Reasons to NOT Bring a Camera to Yosemite

I am so lucky: I got to hang out with my Dad and climb up one of the most majestic land forms in the world. Half Dome in Yosemite National Park has captured my imagination since I first saw an Ansel Adam's print on my parent's coffee table when I was young. 
I am not Ansel Adams. That is why I offer you these reasons to NOT bring your camera to Yosemite.


1. You end up with awkward photos of you with John Muir, who if he was alive, would be appalled that he's in bronze in a tourist-y Visitor's Center.


2. Your camera-person will inevitably cut off the natural phenomena you're trying to capture (in this case, the trickle that's left of Yosemite Falls)


3. Embarrassing things DO get captured.  A little sunscreen + a bike ride through the valley in flip-flops = embarrassing pictures that I'm inexplicably posting anyway.


4. No matter how good the camera, no matter how visionary the photographer, a picture can never capture the grandeur of God's Good Earth. Being dwarfed by what God hath wrought is a beautiful, humbling experience.


5. Some people think it's actually cool and fun to do tourist-y things. Cameras created the Tourist.


6. Camera's capture your hiking buddy Jim deliberately NOT helping prepare dinner.


7. Camera's capture YOU deliberately NOT helping prepare dinner.


8. After seeing this picture, some of you might think you don't have to climb the 4ish miles to North Dome to see this vista. THIS PICTURE SAYS NOTHING. See Reason #4


9. Actually, I really like this picture... but I'm sure there's a reason to NOT bring your camera here SOMEWHERE... 


10. Pictures can be deceiving. What this picture DOESN'T TELL YOU is that those 0.5 miles are down a granite slab that could lead to your death on the valley floor 2,000 feet below.


11. Most cameras run on batteries. Batteries run out of power. You are then left with three nights and days with no photographic evidence that you even ascended the 8,842  feet of granite that is Half Dome. 

This lack of battery power was, of course, a blessing. I didn't have to stop every ten feet to attempt to portray the inexpressible beauty  around me. Yosemite is literally breath-taking. It wasn't my first time and it certainly won't be my last, but I am so thankful that I had reasons to NOT bring my camera.

Comments

  1. #9... yeah, there is: yer Da's chin strap makes that hat look like a bonnet. Or, is that just me...

    ReplyDelete

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