Featured Image - Crowned Dome
haymest | July 5, 2009This is another image from my Yosemite expedition and is yet another example of the amazing light of that place. As a photographer, I’ve become a student of light and that helps me recognize the different colors that nature is likely to provide to me. One of the advantages of specializing is that you can really focus on what works in your areas of expertise. I don’t do much flash photography and so I generally resist attempts to get me to do weddings, portraits, or other studio work in general. This is because that kind of photography demands a completely different kind of eye and expertise than the architectural/landscape photography that I do pursue.
Another advantage I have is that I live in a place that is visually far less exciting than Yosemite. Light and the sky are the main things going for Katy, Texas, photographically speaking. Therefore, I am always looking for an opportunity to exploit those. When I do get the opportunity to shoot somewhere that is visually stunning like Yosemite or West Texas (or even Houston) I take those skills with me and can maximize my efforts in the limited time I have to spend there.
In this case, I was doubly lucky in that Yosemite offered me a great set of vistas in the 12 hours I was actually in the park. The weather was as close to perfect as I could have asked for and I was treated to visually exciting vistas such as this one. This cloud actually sat on the top of Half Dome for over an hour. I first spotted it at dinnertime but I was in a much more difficult shooting location at that time. I did shoot an image at that time but the combination of the warmer lighting and greater freedom in framing the shot made this the stronger of the two shots. However, I trace of the success of this image to knowing exactly how to visualize the shot with the developing light and that comes from my years of shooting light in places like Katy.

















