Finally!

So it turns out that wifi is sparse in the wild and even cell service leaves something to be desire – in retrospect we probably could have anticipated that!  Due to this lack of technological access (and because we have been marathon-shooting, sometimes starting at 3 a.m. without even enough time to download all my images between locations!) I have not been able to fulfill my promise of writing a blog every day, and I apologize for that. However, there will still be a vote for the best screensaver image when I get back!

Despite being constantly on the go, I cannot miss the true beauty of this place! It really is just as breathtaking and inspiring as the brochure says. There is a gorgeous range of color and texture everywhere we go; from the warm lemons and soft sages of the grass, to the hard stark cliffs with their ridges edges, to the crisp violets and blues that explode from of the sky, mountains and water.

Being a portrait photographer, I am almost a fish out of water on this trip! We have been photographing landscape but even the mineral deposits that create stalactite/stalagmites all over look so alive to me and I just keep seeing faces, people and animals in them. There was one that looked like a young girl with her eyes open and she was gorgeous! I was able to photograph her with her arms outstretched into the sun, its beams bouncing off her hair, it was beautiful and I just felt like she captured me! One of these almost made me cry.

We have been working a lot with HDR, which you need 3-5 precision shots from a tripod to complete, however I left my tripods behind to lighten my luggage-load and am borrowing one, but I do miss my equipment. Any movement of my camera, even just a fraction of a millimeter, will completely ruin the shot so I am anxious to start working on my images- a luxury I cannot allow myself now.

We did take a break from shooting to visit the Ansel Adams Gallery here in Yosemite (how could we not?) If you are not familiar with his work you should Google him, he is one of our Great American Photographers, best known for his black and white landscape work in this beautiful place. The museum is open to the public all week but not all of their prints are displayed. There are original Ansel Adams prints (handmade, hand-signed gelatin silver photographs) that are kept in a closed room away from the public. This gallery only has these pieces (some of which are worth nearly $100,000) because of their connection to Tony Corbell who used to work for Hasselblad, a camera manufacturer that Adams used towards the end of his career. We were given the opportunity to see these original prints, which is such a rare sight! Certainly a highlight of my trip.

The images below are just to give you a bit of a tease for what is to come. They were taken on my phone but are all I have been able to get online! Enjoy.

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