"Turn Around & Say Good Morning To The Night"

El Capitan And The Sunset Storm — Yosemite Valley

I was not much of an Elton John fan early in his career, but that changed over time. And on this evening standing at Tahiti Beach in Yosemite National Park, I watched the dull afternoon give way to an approaching storm behind El Capitan and the setting sun. And I was reminded of these lyrics from Mona Lisas & Mad Hatters.

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El Capitan seen again, in completely different conditions: El Capitan emerging from morning mist — the same monolith in a different light

Another view of the valley in late light: El Capitan and the Merced River at late afternoon

Another of Yosemite's fire-and-light events: Horsetail Fall — Not Exactly Yosemite's Legendary Firefall

Fine Art Yosemite Valley Photography Print

Provenance: Phase One XT | IQ4.150 | Rodenstock 32mm

Bonum Mane Noctis: El Cap Sunset

Greg titled this image "Bonum Mane Noctis" — the good morning of the night — a name that understands sunset not as an ending but as the moment just before a different kind of light begins. El Capitan's summit catches the last direct sun of the day in a color that has no useful name between gold and orange, while the valley floor below it has already moved into shadow — two separate light conditions separated by a few hundred vertical feet of granite. The image was made from El Capitan Meadow, the camera on a tripod, waiting for the color on the summit to intensify in the last minutes of direct illumination. The meadow itself was already dark when the shutter opened.