Lichen on Rocks, Yosemite National Park

Lichen on Rocks, Yosemite National Park

Visiting Yosemite in March, I had no idea how much of the park would be accessible. With Tioga Pass and Glacier Point Road being close, you're essentially limited to the Yosemite Valley and the trails originating there. We got a tip that the Four-Mile Trail was open a fair ways up the valley rim - not the full 3200ft up to Glacier Point, but a large part of the distance.

So we decided to tackle what we could of the trail (it's been on the to-do list for a while now), though we only made it about half way before we decided the snow covering the path had gotten to be too much. Not long after beginning our ascent, my wife pointed out this small pile of boulders covered in bright yellow lichen (I had passed them by without noticing already). I took this one photo, and upon reviewing my shots afterwards quite liked it.

I did not have to do any work on the color in post-processing, but spent a little extra time trying to get the lighting balanced just right. I burned in a subtle vignette to help drive the focus to the boulders, and tried to keep contrast appropriate for the flat light the scene was in. I quite like the end result, but I'm not sure if it's too simple overall. With such grand vistas in Yosemite, I tend to overlook the little things like this.

Nikon D90 | Nikon 18-200VR@40mm | f/8 | 1/40s | ISO400 | Handheld

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