Tunnel View in November

There is a reason people have been stopping at this exact spot since the road through the tunnel opened in 1933. You come out of the darkness and the whole valley appears at once - El Capitan rising on the left like a wall at the edge of the world, Half Dome centered perfectly in the middle distance, Bridalveil Fall threading down the right side, and a dense carpet of forest filling the valley floor below. This slide, shot in November 1975, catches Yosemite in its quieter season - the summer crowds long gone, the trees a mix of deep evergreen and late autumn color, the Sierra sky that particular shade of blue that only appears when the air has gone cold and clean. Tunnel View has been called one of the most photographed vistas in America, and yet somehow, fifty years on, this slide manages to make it feel like something nobody else has ever seen. Tunnel View, November is a print for the Yosemite faithful, the national park dreamers, and everyone who has ever come out of that tunnel and completely forgotten how to speak.