Yosemite National Park fine art photograph

Description

Yosemite National Park fine art photograph, Tunnel View

Yosemite National Park, founded on October,1 1890, is on of the crown jewels in the United States national Park system. initially, Yosemite Valley and the famed Mariposa Grove were under the control of the state of California.

John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt near Glacier Point, Yosemite National Park

Poor management of the Yosemite Valley motivated countless environmental pioneers, such as the great John Muir and his Sierra Club to seek further protection for the park.  In 1903, John Muir and President Teddy Roosevelt camped near Glacier Point in Yosemite.

It was a fateful and important camping trip, during which, John Muir convinced Roosevelt and the United States Government to take control of Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove away from the state of California.  In 1906, President Roosevelt signed a bill doing exactly that, protecting those incomparable locations from poor management.

Countless dignitaries have influenced the protection of Yosemite National Park, including, perhaps the most famous landscape photographer of all time, Ansel Adams.  Adams, a tireless worker and self promoter, joined the Sierra club at the age of 27 and served as caretaker of the club’s visitor’s center in Yosemite from 1920-1924.

While Adams may not have been the first to capture the scene at Tunnel view via photograph, he most certainly was the first to popularize the location.  Adams captured countless iconic landscape photographs during his life and he is most certainly one of my strongest influences.

It is his influence which led me to include  Yosemite National Park to the itinerary for a whirlwind California road trip that I took last summer with my daughter, Emma and her buddy, Zoe.  Yosemite was our first stop on the California Road Trip, followed by Big Sur and the California Coast, Carmel and San Francisco.

Our California trip was hurried, scenic, enlightening and eye-opening.  I’ll soon publish a blog entry about the trip which will give an Oregonian’s perspective on California.

In addition to the mesmerizing concept of shooting from the same location as the great Ansel Adams, this new fine art photograph of Yosemite National Park is special because the location is simply stunning!  We arrived at Tunnel View minutes before sunset, where countless visitors watched with rapt interest as I set up my 4×5 film camera and composed the scene. On our way south to Yosemite from Sacramento, we passed near a forest fire which made the air heavy.  As the sun withdrew from the iconic granite faces of El Capitan and Half Dome, the sky began to warm to a rich pink glow due to distant effects of the forest fire we had driven through a couple hours earlier.  The result was stunning!  From left to right, the looming vertical face of El Capitan, the glacially carved Yosemite Valley, the distant and glowing Half Dome, the 617 foot tall Bridal Veil Falls, and the Cathedral Rocks illuminated by a fantastic pink sunset make for a stunning fine art landscape photograph from one of America’s most iconic locations!