On the third night of my visit to Yosemite, a frontal system moved across the park, covering the valley with about four inches of snow. I awoke to a wonderland of vistas: snow covered the trees and meadows, and much of the walls of the valley. Clouds hung low in the valley, offering tantalizing glimpses of the rim of the valley above.
I spent the morning moving around the valley with my 4×5 field camera, making a number of photographs as the clouds began to clear a bit. By late afternoon the sun began to appear in breaks through the clouds, and the temperature rose enough to begin to melt some of the snow from the trees and roads. Expecting some good opportunities for images of the valley, I drove up to Tunnel View at the west end of the park.
Tunnel View is one of the iconic vistas in the park. There is a turnout and parking area before the tunnel, and from that point the whole of the valley is laid out: Bridalveil Fall, El Capitan, Cathedral Rocks to each side, and Half Dome centered in the far distance. The floor of the valley is carpeted in trees, with glimpses here and there of the Merced River as it winds along the valley floor. Interestingly, one has to look very closely to see any evidence of human activity in the valley—a bit of road here, or perhaps a reflection from a car window there, are the only visible evidence of human intrusion into the valley.
The clouds and mist were still low in the valley as I began to set up my tripod and camera, but the sun was beginning to illuminate the high valley walls behind me. As the sun began to sink lower in the late afternoon sky, I was hoping for some sunlight to begin to light up the valley spread before me. Surprisingly, the parking area was nearly empty; only a couple of cars were parked there.
I had finished setting up the camera, and was taking light meter readings, when I heard a car pull into the parking space beside me. Glancing around, I saw two middle-aged women and a younger man climb out of the car, all armed with instamatic film cameras. The man immediately wandered off, but the women began snapping photos of the valley, positioned about ten feet from me. The light had still not materialized; the valley was dark and mostly obscured by clouds. Watching them out of the corner of my eye, I saw one woman nudge the other, and point to my camera and tripod. Slowly they began to edge closer to the camera, until they were standing right next to it. I smiled at them, and then turned back to my light meter. One woman held up her camera to her eye, and snapped a photo. Apparently emboldened by my lack of any reaction, she slowly extended her hands in from of her, her camera pointed toward the valley. As I watched, she moved her hands and the camera to her right, until her camera was about two inches from my lens, still pointed toward the valley. She then pressed the shutter twice in quick succession, and made a beeline for her car. Watching this, her friend smiled apologetically, and turned to follow her friend. Apparently, my camera was in the only perfect spot from which to photograph the valley, and she was bound and determined to capture the same photograph I was going to make
About twenty minutes later, the clouds had begun to lift, and sunlight was starting to illuminate the valley walls in the middle distance. As I was loading my Polaroid back to make a test shot, another car drove up and two young males got out. Unlike the previous visitors, these two came right up to me to ask about the camera and what I was doing. They were students from Germany, and were on an extended trip through the West. At this point the light had begun to get really nice, and I was working quickly to check my exposure and focus. As I separated the layers from the Polaroid film, they crowded around to look over my shoulder at the resulting photo. I laid the print on my photo backpack, and quickly loaded a film holder into the camera. The light was just about perfect, and I made two quick exposures. I was able to make a third exposure before the light began to fail. As this scene was unfolding before them, the students kept a laser-like focus on the Polaroid photo I’d placed to dry on my backpack.
I capped my lens and began to pack my gear. As I did, the two students asked lots of questions about the camera, the film, and the Polaroid. They were so enamored of the Polaroid that I offered to give it to them—after all, they had missed the best light while looking at the test photo. They insisted on paying for the photo, but I asked them instead to put some money in the donation box in the Visitor’s Center instead. There was only one photograph but two of them; I’ve often wondered what became of them, and which one ended up with the photo!