I finally did it, I have lived in California for 4 and 1/2 years and finally went to Yosemite!   We have been meaning to go to Yosemite for a while now but hadn’t got around to it.  Last Friday we made it a point.  The route… Santa Clara to Yosemite, crash for the night, wake up, hit Yosemite, take Tioga pass to Mammoth Lake, crash for the night, wake up, hit Mono Lake and the Bodie Ghost Town, and make our way back home via Sonora Pass.  The trip went as planned and perfectly!  None of the routes were closed and we were able to enjoy all the sites we intended.

Let’s talk about Yosemite.  If you haven’t been, you must!  We did it rather quickly as we did not do any intense hiking, that would not have went well with a 3 month pregnant wife.  We drove the loop and stopped along every picture friendly vantage point.  This is definitely a great crash course approach, however, I will be hiking Yosemite at a later date!  I couldn’t help but think about Ansel Adams, arguably the Father of HDR Photography.  He trekked Yosemite with multiple caravans of photography equipment; I carried my modified Slingshot camera bag.  He exposed multiple plates over several seconds and spent grueling hours manipulating his images in the dark room; I rolled two thumb wheels to the desired setting and post processed them in 3.2 minutes in Photomatix with another 5 or so in CS5.  I am nothing but a man with a blog compared to a photography genius.  I am thankful I had the opportunity to follow in his footsteps, even if it was in my Jeep Patriot.

If you would like Any of these as prints head on over to my Bubble.

Blake Rudis

f.64 Academy and f.64 Elite are the brainchildren of Blake Rudis. While he is a landscape photographer, he is most passionate about post-processing images in Photoshop and mentoring others.

For Blake, it's all about the art and process synergy. He dives deep into complex topics and makes them easy to understand through his outside-the-box thinking so that you can use these tricks in your workflow today!