photo sharing and upload picture albums photo forums search pictures popular photos photography help login
Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Thirteen: Bringing Fresh Visions to Tired Clichés > Canyon of the Merced from Valley View, Yosemite National Park, California, 2004
previous | next
15-OCT-2004

Canyon of the Merced from Valley View, Yosemite National Park, California, 2004

This image could almost be a “Kodak Moment” or picture postcard. In other words, this image was on its way to becoming just another pretty picture describing a beautiful scene. There is nothing wrong with such an image, of course. But pictures intended primarily as attractive descriptions are not a form of expressive photography. Would it be a cliché? Almost. Pretty of famous sights such as this one are made from the same spot in the same way over and over again. Eventually, such imagery fails to stimulate our imaginations and emotions. So what makes this particular image any different? How do I bring “fresh vision to a tired cliché? The top half of this picture is, indeed, a Kodak moment. On the left, we see 7,500-foot-high El Capitan, one of Yosemite’s most famous landmarks, in all of its pristine beauty, shot with a 24mm wideangle lens to add the context of the surrounding forests and cliffs. It’s the bottom half of the picture that departs from expectations, and involves what I feel is a fresh vision. I make sure that the Merced River, with its predictable reflection of El Capitan, is underexposed. I turn this river into a hauntingly dark channel, taking up almost half of the image. I position myself so that rocks break up the reflection of El Capitan, suggesting it, but not defining it. This image now becomes one with a split personality. The top is predictable, but the bottom is not. It challenges the imagination, conveys the sense of mystery, and yes, even suggests the possibility of tragedy that has always surrounded El Capitan, a rock-climbers dream. I must have had a premonition. Just a few days later, two El Capitan climbers would perish as an early fall blizzard swept through Yosemite.

Canon PowerShot G6
1/1000s f/4.0 at 7.2mm full exif

other sizes: small medium large original auto
share
Phil Douglis05-Apr-2005 18:39
Hi, Mik, and thanks for this perceptive comment. I included the upper half of the image as a contrasting context for the bottom half. If I had taken your advice and shifted my camera down to include only the bottom half, it would be very similar in concept to my other reflection pictures athttp://www.pbase.com/pnd1/image/35601773 andhttp://www.pbase.com/pnd1/image/35601778 . The whole point of including the upper part of this picture here is to first offer a conventional view and then alter it with the highly abstracted reflection the lower half of the image. It is this "compare and contrast" aspect of this image that makes it work as expression, and carry it beyond the cliche postcard view.
Guest 05-Apr-2005 08:53
Phil, there's one thing I don't understand about this picture. If the bottom half is what you wanted to show, why would you frame it with the uppper half? To me, it would be less distracting to see only the sunlit rocks leading to the reflection of El Capitan. I would have shifted my camera down.
Phil Douglis30-Oct-2004 05:49
Thanks Anna for this valuable comment. I am glad you made the connection between the sense of menace (it could also be mysterious) conveyed by that black water strewn with piles of rocks as a symbol of unknown dangers. Yosemite is at once the most beautiful of places and most dangerous of places. In the last few years tens of thousands have seen nature at its best, but as I said, some have also died tragically. I am glad that your daughter has so far thrived on the sport of rock climbing. It a sport that develops strength, courage, skill, team work and self confidence, but it can also be a very dangerous activity.
Anna Yu30-Oct-2004 00:42
The dark foreground is rather menacing, the thin strip of sunlight on the rocks a good way of breaking up the blackness and showing some detail. I think this way you have made a point about the danger in the rocks that make such a beautiful scene. My daughter spent 6 weeks last summer there, rockclimbing (much against my advice), luckily she came home in one piece.
Phil Douglis29-Oct-2004 20:50
You are not old fashioned at all, Ray. You just have a different purpose in mind for the picture than I do. And that is what makes expressive photography such a wonderful medium.
Phil
Guest 29-Oct-2004 15:53
Phil,

Call me old fashioned, but I would like to see more light on the river. I feel that a grad ND or exposure blending would benefit you greatly here. I guess I'm just a purist. :-)

Ray
Type your message and click Add Comment
It is best to login or register first but you may post as a guest.
Enter an optional name and contact email address. Name
Name Email
help private comment