the FIVE-STAR PROJECT [3].

# 3 | Tenaya Lake, Yosemite National Park, California [2006]

Canon G2, 1/200th sec, f/8.0, ISO 50, 21mm (100mm @ 35mm equivalent)

This was made on Jeff's and my second annual autumn holiday, back in 2006 (on our first, we explored Utah's Monument Valley and Goosenecks of the San Juan River, then drove through the San Juan range of southwest Colorado). On this second trip, I drove overnight from Seattle south to pick him up at the Sacramento Airport, and onto Yosemite National Park and the eastern Sierra. It was on this trip where I learned one of the most valuable lessons of photography, and this image, really, is the only one I cherish.

We spent three days in the park, camping at Tamarack Flats and visiting all of the iconic viewpoints. In anticipation, I had read Michael Frye's book The Photographer's Guide to Yosemite and had in mind all of the images I wanted to make using an old Mamiya RB67. And I shot them all, picture-perfect.

Upon returning home, I excitedly developed all the rolls of film to realize, ultimately and instantly, my utter failure.

Maybe it was because these were all of the iconic views of Yosemite, which, each and every one, had already been photographed millions of times by thousands of photographers much better than I. Maybe it was because I had a pre-conceived notion in my mind about how and what I wanted to photograph, leaving no room for the unexpected, the magical, the spontaneous. But whatever the reason, my resolve after seeing the films was absolute: I sold the Mamiya in disgust, then shoved all of my remaining camera gear into a dark recess, both literally and figuratively, and vowed I was finished with photography. Done.

But this one print survived; I don't know why.

It was shot right off the side of the road, just a short walk from the parking lot at Olmsted Point. I made it on both a single frame of 6x7cm film as well as the little sensor inside the G2 (at the time, I shot them side-by-side). Maybe it's the shadows on the trees in the foreground. Maybe the sliver of Tenaya Lake that's seen from this angle. Maybe the clouds, hiding Mount Conness from view, and the light and shadow across the granite.

I still have the original darkroom print made from the negative, matted and stored safely in a box, tucked up in the attic. Every so often, I pull it out and stare at it, every detail. Eventually, I found solace in this image, and in the words of Edward Abbey, who wrote. as if to remind me in my sheer disappointment, 'Our job is to record, each in his own way, this world of light and shadow and time that will never come again exactly as it is today.'

Five stars.