El Capitan Sundown

El Capitan Sundown

El Capitan, at night, while waiting for Horsetail Falls to turn into fire!

We got to Yosemite around noon and had some time to kill before Horsetail Falls was supposed to turn to fire. We scouted around a couple different locations and finally found our spot of choice. We got back there around 2:30pm and sunset wasn’t until 5:15pm so we had some time to kill. While the sun sets the light moves from left to right across El Capitan. Here you can see a little ”heart shape” made by the light as it hits the east side of El Capitan. In a couple more minutes, once those clouds on the left move away, Horsetail Falls will light up. See my other photos here and here from the fire falls of Horsetail Falls!

Nikon D300s w/Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8G ED-IF AF-S VR:
70mm, f/8, ISO 200, Tripod
HDR composed of 3 images (1/80 sec, 1/160 sec, 1/40 sec), processed in Photomatix Pro and Photoshop

Aaron M Written by:

Aaron Meyers is a landscape and wedding photographer living in Silicon Valley, CA. His love of the outdoors makes for frequent forays into the Californian wilds, where he delights in the stunning vistas of Yosemite National Park, Lake Tahoe, Big Sur, and the Pacific Coast.