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.
