Steal the Scene from Liberty Cap – Year of Yosemite (YOY) – Day 232

Liberty Cap

Liberty Cap seen from Glacier Point

Yesterday’s post discussed how some Yosemite features “suffer” from comparison to the more iconic and more easily recognizable sights of the national park. It is hard to be located adjacent Half Dome and try to draw attention to yourself.

This photo demonstrates the “location conundrum.” While Liberty Cap is located near the center of the photograph, Half Dome pulls our attention to the left of the frame and perhaps another pull comes from the waterfalls on the right.

Liberty Cap is trying to make a statement and avoid “blending in.”

 
Do you have a question about our visit to Yosemite? Ask it in the comment section.

 

JBRish.com originally published this post
*All photographs Copyright by Jeffrey B. Ross with all rights reserved.

 
See previous Year of Yosemite (YOY) posts HERE. If you want to read the introduction to the YOY series, CLICK HERE.

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Meta Data – Day 232 YOY – Year of Yosemite

File Name: 0281.CR2
Capture time: 3:02:25 PM
Capture date: June 6, 2016
Exposure: 1/400 sec @ f/6.3
Focal Length: 4.3.5mm
ISO 100
Canon PowerShot SX50 HS

 

STATUS QUOtes — 20170228

Today’s STATUS QUOtes

 

“The course of true love never did run smooth.” — William Shakespeare

“People are trying to be smart — all I am trying to do is not to be idiotic, but it’s harder than most people think.” — Charlie Munger, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway

“We can help the unable, but not the unwilling.” — Chaitanya Charan

“I believe in luck: how else can you explain the success of those you dislike?” — Jean Cocteau

 

JBRish.com originally published this post

See previous STATUS QUOtes HERE

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Liberty Cap – Year of Yosemite (YOY) – Day 231

Lizard on the Taft Point Trail

Liberty Cap Mountain and Nevada Falls

Let’s be honest. If I asked you to name the major attractions at Yosemite, would you refer to the mountain in the photo above? This is a massive granite mountain just north of Nevada Fall.

I am willing to wager that many visitors to Glacier Point, the overlook from where this photo was taken, skip over this feature because it tends to be overshadowed by Half Dome, even further to the north (not in the photo). When the water is flowing, Vernal and Nevada Falls also draw attention away from the surrounding mountains, hills, etc. and grab the spotlight. This large feature becomes an unknown co-star for most visitors.

I had never heard of Liberty Cap before out trip to Yosemite and I think most people would share that sentiment as well. A good number probably would not be able to recall it even after visiting Yosemite. That is one of the reasons I love photography. My record is saved for posterity and, if necessary, a Liberty Cap memory jog!

 
Do you have a question about our visit to Yosemite? Ask it in the comment section.

 

JBRish.com originally published this post
*All photographs Copyright by Jeffrey B. Ross with all rights reserved.

 
See previous Year of Yosemite (YOY) posts HERE. If you want to read the introduction to the YOY series, CLICK HERE.

***********************************

Meta Data – Day 231 YOY – Year of Yosemite

File Name: 0285.CR2
Capture time: 3:05:52 PM
Capture date: June 6, 2016
Exposure: 1/400 sec @ f/6.3
Focal Length: 17.5mm
ISO 100
Canon PowerShot SX50 HS

 

STATUS QUOtes — 20170227

Today’s STATUS QUOtes

 
“You had dreams before you had memories.” — John Koenig

“Real worth requires no interpreter; its everyday deeds form its blazonry.” — Nicolas Chamfort

“A joyful life is an individual creation that cannot be copied from a recipe.” — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

“We have the power to bore people long after we are dead.” — Sinclair Lewis, American novelist

 

JBRish.com originally published this post

See previous STATUS QUOtes HERE

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Lizard Tail on the Trail – Year of Yosemite (YOY) – Day 230

Lizard on the Taft Point Trail

Lizard along the Taft Point Trail

This was the second lizard of this type that we saw as we hiked along the Taft Point Trail. We passed one on the way to the point and this specimen showed up as we were on the way back to the parking area.

Interestingly enough, we saw both in the same area which was muddy from recent rains. As you can see, the shutter speed was a bit slow and the movement of his hind leg is blurred.

NOTE: In the YOY Day 38 post, we had a picture of a Sierra Fence Lizard taken during our Taft Point Trail hike and this appears to be the same species. This particular lizard looks as though he is regenerating a new tail which might have been torn off during an escape.

 
Do you have a question about our visit to Yosemite? Ask it in the comment section.

 

JBRish.com originally published this post
*All photographs Copyright by Jeffrey B. Ross with all rights reserved.

 
See previous Year of Yosemite (YOY) posts HERE. If you want to read the introduction to the YOY series, CLICK HERE.

***********************************

Meta Data – Day 230 YOY – Year of Yosemite

File Name: 0389.CR2
Capture time: 2:21:37 PM
Capture date: June 10, 2016
Exposure: 1/250 sec @ f/8.0
Focal Length: 108mm
ISO 125
Canon PowerShot SX50 HS

 

STATUS QUOtes — 20170226

Today’s STATUS QUOtes

 

“Everyone is more or less mad on one point.” — Rudyard Kipling

“It is easier to produce ten volumes of philosophical writing than to put one principle into practice.” — Leo Tolstoy

“Work while they sleep. Learn while they party. Save while they spend. Live like they dream.” — Unknown

“Nature never makes any blunders, when she makes a fool she means it.” — Archibald Alexander

 

JBRish.com originally published this post

See previous STATUS QUOtes HERE

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JPEGs from Drab to Fab – Maybe

Full Disclosure: I am not a professional photographer. I like photography and it is a hobby. I am not an expert in either photography or post processing. Putting that aside, I do enjoy trying to capture the best photographs I can and to make them look as nice as possible using Adobe’s Lightroom and Google’s Nik Collection.

