Tree and Half Dome Glacier Point Winter

In the 28 years that I lived in Yosemite, my favorite job was quaffing and manicuring the Yosemite landscape as a snow groomer. My employment was to drive a Pisten Bully snow cat machine and groom the ski runs at Badger Pass leaving perfect courdory snow. I was also the Nordic ski track groomer and part of that duty was to drive the 21 miles round trip on the Glacier Point summer road and set ski tracks for the cross country skiers who wanted to make the journey  to one of the most scenic overlooks in the world. This road is driven by tens-of-thousands of people during the season in which it is snow free from May till about November. Copious amounts of snowfall close it down for the season until springtime sun returns.

Whenever I had to go to Glacier Point, and it was snowing, I would always take my camera and tripod in case a good photographic opportunity would present itself. This particular January storm was a big one and dumped close to three feet of snow by the time it was all over. When I got to Glacier Point the clouds were still socked in but I could tell the storm was breaking up and was over for the most part. The single tree in this image was always present to my vision but Half Dome was still practically invisible. This started to change quickly though right after I arrived and I could see the gentle curving southwest shoulder of the dome start to appear. Very shortly I could see the northwest face appearing and the starkness of the domes shape became much more intriguing.

I was fixated on watching Half Dome make its presence known through the ghostly apparition of  clouds and I had almost forgotten about the single tree. However, in a matter of a few minutes the whole upper part of Half Dome was revealed. and it, and the single tree, were the only things I could see in the gigantic ocean of white clouds that lay in front of me.

Compositionally speaking it was a pretty easy choice to make the placement of the lone tree in the bottom left corner of the frame and the dome in the upper-just-right-of-center part of the viewfinder. That it was an easy compositional choice is evident by the fact that I made only 2 exposures of the same scene. Very soon however the clouds started shifting again and Half Dome disappeared from my sight. It was ok though, because I was working and still had to groom the other half of the Glacier Point road on my ten-mile drive back to Badger Pass Ski Area. I was after all, on the clock and getting paid. This is probably my best selling image of all time.

Nikon FM2 film camera

Nikon 55mm 2.8 Micro lens at f11

Kodachrome 25 slide film

81A filter