388 - Tunnel View
And just like that we woke up for sunrise. This time, we were at the infamous "Tunnel View" of Yosemite... But the moment I showed up, I knew it was gonna be a difficult shoot.
Which is strange, because you'd think this location's photo would pretty much take itself. If you look at Google Images of Tunnel View, you'll see that it's an overlook of the entire Yosemite park from just above the trees. Not exactly looking down on it, but not on the ground. The perfect eye level view.
Except today there wasn't a single cloud, Bridalveil Falls had dried up, and it was extremely smoky from forest fires. Three problems to solve for this shoot...
If you're going to capture any kind of distance in your image with smoke, you can basically say goodbye to detail and contrast. So I knew going in I needed to focus on the softness. The good thing is empty skies can sometimes fix themselves with warm gradient tones from smoke, so that could work out... But I still had the problem of an ugly, dried up waterfall in the main right corner.
Hmmm... I could edit one in, but I also will probably come back to Yosemite in the future, because I actually really want to see the water in person. So I'm going to take raincheck on that for now...
The sun began to peak out at this point. Well, I guess I'll just ride this out and see what happens. A few moments later, the sunlight hit the peak of El Capitan, making it look like a giant, one-eyed giant. It was beyond awesome. And I knew what my composition had to be:
I loved the layers in the backdrop, so I underexposed HEAVILY, knowing the Sony ar7III would be able to pull the details out later. I needed those skies to be correctly exposed, or the shot wouldn't work.
Another reason I was drawn to El Capital was because of the film, Free Solo. Alex Honnold climbed El Capital without ANY ropes, and it's something that still baffles my mind to this day. Maybe it's because I'm absolutely terrified of heights, but my brain can't comprehend how a human can accomplish this.
Especially being there in person, seeing the wall. It's one thing to watch the movie Free Solo, but it's another thing to see the monstrosity right in front of you.
Just absolutely batshit fucking insane.
Alright, alright, well that's all I got for this shoot. I'm a little behind on my edits because I partied too hard this week with Jordan, so I need to catch up before the next week of photoshoots starts. Next up... Sentinel DOME BABY!
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