El Capitan and Tree in the Merced River

Over the course of a few weeks in February, 2001, I journeyed out of my warm apartment and  into the cold morning air along the Merced River in the vicinity of the Cathedral Rocks. This particular area gives a nice view looking north at the fabled El Capitan. The first of the three-or-four times I visited this location during this particular period, I noticed a downed tree submerged in the frigid water of the river and marveled at the snow that covered it as it really stood out and I was immediately drawn to its shape as a compositional device in its diagonal relationship to the east/west top of the El Capitan formation. This dead tree reminded me of a fish that had been de-fleshed, and all that was left was the spine and the ribs.

The basic idea of how to use the tree in conjunction with El Cap came easily and I set about to make an image that would satisfy me and do justice to the grand scene that lay at the river’s edge. However, the first few times I shot this scene over the course of a few weeks, I never got the great lighting or clouds that would make this photograph truly special.

The cold weather, especially along the shady south side of Yosemite Valley at the river’s edge, kept the snow intact on the tree in the river and every time I visited it looked virtually the same. After many visits to this spot over those weeks I think I started to lose thought about this particular setup as I was always out looking at and photographing at many other locations.

Then, one day after a morning ski session at Badger Pass Ski Area, I made my way back home. As soon as I hit the valley floor near Bridalveil Fall I started to notice the fair weather cumulous clouds that were east of me. These cumulous were the special kind that are slightly bulbous in shape and resemble cotton balls. It’s pretty rare to get this exact shape cumulous cloud in the west end of Yosemite Valley and I have rarely witnessed them in the twenty eight plus years of living in the park.

El Capitan loomed largely on my left as I drove east on Southside Drive and I could see that the clouds were almost directly over the top it. I immediately had to keep myself calm as I thought about the particular composition I had been trying to make in the previous weeks and how these wonderful clouds would fit into that scenario. To say that I made a bee-line to the riverbank location would be an understatement as I skidded into an icy turnout on the side of the road, parked my truck, grabbed my 70 pound camera bag with tripod, which luckily I had with me, and ran the two hundred-or-so yards through a foot of snow on the forest floor.

I arrived at the rivers edges huffing, puffing, and perspiring profusely! I was very anxious and totally nervous that the clouds would dissipate before I got a chance to set up my gear and make my photograph. This was a supremely fortuitous convergence and I desperately wanted to capture the moment. Luckily I had been to this spot so many times before that I knew exactly where to set up my tripod and which lens I was going to use. I had no doubt about the exact framing of the composition and I wasted no time in assembling everything needed to shoot. I chose my 20-35mm f2.8 as it was the widest angle lens I owned at the time and I needed every bit of that coverage to fit everything into the frame. I also needed a 3 stop split neutral graduated density filter as the bottom half of the photo was in deep shade and El Capitan is 3000 feet above on the sunny side of the valley and the scenes exposure latitude was way beyond my films ability to contain detail and proper exposure from highlight to shadow.

The beautiful clouds stayed over El Capitan long enough for me to make about 15 exposures. Whenever I used a graduated filter I would bracket shots to insure that I got the best exposure possible. The clouds were moving eastward during the time I was making photographs and within five to six minutes had moved to the right of the frame enough to leave a big blue gap right over the top middle of the frame and thereby ending my requirements for the right composition.

I was fairly confident at that point that I got the image I desired and I was very happy to have witnessed such a wonderful scene in the silence of the valley next to the river. Another rare, and fortuitous thing happened in that there were absolutely no cars parked along the edge of the road at El Capitan Meadow which is right in the middle of the photograph; a rare occurrence indeed.

The one disappointment I had with this image is that I was not planning on photographing on this day and consequently did not have my usual film of choice which was Fuji Velvia 50. Instead, I only had rolls of Kodak 100VS slide film which I was sort of experimenting with at the time. The “VS” designation stands for “very saturated” and it is a film that renders vivid colors like they are on steroids. This film rendered the blue of the sky in way that was freakishly overwrought for my tastes. I also found that that film did not render pure white tones in a way I found neutral or pleasing. Film is the palette in which the photographer paints and I gave up on this particular brand of film after only a short time of trying it.

Still though, I am lucky I had any film at all and that I had my camera gear with me even though I planned to do no photography that day. If I had come across this scene, under these particular circumstances and not had my gear, I believe I might have thrown a major temper tantrum and then wept like a child.

Nikon F5 film camera

Nikon 20-35mm f2.8 zoom lens

Singh Ray 3 stop soft step graduated neutral density filter

Kodak Ektachrome 100 VS slide film