Photo Of The Day By Jeff Harshaw

Today’s Photo Of The Day is “Olmsted Point Sunset” by Jeff Harshaw. Location: Yosemite National Park, California.

“I had gone up to Bridgeport earlier that morning to try to get a shot for my dad, and as I was driving back down the US 395, I began to think about where I was going to go for my sunset shot,” explains Harshaw. “Now if you’re familiar with the east side of the Sierra Nevada mountains you know sunsets on that side can be dicey due to the mountains being backlit by the light of the setting sun. As I go near Mono Lake I noticed that clouds were starting to form up over the Sierra crest and I thought to myself, ‘If these clouds hold, we could have a beautiful sunset.’

“Now I started going through the different places I could go to get the shot I saw forming in my mind’s eye. Then it hit me and I knew exactly where I wanted to go and what shot, lens and focal length I wanted. So I headed up into Tioga Pass, the east entrance to Yosemite National Park and headed to the spot I had in mind. I got there early enough that I could map out the shot, pick the spot I wanted to shoot from, cross-checked my focal length to make sure it was what I wanted and once I did that, I went back to my car and took a nice nap, no point in being sleepy when the show started.

One hour later, I woke up and my hunch had proven correct, we had a glorious sunset and the face of Half Dome was glowing from the light of the setting sun. All my hunch of how the light and the clouds had proven to be correct. I had chosen my place wisely and had gotten the shot I had seen through my mind’s eye. Yosemite has so many great places to see and photograph, sometimes though you need to think outside the valley and remember there are other great places to see inside the park.”

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