yosemite

I remember when we moved here in 2015, I said to myself “I can’t wait to go to Yosemite and Ansel Adam’s my way through it!”Almost nine years later, I finally went and it did not disappoint. Let me start by saying I recognize I am no Ansel Adams. I wouldn’t even be able to take an image on the type of camera he shot with. That said, I love landscape photography and tried my best to capture images that resembled his. Honestly, I think it’s almost impossible to take a bad picture in Yosemite, it’s just that beautiful. Since I haven’t really acknowledged the obvious, I have a boyfriend. His name is Olivier and he is a really great human, we went together to celebrate his birthday. Olivier has like 47 cameras (kidding), all film, so we nerded out and tried our best not to completely ruin his film… the jury is still out on that. If you get the opportunity to check out the park, do it, it’s amazing. Here are some of my favorite images from our time there, I hope you enjoy them.

Please don’t use any of my images without permission, reach out.

Tunnel view is probably the most iconic vista in the park. We were lucky, during the winter it’s not very busy in Yosemite. I’ve read this lookout is packed during the summer. I’m not a big fan of crowds, I’d happily trade jockeying for a place to set up a shot with clouds and drizzle. I like the moody feel the weather gave my images, I prefer mood in images.

When I tell you we were here for two hours, I’m not exaggerating. Neither of us knew what the hell we were doing.

Yosemite Chapel. I had to stop for this cute, cute.

El Capitan. The ENTIRE first day, Olivier and I kept saying “I think that’s El Capitan,” to everything. I don’t know why it was so hard for us to orient ourselves, but it was. Everything in the park is larger than life, it’s hard to put into words the enormity of these giant granite rocks.

Horsetail falls. There is a window towards the end of February when the setting Sun hits this waterfall turning it into what looks like fire or lava…you get the picture (click on the link I shared to see it). The conditions have to be perfect to capture it, I bet it’s amazing to see in person.

Half Dome. We hiked to see Half Dome the last day we were there. You can see this dome from different parts of the park, but we decided to view it from Mirror Lake. This time of year, most of the areas to hike were closed, so we were limited to only a couple ways to view it. Fine by me, I’m not trying to climb these or go on a 20 mile hike, I was happy with our 4 mile hike/walk. I loved this day.

Thanks for spending the time looking at this. I absolutely loved our time in Yosemite, I’m now on a quest to visit more National Parks. I’mma John Muir my way across this country. Where else should we go? I have Zion stuck in my brain…