This morning, we were off early to Bridalveil Falls. From here, there were great views of El Capitan. I wandered up the trail toward the falls, and found all kinds of things to photograph. By far, this was my best shoot of the session so far.

I had some trouble getting started though. Usually, I find something that interests me, and then I photograph that. Here though, we were placed in a location, and were to begin shooting. While that’s probably the best idea — that way all the instructors and staff can be close for questions — it’s tough for me to shoot like that.

However, I found a little stream rolling over the rocks, with a bunch of fall leaves gently circling in an eddy formed by the flow. This was a popular topic among the class, but I think I really nailed it. Long exposure, brilliant color, and tack sharp focus — can’t ask for more!

High noon was more Photoshop hints and tips, and the first lessons on getting printing right. For me, this was a key, key piece of this session. I had no idea how much more there could be beyond File|Print! As it ends up, every photo I’ve printed on my own has really, really lacked, and I had no idea. So we worked and worked on our images, getting them ready for printing later in the night.

The sunset shoot started at the stables, and really afforded some great views of Half Dome and El Capitan. For me, though, there wasn’t much that really tripped my trigger for subjects, so… I got a lot of photos of the Big Rocks.

The rest of the night was spent with Printing and a Movie — Robots was the movie, although I didn’t get to see much of it. I spent a lot of time getting some favorite images ready, and printing some on the matte printers. We’re using Epson Stylus Photo R2400 printers, and they absolutely rock. Of course, for $850 it should! Boy, I really liked it, and liked the results. It’s an eight-color printer, and the cartridges are surprisingly affordable, especially compared to regular printers. I’ll be real curious to use some of my left over print paper on my HP 8450 printer at home (also eight color), and see what my prints look like — same image, same paper, just a different printer.

So, I made my prints…. and was totally breathless. I thought they looked good on the screen, but on paper, they were really amazing. I still cannot believe that those images came from my camera, and look like they do!