Fire & Ice
A change in perspective on the iconic Yosemite Firefall
by Abe Blair, with additional imagery from Joshua Currie
After many years of missing the narrow window to photograph the “Fire Falls” event in Yosemite I had finally secured the necessary free time to spent a week in The Valley. In preparation I began to research and study angles on the fire-fall that I had yet to seen capture, eventually becoming confident I had identified something new and right on the edge of my capabilities.
7 months later and a record amount of snow had fallen in the Sierra Nevada, where winters can be as unforgiving as they are inconsistent. Undaunted I pack my bags and begin the long and winding excursion into the mountains for what would be a harrowing, yet rewarding, photo adventure.
After a few days of exploring via snowshoe in 3-6 feet of snow I was able to find this frozen water fall that I thought complimented the Fire Fall on the other side of the Valley. The problem was moments after laying eyes on this scene a large ice fall came from above with baseball sized chunks of ice careening off the wall from over a thousand feet above. I quickly moved to a safe distance from all of this and set up for a safer angle with the plan to shoot near the falls very quickly, and if the ice falls stopped as it got colder in the last moments of sunset.
After a few more snaps and cracks from above during the afternoon things began to refreeze. During the last moments of light I scrambled as close as I dared to the frozen falls and set up as fast as I could while keeping an eye above me.
One small gust of wind helped push the mist from the falls off the wall and into the light, I clicked the shutter and ran back to my safer vantage knowing I had gotten the image I had been visualizing for so long!
The feeling of timeless immediacy.
