Photograph: Spring Cascade, Tioga Pass Road

Spring Cascade, Tioga Pass Road

Posted on 23 June 2011

Spring Cascade, Tioga Pass Road

A seasonal stream cascades over a granite ledge along Tioga Pass Road, Yosemite National Park.

This small cascade is one of hundreds seen along Tioga Pass Road on June 18 this year, the day the park service opened the road for the season. The opening date was later than usual due to the heavy snowpack, and there was water everywhere as the snow melt accelerated in the late spring weather. It was almost embarrassingly easy to find and photograph these subjects – this one was right next to the roadway.

This is part of a larger cascade, out of view to the right, that flows off the top of a granite area and drops quickly across granite cliffs. Here the water strikes a slanting ledge and bits of spray explode almost like Fourth of July fireworks. Obviously, the somewhat unusually long shutter speed was selected with this effect in mind. The reddish plants to the left, just beginning to come back to life after the long winter, hint at the early date in the season.

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Category: Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite
Tags: 120, blur, bush, cascade, cliff, creek, fall, granite, green, growth, highway, landscape, ledge, lichen, melt, mist, Mountain, national, nature, nevada, new, park, pass, photo, plant, range, red, road, roadside, rocks, runoff, seasonal, sierra, spray, spring, stock, stream, tioga, water, yosemite

4 comments to Spring Cascade, Tioga Pass Road

Michael Frye

says:

June 23, 2011 at 9:51 am

Very nice Dan! A different take on an often-photographed subject. I like the repeating patterns – the two triangular cascades, the two bushes, plus the diagonal line of the rock creates other triangles.

G Dan Mitchell

says:

June 23, 2011 at 1:49 pm

Michael, I’m glad you like it. It is certainly a bit of an unusual composition – There are two of the red bushes, right along the left frame edge, and two of the cascades along the right edge. In a sense the image is vaguely symmetrical between top and bottom, with the exception of the diagonal edge of sunlit rock in the middle. It can also be seen as dividing in half where the left is plants and rock and the far right is cascades. The bit of splashing water and spray steps out of all of these symmetries a bit. And the main cascade is only partially within the frame – perhaps that suggests the presence of other things outside the frame?

In a sense, both halves (left and right) are “active.” Obviously, there is a lot of moving energy in the falling water on the right side. But the branches extending into the frame from the left accomplish something similar for me. Another oddity: the verticals on the right and the horizontals on the left.

I think that thin diagonal line of light on the rock ledge is what helps to somehow hold the whole mess together! ;-)

I haven’t quite gotten my mind around this image yet, but I think I like it.

I also have a more conventionally composed shot of this scene in landscape orientation. Perhaps I’ll share that one at some point, too.

Take care,

Dan

TIm Parkin

says:

June 24, 2011 at 10:15 am

Very busy at the moment but I had to comment on this – wonderful photograph and those repeating bushes and broken cascade work very, very well… I love it..

G Dan Mitchell

says:

June 24, 2011 at 10:41 am

Thanks, Tim! (Hope it is the good kind of “busy” for you!)

Dan