Half Dome and full moon at sunset, Yosemite National Park, California

A couple of photos of the nearly full moon rising above Half Dome in Yosemite National Park.  These shots are from the Ahwahnee Meadow and were taken in March 2010 with snow still covering the higher elevations.  The setting sun cast a bit of an alpenglow on the face of Half Dome in the second photo.

Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story.

Half Dome by half moonlight on a snowy February night

We visited Yosemite Valley to try to capture the "firefall" effect of Horsetail Falls at sunset in mid-February 2019 (pictures of that will be forthcoming).  Afterwards, Bob cross-country skied a lap around Ahwahnee Meadow and noticed that the half moon was lighting up Half Dome in a way that brought it out, while not washing out the stars above it.  He got his tripod and camera and shot these long exposure shots from a corner of the meadow.

While Bob was taking the first photo, the Valley Shuttle bus approached while the shutter was open.  The second photo was without a vehicle approaching.

Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story.

Half Dome and Pacific Dogwood flower

Around May each year the Pacific Dogwood trees bloom in Yosemite National Park.  This image is of Half Dome taken from Ahwahnee Meadow in Yosemite Valley.  Dogwoods were blooming in front of cottages that overlook this meadow, so Bob framed up the shot of Half Dome and then bent a branch of dogwood into the view. The dogwood flower is actually a composite of many smaller flowers combined at the center and large white "leaves" called bracts forming what look like petals around the outside of the central disk.

Bob took two still images with a high definition camcorder.  One shot was of Half Dome in focus with the dogwood flower blurred and the second one was a flash shot with the dogwood blossom in focus and Half Dome blurred.  We then combined those images to produce this final one with everything in focus. The results were better than expected. Because this image was taken with a relatively low resolution camera, we recommend anyone buying this image keep the size at 8x10 or smaller.

Remember, it's not just a photo, it's a story.