favorite image from that spot, but I saw many interesting, unusual compositions by everyone else that afternoon, both on the back of people’s cameras and later during image reviews. You can see some of the participant’s photographs in this Flickr group.
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by Michael Frye | Jan 13, 2013 | Announcements
Yosemite Meditations for Women
My wife Claudia and I just got an advance copy of our new book, Yosemite Meditations for Women, published by Yosemite Conservancy. Claudia did a wonderful job of editing this — finding quotes, pairing them with photographs, and getting permissions from the authors. I’ll let you know when it’s available — it should be sometime next month!
— Michael Frye
by Michael Frye | Jan 5, 2013 | Announcements
The polls are closed, the votes are in, and here are my top ten photographs of 2012!
I thought last year’s response was amazing, but this year it was even better: 240 people looked through my initial selection of 50 images and posted their picks here on the blog, Facebook, Google+, and by email. A big thank you to all of you who took the time to look through these photographs and voice your opinions — I really appreciate your help with this! And thanks also to my wonderful assistant Claudia who tallied the votes.
To express our gratitude to all of you we’ve decided to give away another print to one of the voters. We assigned each person who voted a number, and used a random number generator to pick the recipient. And the winner is… Frank Field! Frank will receive a signed, numbered, matted 16×20 print of his choice from among the 50 original selections. Congratulations Frank!
So here’s the list of the ten images which received the most picks, and the number of votes they each received:
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by Michael Frye | Jan 1, 2013 | Announcements
Happy New Year! To all my readers, thank you so much for your readership, support, and participation during the last year. I really appreciate how so many of you have taken time out of your busy schedules to read this blog and write thoughtful comments. I look forward to another great year in 2013!
It’s becoming a New Year’s tradition on this blog to pick out my best images from the past year, and once again I’m inviting you to help make these difficult choices. I’ve posted 50 of my best photographs from 2012 below, and after you look through these please post a comment listing your ten favorites. (Click on the images to see them larger.) Once the votes are in I’ll put the top ten or twelve on this blog, and submit the finalists to Jim Goldstein’s blog project, where he’ll be showcasing the best images of the year from over 100 photographers. The voting deadline is Friday, January 4th at midnight Pacific time.
As always I reserve the right to override the votes if one of my favorites gets panned. But I have yet to exercise this power — the last two years I thought your choices were so good I just went with the votes.
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by Michael Frye | Dec 31, 2012 | Announcements
Three Brothers reflected in the Merced River on a moonlit night, Yosemite NP, CA, USA
It was 1985 — I think. My fiancé Claudia and I had started working at The Ansel Adams Gallery in Yosemite Valley in September. On New Year’s Eve it snowed, but after dark the storm broke, and a full moon appeared through rifts in the clouds.
Someone suggested going cross-country skiing in the moonlight. With a few co-workers from the gallery and other valley friends we gathered our ski equipment and headed out to the Ahwahnee Meadow. There were nine of us altogether (I only know that because a snapshot of the group has survived). Most of the group weren’t experienced skiers, and I remember a lot of flailing and falling while we were trying to cross a ditch in the meadow.
Then someone had the brilliant idea of skiing to Mirror Lake, about two miles away. In our youthful exuberance and folly we all thought this sounded great. We skied out past the Ahwahnee Hotel and along the old roads that lead to the lake. At one point Claudia, myself, and a few others got behind the rest of the group, only to be ambushed by snowballs as we entered a stand of trees.
We eventually made it to Mirror Lake around midnight. None of us thought to bring any champagne, but it didn’t matter — we were quite happy anyway, and thought it was a fitting way to greet the new year.
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by Michael Frye | Dec 24, 2012 | Announcements
Ponderosa pines at sunset after a snowstorm, Yosemite NP, CA, USA
Claudia and I are visiting family in southern California. It’s raining outside while we play Scrabble and Taboo and watch movies. I hope all of you are warm and safe, enjoying the beauty of the season and the company of family and friends. To all who celebrate it, I wish you a very Merry Christmas!
— Michael Frye
by Michael Frye | Dec 13, 2012 | Composition, Critiques
“Winter Mist Rising Beneath Half Dome,” by Vaibhav Tripathi
Here’s another long-awaited installment in my photo critique series. This time we’ll look at a photograph by Vaibhav Tripathi called “Winter Mist Rising Beneath Half Dome,” from my home territory, Yosemite National Park. It’s an interesting study in composition, and directing the viewer’s eye.
Light and Weather
The light is soft — no direct sunlight anywhere. Soft light is great for intimate scenes, but big, sweeping landscapes like this usually need sunlight to create contrast and keep the photograph from looking flat. Yet there’s actually a beautiful quality to the light here. This was made at dusk, and there’s a hint of alpenglow illuminating Half Dome, some blue in the sky, and of course the mist in the middle ground. The upper half of the photograph in particular has a luminous quality, and there’s a quiet, misty, mystical mood to the image. I also like the subtle hues and the warm-cool color contrast.
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