Valley view is a very neat place. Standing at the view looks to the east which encompasses most of the valley including El Capitan and Half Dome. It’s a really great view that can be captured many ways. However Wednesday night there wasn’t any clouds, only lots of jetstreams. As i waited for the light to get better and more dramatic, i started walking down the road where there is a stone bridge that crosses the Mercede River. It’s one that i always liked but could never get a good shot of. The bridge is surrounded by trees most of which aren’t that great looking anymore but the water underneath was flowing quite nicely.
I know that the two shots are quite similar except for the addition of more rocks in the lower image, but they both had a little different flavor to them. These rapids were much wider than the ones at Bridalveil Falls, and after getting closeup shots at Bridalveil, i knew that keeping a rock somewhere in a corner made a better composition than in the middle. The nice thing about rapids is that they make such great black and whites. It’s the air bubbles of the rapids that make the whites so interesting. The faster the water, the more curves, the better.
Images captured with Nikon D3, Nikkor AF-S VrII 70-200 f2.8, on Lexar UDMA Digital Film