I didn’t have anything approaching a “real” DSLR until last year when I purchased a Nikon D3300. I was going to rent some Fuji gear, but it was less expensive at that time to make an outright purchase of the D3300. We were planning our trip to Yosemite National Park and the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California. I wasn’t ready to spend a couple of thousand dollars on camera equipment; at least not yet.

I currently own three cameras:

  • Canon PowerShot AS590 IS – This Camera is many years old, but keeps on ticking. It has been my companion whenever I go on a photographic expedition. It has an 8.0 megapixel CCD with 4x optical image-stabilized zoom.
  • Canon PowerShot SX50 HS – I purchased this camera for two reasons: 1) I wanted to see if I would enjoy shooting in the RAW format and doing post processing and 2) I wanted a camera with a lot of reach. This has a 50x optical zoom lens which, as Canon claims, goes from 24mm to 1200mm (35 mm equivalent). This is a step up from the AS590 above with 12.1 megapixels and it has helped with my bird identification hobby.
  • Nikon D3300 – This is my newest camera and comes closer to the full DSLR experience. I do enjoy this camera and I am still learning how to harness the full potential. It has a 24.2 Megapixel DX-format sensor and it came with the 18-55mm kit lens. It did as well as I expected during our trip to Bishop, CA and Yosemite National Park.

With the above out of the way, let me just say that I have a lot of fun turning images from “drab to fab” using Lightroom with Googles’s Nik Collection and doing some intermediate post processing. Let’s just look at one example from my least advanced camera, the Canon AS590.

We were hiking in Utah and on the way home, we stopped at the Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument. It was a very gray day with rain threatening. The only camera I owned was my little Canon that was three years old at the time.

Assessing the weather we were having, we knew we had little time to explore so we parked the car on the side of one of the named trails, the Toadstool Trail, and began to walk toward several beautiful rock formations.

The toadstools are rock pillars with larger flatish rocks on top of them. Thus they look like (abstractly) toadstools. Below is one of the photographs that I took that day.

Unprocessed photo of the toadstoolsThis JPEG photograph was taken with an AS590 IS and is unprocessed

Understand that this is a JPG only image. It is straight out of camera (SOOC). If you read many of the punditori, they will tell you that there is not much that can be done with post processing and a JPG image and that may be true, but “not much” doesn’t mean that nothing can be done.

I upload all my images to Lightroom (LR) because it is a good cataloguing tool. When done correctly, it is easy to organize and then find any given photograph you have taken. I follow blogs of photographers who have hundreds of thousands of images indexed in LR. I have less than 10,000 photos in my LR catalog, but I am working on it.

When I took the photo above, the rocks appeared to have more red tones in them and there was much more contrast in the clouds. Unfortunately, my camera could not render all the nuances my eye was seeing. Although this is a JPEG image, I decided to process it as I would my RAW images.

This is the final image after doing some work in LR. This is closer to what I remember seeing. I have enhanced the colors and contrast, but that’s what I want…a more beautiful photograph.

Processed photograph of the toadstoolsThis is the same photograph as the one above with post processing done in Lightroom

It is hard to compare the two photographs above when they are separated by the narrative. Although this will not provide much detail, the set of smaller images below should impart the basic idea.


Side by side Comparison of the two images aboveThis is a side-by-side comparison of the two images above

So…what do you think? Don’t you feel the photograph on the right is a more beautiful landscape than the shot on the left? Leave a comment or ask a question in the comment section.

 

JBRish.com originally published this post
All photographs are Copyright by Jeffrey B. Ross with ALL Rights Reserved

See previous Photography posts HERE

Leaving Taft Point – Year of Yosemite (YOY) – Day 229

Looking back leaving Taft Point

Looking back towards Taft Point as we head back to the trailhead

After spending time soaking in the magnificent views offered to visitors at Taft Point, it was time to head back to the trailhead and parking area. As we made our way past the fissures, we took one last look back at the scene.

We had quite a day taking in valley views from both Glacier Point and Taft Point. These were adventures we will never forget!

 
Do you have a question about our visit to Yosemite? Ask it in the comment section.

 

JBRish.com originally published this post
*All photographs Copyright by Jeffrey B. Ross with all rights reserved.

 
See previous Year of Yosemite (YOY) posts HERE. If you want to read the introduction to the YOY series, CLICK HERE.

***********************************

Meta Data – Day 229 YOY – Year of Yosemite

File Name: 3568.JPG
Capture time: 2:08:45 PM
Capture date: June 9, 2016
Exposure: 1/60 sec @ f/18
Focal Length: 38mm
ISO 100
Nikon D3300

 

STATUS QUOtes — 20170225

Today’s STATUS QUOtes

 

“Love and a cough cannot be hid.” — George Herbert

“You can’t lose what you never had, you cant keep what’s not yours, and you can’t hold on to something that doesn’t want to stay.” — Damon Suede, Bad Idea

“A trophy carries dust. Memories last forever.” — Mary Lou Retton

“Vegetables are interesting but lack a sense of purpose when unaccompanied by a good cut of meat.” — Fran Lebowitz

 

JBRish.com originally published this post

See previous STATUS QUOtes HERE

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