Olmsted Point, Dusk, Yosemite National Park - Tyler Westcott Photography

Olmsted Point, Dusk, Yosemite National Park

As the weather is turning cool and trees are shedding leaves, it's beginning to feel like my opportunities to shoot are becoming limited, and it's time to turn back to my archives from a relatively productive summer of shooting, and catch up on photos that I have missed.

Early in the summer I photographed Yosemite with three friends over the course of about five days. With the unusual combination of a snowy winter and late melt, Tioga Road opened up just days prior to our own arrival, and just in time to allow us to visit Olmsted Point. Despite five previous visits to Yosemite, I had never been to this well-known spot, but I loved its wonderful perspectives. On our first evening in the park, we returned to this spot to take in the sunset which was, itself, mostly uneventful. I was more drawn to the changes seen in the clouds after the sun had set, as seen here.

I did relatively modest processing with the final image, mostly the usual contrast and color balancing. At the end I added a saturation adjustment and desaturated the entire image somewhat. Although I was initially drawn to the deep sky blues and magenta clouds, it was also looking artificial to me. In the end I prefer the more subtle hues I ended up with here, and think I will prefer it over time.

As this was taken early in summer, large pockets of snow still appear on Half Dome. About one month later I was back and climbing Half Dome with my wife in 100 degree (F) weather without a trace of that snow remaining. It is so much more satisfying to look at these images now and recall standing there myself.

Go to Yosemite!

Nikon D90 | Nikon 50mm f/1.8 | f/9 | 1/8s | ISO200 | Tripod

See more related images in my Yosemite National Park Gallery.

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