In April of 2000, I attended a banking conference in San Diego. I tacked on another 5 days of personal time to travel up to Yosemite to see the very full waterfalls that occur in April from all the snowmelt. The waterfalls did not disappoint, but the weather sure did.

I had booked what I thought was a room in Curry Village, but it turned out to be a tent cabin, essentially a large tent raised up on a platform. Not what I had packed for and given the weather outlook for cold and rain, I was very fortunate to be able to move to a Yosemite Lodge cabin that they somehow had available.

That proved to be one of the best decisions of my life. For 4 straight days and nights, the skies dumped heavy rains upon the valley. I was unwilling to give up on my visit as I've always felt that the worst day in Yosemite is still better than the best day just about anywhere else. Despite feeling wet and miserable, rain does wonderful things to the landscape and braving it can produce moody, contemplative images. I had the right GoreTex jacket, but just jeans for the bottom half. I'd shoot for a couple of hours, get totally soaked, come back in to my cabin and spread out my clothes over the radiators to dry them out. Then back out in the rain, rinse and repeat. I could never have done this for 4 straight days staying in the Curry Village tent cabins.

As for this photograph, I made the image along the rushing Merced River near the base of Bridalveil Fall. The heavy overcast and steady rain made for a long exposure, especially since I was using a large 8x10 view camera. The water flowing over the rocks was rendered silky smooth. I had a number of adjustments to make in the exposure and development of the negative due to the filter used and reciprocity failure of the long exposure (see notes below).

Zone VI Cherrywood 8x10 View Camera, Rodenstock 360mm f/6.8, Kodak TXP 4164 Film, EI 320Low values (EV 7 2/3) placed on Zone III, High Values fell on Zone VI, Wratten Gel #11 filter, Indicated exposure 1 sec @ f/51, adjusted to 3 sec @ f/51 for 1.5X filter factor, adjusted to 9 sec @ f/51 for reciprocity failure. The development plan was originally N, adjusted to N-1 for reciprocity failure, HC-100, Dil. B, Gitzo 1349 Mountaineer Carbon Fiber Tripod, Gitzo G1276 Ballhead, Pentax Zone VI modified Digital Spot Meter