The Beauty Of Color Or The Power Of Black And White

This post is more about the totality of my adventure in Yosemite National Park than it is about a single day in the park. The beauty of Yosemite National Park is not only in the color of the park and the strength presented by the granite cliffs and falling water. It is the feeling that you get when you let yourself to be immersed with what surrounds you.

The renowned photographer Ansel Adams did just that. He left an everlasting history of what he saw and wanted to save for not only the people of America but the people of the whole world. I, by no means, attempt to compare myself to Ansel Adams. What I will attempt to do is follow his lead and capture similar scenes as he did. I marvel at the beauty that he captured in black and white photos. On this day it was cloudy, and I looked at some of the scenes with a view of converting them to black and white. Not all the scenes worked for me in black and white, but a few did.

When I loaded the image into my post processing software (Adobe Lightroom) I converted them to black and white and then to enhance the strength of the clouds I used the graduated filter in Adobe Lightroom and pulled from the top down. This made the clouds stand out. Don’t take me wrong, there are scenes that are better in color. I have captured some images of Yosemite Falls in both color and black and white. I like the color images but the same scene in black and white seems to capture the power and majesty of the falls. I hope that you can see what I mean when you look at them.