The Generals Highway

The Generals Highway — Sequoia, Kings Canyon, and the Sierra Nevada

The Generals Highway connects State Route 180 and State Route 198 through Sequoia National Park, Sequoia National Forest, Giant Sequoia National Monument, and Kings Canyon National Park in the Sierra Nevada of California. This stretch is shortly before arrival at the Giant Forest Grove and Museum.

This image took its time. I arrived early in the morning, and set up two cameras: the Phase with the IQ4.150 digital back and Rodenstock 32mm lens,  and the Arca-Swiss Field Metric 8x10, using Provia film. I had hoped I would get streams of light through the trees. Eventually, I did, but not at first. And only after abandoning my spot for about 15 minutes as something of decent size moved about in the trees—having your head under a dark cloth while you're focused on the ground glass of a large format field camera is a very vulnerable feeling—but eventually, whatever that was moved on. And eventually, these images revealed themselves.

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Provenance: Phase One XT • Rodenstock 32mm

Fine Art Sequoia and Kings Canyon Photography Prints

Giant sequoias along Generals Highway, Sequoia National Park, California: General Highway I in portrait aspect and Generals Highway II in landscape view.

The Generals Highway II
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The Generals Highway II

Generals Highway threads through Kings Canyon National Park between trees whose base circumferences exceed the width of the road itself — a detail that becomes visible in this vertical composition, which frames the full height of the sequoias from root buttress to canopy in a single image. The vertical format is the right choice here: a horizontal composition can hold the forest, but only a vertical one captures the experience of standing in it, the sense of looking up and finding that the trees do not stop. These trees are between 1,500 and 3,000 years old — they were old when the road was built, old when the park was established, old before California was a concept. Made on medium format, the image captures the full depth from near-ground shadow to illuminated canopy without compression.

The horizontal panorama of Generals Highway offers what the vertical cannot: the full sweep of the Sierra Nevada sequoia forest
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The Generals Highway I

The horizontal prospect of Generals Highway offers a different perspective from the vertical view, with the emphasis on the human experience of traveling through the forest, dappled light falling across trees of varying sizes and ages, the highway a gray ribbon through an ecosystem that predates it by millennia. The dappled light in this image arrives in the late morning, when the canopy gaps permit direct sun to reach the forest floor.