The Yosemite Valley is one of the world’s best-known examples of a glacier carved canyon. Its sheer granite walls and flat floor evolved as alpine glaciers moved through the canyon of the Merced River. Today, the Merced still winds its way through the Valley. I use strong contrast in light here to express the change of seasons here by exposing for the leaves and allowing the water to become an abstraction that fills almost half the frame. This creates a negative space area equivalent to a giant arrowhead, pointing to the left at the spot where two diagonals converge. The lower diagonal is made up of the yellowing leaves of autumn, while summer still lingers on the bushes that line the rocks that form the upper diagonal. A faint echo of yellowing autumn leaves can also be seen in the reflection that moves along the river beneath the rocks at the top. Also notice how the light falls on the glacial rock that emerges from the river. It forms a small arrowhead, pointing to that same spot of convergence. When we are photographing a landscape, we must force ourselves to see the forms and shapes produced by contrasting light, and how they effect both composition and meaning.