Yosemite Fields With Reed (Patreon)

A few days back I scanned and shared some 120 film strips to 'The Nostalgia' tier from this shoot and it reminded me that I never shared the digital set Reed and I shot that day. Reed and I had always dreamed of going to Yosemite National Park. It was on our bucket list of places to see and shoot. Thankfully, we were able to tack this up on our wall of accomplishments and it only happened by strange turns of events.

One of our friends Jaclyn was suppose to get married in October of 2018, but that wedding came to a quick and abrupt end for some strange reasons, but Jaclyn still have the time off of work, a week to be exact, so she decided that she wanted to make a road trip out of it. Phoenix, Las Vegas, Lone Pine to Reno; Reed and I followed Jaclyn while she was making the road trip on her motorcycle. When we arrived in Reno, after a couple days stay, Reed and I headed back south for Los Angeles as Jaclyn rode on to 'The Loneliest Highway In America', Highway 50.

On our way back down to Los Angeles Reed and I saw that the route would take us right past Yosemite National Park, so we decided to take a little detour into the park, shoot some beautiful images and finally see what we had been waiting to see for what felt like an eternity. Although we did not have the time to see everything we would want to see within the park, at least dipping our toes in sufficed for us at that time. The weather also was not the kindest for a longer duration in the park. It was the start of winter in Yosemite, the air was crisp, cold and unfamiliar to our Southern California skin. As we drove through the park, we stopped a couple times to shoot some quick fine art nude images at beautiful rock walls towering over us. However, this was the location we decided to stop and spend out time.

As we were driving through the one main road through Yosemite, Reed and I stumbled upon this field to our left. We both caught a glimpse of it as we drove by and immediately turned around to take it all in. With no one in the field, only a couple cars driving by every few minutes and a perfect line of trees to block other park goers from seeing us; we stopped the car and grabbed our gear. Reed has brought this dress with her on this trip that she was absolutely dying to shoot. With good reason, it is a stunning dress. She got ready as I threw all of my cameras together, Polaroid Land mounted to the tripod and film loaded in all cameras.

The air was cold in our lungs and the wind stood hairs up on our arms as it grazed by. A perfect cloud cover drifting in the skies with no end in sight. The setting was perfect. Reed pranced off into the field and we started with film, FP-100C, SX-70, 120 and 35mm. After we had a bulk of film I pulled out my friend's Leica Q that he had let me borrow and shot a couple frames. A couple frames then turned into an entire digital set. The light was just perfect and the way the Leica Q picks up every single detail through it's amazing glass; I could not stop shooting.

After some time, we both became too cold and too stiff to keep shooting, so we wrapped up and jumped back into our warm car. We sat there for a few minutes as we warmed our hands and bodies. I remember just gazing off into the field and thinking how perfectly beautiful it really was. Nature is surreal. Enjoy!

- AW Media

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ou2gg68kfrxbpvz/AABUrTGKsL0NPV-H6RTNZJIpa?dl=0