Yosemite National Park was definitely one of the peaks of my trip to the U.S. last month. Yosemite was photographed so many times before, and especially by one of my favorite past-photographers - Ansel Adams, and I was curious to find out how will my take on it look.

 We only had two full days in the park, which meant two early-mornings and two golden-hours to take advantage of. From practical reasons, I decided to skip the sunrises. Spending a whole day in the park - sunrise to sunset, plus the one hour drive to and from the park, seemed a little too much considering we still had a long trip (and drive) ahead after Yosemite. So it actually left me with the two sunsets for the landscape.

 Focusing mainly on the valley, I decided to dedicate the first sunset to the classic, familiar Tunnel View. This overlook is positioned just after the tunnel leading to Yosemite Valley, hence the name. The other afternoon we spent in Glacier Point, which is right above the valley (and a good 45 minutes drive from there...) - I think that's probably one of the most beautiful spots in the park. Most of the images in the gallery are from these two afternoons.

 While the places themselves were amazing, another experience I found interesting was to see how other photographers coped with different compositional problems in these places. One example is the tall tree obstructing the view in Tunnel View. Leaving aside the different seasons, clouds etc, I checked my composition and compared it to the classic photo by Ansel Adams, from 1936 (a little hard to find on the Internet, can be seen in this gallery in the time of writing). To my surprise - the exact same tree - which I never noticed before - stood proud in his photo as well... It's quite exciting to compare two images taken almost 80 years apart at the same place... Now I just wish I could come back there in the winter!

Click to open the Yosemite gallery.

  Half Dome and Moon from Glacier PointYosemite NP, California

Full moon rising near Half Dome just after sunset.