About This Picture

This picture was taken from the Western shore of Tenaya Lake, Yosemite National Park in July, 2004.

This picture, and its companion piece, Dusk, Tenaya Lake, were years in the making. During the Winter, this area usually receives heavy snowfall. When the weather warms up as the seasons progress, the lake thaws, the snow melts, and the water level rises. Then as the warm weather continues into Summer, the water slowly evaporates, and the water level falls a fraction of an inch each day. As the water level falls along the gently undulating granite shoreline, the shape of the lake's edge changes each day. Each summer, I came to Tenaya Lake's granite Western shores on many different days, examining the curves of the shore as they'd develop and disappear, looking for the most inspiring curves. As this one was developing, I knew I'd have to make a composition of it.

On this day, I was photographing with a friend. We looked at Tenaya Lake in the early morning, determined that the photographic conditions did not suit us, and drove on toward catching dawn at a nameless set of small lakes I refer to as Upper Teapot Lake and Lower Teapot Lake (because of the tea colored water). After a couple hours of photography, we came back to Tenaya Lake to catch the sun coming over the ridges and first hitting the water. As sometimes happens, the lake started to build up a head of mist in the early morning sun. As we saw the photographic potential we had been waiting for develop before our eyes, we hastened to the spots we had previously scoped out.

Many times, as I have waited along the side of this lake for the sun to come up, I have marvelled at the transformation the new day's sun makes of this scene. One moment the temperature is near freezing, the light is somewhat dim, bluish, and low-contrast, and all is still; the next moment the temperature is warm, the light is bright, warm and contrasty, mist is rising and the breeze begins to blow. I'd wanted to capture this sense of sudden transformation in my composition of the scene, so I did this by using the contrastiness of the landscape, as emphasized by the glassy reflection of shadowy Tresidder Peak, the dazzling reflection of the curved shore's edge, the rising of the glowing mist, and the sun, itself, as well as the flare it caused in my lens. I tried to incorporate all of these into a unified visual expression of my experience.