This is the first time that i’ve posted a picture of half-dome where there is land visible all around it. See usually what you see above half-dome is sky. I spent a few minutes looking around on google images and flickr and i could only come up with a couple.

The reason for this is because this is the first time i’ve hiked all of my gear up above 10,000 feet. (As a disclaimer we only hiked about 2 miles probably in total to get up there but at 10,000 feet medium format cameras are pretty heavy!) The tip of half-dome is at about 8800 feet. There are only a couple of places in the park that are up higher than that and they all are way off in the back-country in the Tuolumne area. Fortunately one of those points is above May Lake where we were staying.

The light was pretty tough – it was late afternoon, the sun was starting to set and there was a lot of moisture in the air. To complicate matters it was cold and windy up on top of the barren hill. With the help of a red filter, my only (slightly) haze-cutting option and waiting for the wind to subside i was able to get something that worked. (i think.)

Over the course of the past several years i – like many others – have taken quite a few pictures of half-dome… in fact i looked around it it looks like i’ve published a few of them on this site:

May 2007
September 2005
September 2005
September 2005
April 2005 (digital… yikes!)

On a side note – if you wouldn’t mind taking a few seconds and voting for eBokeh – here – i’d appreciate it.