I’ve just added several images to the following galleries: Just Color, Trees-Monochrome, Europe-Monochrome, Abstracts, Yosemite-Color, and Yosemite-Monochrome. Please visit these galleries. Also, over the past few months I have added images to my other galleries so I hope you will visit and enjoy those as well.

In January I drove up to Yosemite for a day of photography. On the way I was treated to a spectacular sunrise. Unfortunately, it lit up shortly after leaving Oakdale in the area where there is no safe place to pull over, find a foreground, set up and photograph the colorful scene. The colors only lasted a short four or five minutes before the clouds started to fade from bright colors of red, orange, and purple hues into a dull uninteresting grey.

Icicles at Crane Flat, Yosemite National Park, California

After reaching the Yosemite boundary and putting on chains I drove to Crane Flat and spent the rest of the morning photographing around the area where the Tioga Road is closed for the winter. The snow from previous storms measured around five feet. The weather was clear and cold when I started to photograph. As the sun hit the trees the snow blanketing the limbs and needles started to melt and form icicles. The icicles were nicely backlit by the sun. With just the blue in the sky and minimal green in the trees, I knew that I wanted to make the final image a monochrome image.

Bowing to the Others, Crane Flat, Yosemite National Park, California

After photographing snow laden trees and an area where long shadows offered some lovely textures, I drove down to the Yosemite Valley and spent the rest of the day photographing around Bridalveil Falls, the creek below it, and my favorite meadow below El Capitan. Atmospheric conditions didn’t produce a sunset, but it was a long trip home which included two detours due to road construction and a big rig accident that snarled traffic for miles.