Stretching along the flank of California's Sierra Nevada mountain range, Yosemite's scenic wildlands have been preserved in their natural state as a national park for more than 100 years. A spectacular 750,000 acre landscape, Yosemite is the result of 500 million years of geological history. Featuring some of the worlds oldest trees, flowering meadows and majestic granite cliffs, Yosemites unique beauty has stimulated the imaginations of millions of visitors, including tens of thousands of photographers.

I visited Yosemite for the first time in the fall of 2004 as part of a two-day, ten person photographic workshop led by David Wyman and sponsored by the Yosemite Association. As a photographer, I relished the low angled shadows of the autumnal sun, which brought a strong sense of shape, form, and texture to bear on everything we saw

This is the first of two articles covering my photographic adventures in the Sierras. This one shows how I interpreted the natural splendor that is Yosemite through the lens of my cameras. In the next article, we will leave this great park and head over the mountains to the tiny California town of Bridgeport our base for a two day exploration of the spectacular eastern side of the Sierra Nevada mountains, which featured a visit to Bodie, the last great mining ghost town in the west, where 500 structures still stand as a monument to guns, gold, and glory. You can find it at: http://www.worldisround.com/articles/86350/index.html

If you've viewed the previous articles I've posted on this site, you'll note that my photographic intentions are focused on interpretation, rather than description. I've continued to do this in these articles on my adventures in the Sierra. I want my pictures to express how I feel about what I see, rather than just recording what I've seen or where I've been. Aside from sharing my pictures with you on this website, I also use some of them to teach the principles of expressive travel photography through my galleries on pbase (www.pbase.com/pnd1) as well as in my Sedona workshops for corporate photojournalists, and in my tutorial workshops in Phoenix for newcomers to digital photography.

These images were gleaned from the more than 2,000 digital pictures I shot during my six day visit to these places. I used three digital cameras, a Leica Digilux 2, and a Panasonic FZ0 -- both five megapixel fixed lens cameras, as well as a seven megapixel fixed lens Canon G6. All of the Canon photographs were taken with a Canon .7x wideangle converter placed over my zoom lens, which provided me with the equivalent of a 24mm wideangle lens, a focal length that I feel is essential for effective travel and landscape photography.

The Lieca Digilux 2 offers an incredibly sharp f/2.0 28mm-90mm zoom lens, and an oversized sensor, which creates images with extra fine detail. It also functions without noticeable shutter lag, allowing me to stop action as desired.

The Panasonic FZ-20 features an amazing 36mm-432mm f/2.8 lens with image stabilization, allowing me to use its long telephoto lens in low light situations with remarkable clarity.

I've edited all of these images with Photoshop to correct and refine the hue, color, contrast and sharpness levels, hopefully making my pictures more vibrant and meaningful. Although all of these photographs were digitally enhanced to some degree, none of the content has been significantly manipulated. The facts are all here, as I captured them.

I hope you will enjoy my photographic impressions. Please post any comments at the end of the article, or ask me any questions you might have via email.

Phil Douglis Director, The Douglis Visual Workshops, Phoenix, Arizona, pnd1@cox.net