Vernal Falls, taken from the mist trail. Yosemite falls dries out to a trickle in the summer, but Vernal and Nevada falls keep on flowing. You can hike up to the base of vernal falls, to a foot bridge, easily enough. Then comes the crazy part, where you hike up 700 feet in 0.2 miles-all straight up steps cut into the rock. My cousin bounded up lightly and my husband wasn't too far behind, but I was struggling. Puffing and panting like I was 20 years older than I am.
Anyway, every time I take a picture in Yosemite, I think of Ansel Adams hauling his large format camera and photographic plates up all these paths. He may have had a mule, but other than that, it was just him. And photographic plates-he had one shot. One, and on a metal plate.
Needless to say, my pictures cannot even approach his pictures, and I used a Canon digital Rebel, that my husband carried because I couldn't. I love Yosemite though, and one of my dearest goals is to photograph it in ways that it hasn't been already (not that this counts). These days, being too sincere is definitely not acceptable, and nothing is or should be sacred. The thing is, Yosemite makes me feel sincere.
