new equation

We're taking a family vacation in Yosemite National Park this week. We flew into LAX Saturday and drove up to Yosemite yesterday. We stopped for tacos in Bakersfield. I got an al pastor.

About an hour before we got to Yosemite, we stopped to feed baby Finn and walk around a bit. The place we stopped at made yummy milkshakes. Iliana got vanilla; I had date.

There were semi scales across the street. Iliana is making her cat face for the camera.

We drove into the park today. We're staying at the Tenaya Lodge, just outside the southern entrance to the park. The drive from the gate down to Yosemite Village was a full hour of winding mountain road with spectacular views.

We grabbed lunch and dropped into the Ansel Adams Gallery. They have some of his original prints for sale – not cheap. The master printer's signed work goes for upwards of 15k. It's wonderful to see his work in the context of a national park!

When we left the gallery, we made our way toward the easy stroll to the base of Yosemite Falls.

The park service does such a fine job of making so much of the park accessible.

Watching such a volume of water fall so great a distance is really impressive.

Our next adventure was not so family friendly. We hiked up to inspiration point a few hours before sunset. It's a climb of nearly 1000 feet over 1.3 miles. Iliana was a champ and finished the hike with us, while little Finn rode the way up strapped to my chest in our baby harness.

The hike was well worth the effort. We had a private, panoramic view of El Capitan and Half Dome.

Here's the family! Thanks to Lauren for the picture!

I made so many pictures of this view. It really is amazing to see firsthand.

Here it is at dusk.

And after sunset.

Today, we visited the Nelder Grove of sequoia trees just south of Yosemite. The grove is part of the Sierra National Forest.

We tried driving all the way to the campground parking area, but the road was impassible due to snowfall. It was exciting to look up after we'd reached the loop trail and see this!

The contrast between young and old is very defined in the forest. The sequoias we walked among today were between 2000 and 3000 years old.

The bark feels kind of spongy, and in older trees is sometimes two feet thick! This protects the tree against insects and other wildlife, fire and cold weather.

Some of the trees are charred from fires long ago.

The bark of the ponderosa pine has a beautiful texture.

More ponderosa pine bark.

This is wolf lichen living on the bark of an incense cedar.

Another detail.... It's so delicate looking, but the yellow-green color is so intense.

Still plenty of snow on the ground in places.

Looking up...

...looking down.

The good folks at the U.S. Forest Service are getting the word out.

Exhibit A for why we couldn't drive in to the parking area.

This will give you a sense of scale, but most of the bigger trees we saw today had a circumference of between 70 and 80 feet.

This is our last night in Yosemite. It's been an amazing vacation. Today, we hiked to the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias and stood before the largest living thing on earth. By volume, this large tree named the Grizzly Giant is bigger, and just about older, than anything else alive on this planet. We were there at around 9 a.m., and are among the minority in having been alone with the tree. On our return trip, we passed no fewer than four tour groups of school aged kids.

Our dinner was the best we've had this week. We ate in the dining room at the historic Wawona Hotel. When we return, I think we'll look into staying here.

Tomorrow, we drive to L.A. and stay overnight, then fly home to Atlanta on the early a.m. flight.

This is the A.R. I worked on with Methodologie out of Seattle back in February. From the printing to the design, it really looks great! I love when my pictures are set in the context of great design. Thanks to Regina at Methodologie! We shot the cover in Seattle.

I shot some of these folks in Phoenix, some in Santa Monica.

This is Lamont Ewell, City Manager of Santa Monica, CA. Very understated, cool guy.

Jeff Brottman, Founder and Chairman of the Board at Costco. He was really nice. Shot him in Seattle.

Tom Johnson, COO of Aeropostale. Also, really nice. Shot in New York.

We shot Lynn and her daughter in Phoenix. She shops at stores in Macerich owned shopping malls.

Dawn Simon, shot in Phoenix, is marketing manager at one of the Macerich malls.

JP and Kelly work for Macerich in I.T. I shot them in Santa Monica.

I've been solidly busy since returning from vacation in Yosemite. I spent three days shooting a campaign for a local college with EM2 Design, then shot a campaign for CDW thru J. Walter Thompson.

Tomorrow, I leave for Trinidad and Tobago! Iconologic has been working with T&T on a rebrand, and they are now ready to begin building an image library. On this short trip (returning Monday) I'll be capturing some general photography and working with Iconologic and the folks in Trinidad to schedule photography specific to eight industries. I'll have more on this later!