Tuesday - July 11, 2006

Back in March we signed up for a Yosemite photography workshop through the Ansel Adams Gallery. The workshop was being given by Michael Frye, a professional photographer who had lived in Yosemite for 20 years and had published a popular photography book on Yosemite. The workshop required participants to be in good physical condition since there would be some hiking involved in getting to some exceptionally photogenic places in the park. Sounded perfect to us!

Around 2pm on the 11th we loaded up the car and headed for the mountains. We took Rick's car so we'd have more room to spread out. We took along our new Garmin Nuvi 350 to give it a good road test before our Europe trip in October. Traffic was pretty heavy through Pleasanton but eased up once we passed Stockton and drove into the foothills. Once we entered Yosemite we still had about 2 hours driving; we were headed to the far side of the park.

Yosemite is spectacular to drive through. Around every turn there's another huge granite mountain, a forest of trees or a green meadow. It was really awesome!

We arrived in Lee Vining just before 7pm and checked in at Murphey's Motel. Lee Vining is at the very eastern edge of California, almost due East of San Francisco, and sits overlooking Mono Lake. Our room was very nice and included a kitchen area, which would prove very useful during the week. We walked a few doors down to Bodie Mike's Grill where we had not so great chicken sandwiches. Then we headed back to the room and watched a bit of a movie before going to sleep.

  • The Crew
  • Tuolomne Meadow
  • Randy
  • Rick

Wednesday - July 12, 2006

In the morning we drove over to the Mono Inn. It's owned by Sarah Adams, Ansel Adams' Granddaughter. There we met our fellow classmates: Erin, Ed, Alicia and Schafer, Joss, Will and his son Paul and our instructor Michael and his assistant Hugh. They all seemed really nice and eager for the week.

Michael went over the agenda for the week and then we started to go through 8 or so pictures that each person brought to show their work. There were some very good and interesting photos, some in color and some in black and white.

  • Rick
  • Tuolumne River
  • Randy

When it was time to break for lunch we were told that the Whoa Nellie Deli at the Mobil station up the road was the place to go. We were a bit skeptical, but we decided to give it a try. We were very pleasantly surprised to find that it was run by a professional chef who had moved to the area from San Diego and set up shop. The entrees included seared ahi tuna, lobster taquitos and a delicious chicken caesar wrap. There were lots of delicious choices, which is why we ate there for breakfast and lunch for the rest of the week!

        At 2:30pm we all met in front of Murphey's, piled into three cars and headed for the park. We drove to near Tuolumne Meadow and parked. Then we put on our backpacks and headed into the woods. After about a mile hike we arrived at a large meadow surrounded by the Tuolumne River. We spent about an hour taking pictures there before moving to the river itself. Then we walked along the river, taking pictures in several different spots. Randy broke out his tripod and tried some long exposures which looked very cool.

        Trail Map

        We made it back to the cars around 8:30 and back to the motel around 9:15. We downloaded pictures and looked at them and then went to sleep.