After leaving Yosemite Falls we were heading back towards the bus stop and noticed the clouds started looking pretty billowy, like thunderheads, so we decided it would be the perfect night to shoot the sun setting on Half Dome from the spectacular view point that is Glacier Point.
We grabbed some snacks from our backpacks and hit the road. We decided to waive dinner until after we got back from watching the sun set which ended up being at about 8:30 pm. The road going in was pretty scary in places because there wasn't much in the way of a shoulder and the drop off was pretty darned significant...like several thousand feet.
John might have thought I was doing pretty well, but I was white knuckling it the entire way. That was exponentially increased on the way back when it was dark. Thankfully everyone on the road back must have felt the same because people were actually driving rather slowly and cautiously.
All the stress was worth it though because the sun set was pretty incredible. While we were there more and more people showed up reminding me why it is so important, as a photographer, to get there early - you get the best spot! I had a front row position to the left of the placard with the most amazing view and a seriously frightening drop off over the railing. While we were enjoying the setting sun a park ranger came and gave a cool speech about the area and his history as a ranger followed by a question and answer session.
As I mentioned we basically skipped dinner and drove back in the dark pretty famished. When we returned we passed the B&B and headed straight for Carl's Jr. in town. Now, I love a good Western Bacon Cheeseburger from Carl's, and I hadn't had one in forever , but never in my life did one of them taste so good as that night!! Amazing what starvation does for the taste buds!!
Ok, this one (and ones that look similar) bear some explanation. I decided to use my graduated warming filter for the majority of these which, as it turns out was not the best idea I have ever had because as you can see it really makes everything look kind of weird, at least to me. Lesson learned. At least I got some non-filtered shots and was also able to convert some to black and white.
This one I just dialed down the red and yellow sliders in photoshop so it kind of salvaged it a little.
This shot is actually looking to the far left (west) of Half Dome at Yosemite Falls. The rocks jutting out in the left of the picture are this overhang and made me really queasy thinking about climbing onto, but as you can see from the picture below apparently people back then didn't fear because they stood out there in full dress and had their pictures snapped. I cannot emphasize enough how frightening the thought of standing unharnessed on this precipice was!!
Day is done, gone the sun, out with the moon, time for a Western Bacon Cheeseburger!!
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