Horsetail Falls, as seen during the day, from the Southside Drive (West) location. This has a great view of the falls (you can see a lot of it) but it doesn't turn on fire like from the side angles. This spot is just too straight on and the reflection from the sunset cannot be seen bouncing back off into the water. Instead, you get some really neat red colored rocks. In this photo you can also see the shape of the falls and see why they call it "horsetail"!

Horsetail Falls, as seen from in between Southside Drive West and East locations. This has a nicer angle and shows more of the falls than the East location, however, I don't think it's possible to get El Capitan in a portrait orientation photo.

Yosemite Falls. I Liked the little bit of snow on the bottom.

While photographing Yosemite Falls we noticed this neat little trickle of waterfalls coming down the cliff face behind us.

Also while photographing Yosemite Falls we noticed that the moon was out! It completely surprised us that you could see the moon at 2pm in the afternoon!

Yosemite Falls, Valley view, with snow on the ground!

Our cameras are all setup for shooting Horsetail Falls. You can see my 2 cameras on the right here.

As the sun moves from west to east it makes different shapes in the mountain. Here you can see an elephant (the shadow makes a bit ear, then the bright spot signals the snout... seen about middle of the photo, slightly left.

As the sun sets even more the elephant dissapears and a Heart appears! Just in time for valentines day!

As we waited more photographers showed up. Here's a shot of everyone with their tripods all set and ready!

Yes, this is an obvious HDR. I thouhgt it showed a lot of really neat detail so I kept it. This is El Capitan and Horsetail Falls (which you can see as the really bright spot coming down the mountain on the right side of the image, just slightly left and above those 2 trees on the top right). I blended in the original RAW file's sky to give this a slightly more realistic look. About 30 minutes later the watefalls turn from bright white to on fire red!

Horsetail Falls lights up "on fire" 2 weeks every year. We waited for several hours for the sun to set and just as it did, some clouds rolled in and prevented the Fire Falls from starting. Luckily with about 10 minutes left in the window of "Fire Fall"ing, the clouds parted, the bottom of the falls lit up first, and then shot on up. Here you can see the progression of Fire Falls.

Horsetail Falls lights up "on fire" 2 weeks every year. We waited for several hours for the sun to set and just as it did, some clouds rolled in and prevented the Fire Falls from starting. Luckily with about 7 minutes left in the window of "Fire Fall"ing, the clouds parted, the bottom of the falls lit up first, and then shot on up. Here you can see the progression of Fire Falls.

For two weeks every year Horsetail Falls, in Yosemite National Park, becomes one of the most sought after spots to photograph. Made famous by Galen Rowell in his "Natural Firefall photograph" (Ansel Adams did document this photograph but as a black-and-white landscape photo), many photographers (including myself) try to duplicate his effort. Situated on the northern side of the valley, and at the extreme eastern end of the El Capitan monolith wall, the falls catch the last rays of the setting sun for only about one month of the year.  At midwinter, the sun sets below the southwestern rim.  As the year progresses, the sun sets a bit further north along the western horizon.  By the end of January, if you are standing at the El Capitan picnic area parking lot, you can see the sun setting in the Gunsight, the V between Cathedral rocks on the eastern side of Bridal Veil Falls.  By the first few days of February, it sets to the right of the lowest Cathedral rock.  Provided the sky is clear, the sunlight illuminates the entire El Capitan North America wall, and if you are in a position east of the falls, it backlights the water, making it glow with amazing colors In mid-to-late February each year, when the atmospheric conditions as well as the angle of the sun, hit Horsetail Falls just right, the entire falls look as if they are *ON FIRE*! In order for the falls to burn you need sunlight (the clouds can't be blocking the setting sun), and water (which occurs when the snowpack above El Capitan is melting). There are 3 places that you can easily view Horsetail Falls. The first, and most popular, is the El Capitan picnic area (on Northside Drive). This provides the closest view, but it's at further east and a harsher angle and some people didn't see the falls light up from this spot while the other locations did. The two other locations are along Southside Drive, with the best spot being where we snapped away (GPS coordinates 37.72783,-119.609). We got to Yosemite at about noon on Sunday, hoping that the incoming storm would keep the clouds away and light up the falls for us. We scoped out all 3 locations and decided that the Southside Dr location was best. We arrived back there at 2:30pm, which was just in time, because photographers were starting to line up and we had to rush to claim a good spot. We made friends with the photographers around us -- which was a good thing because we had 3 hours to kill while the sun set. Peak "Firefalling" was supposed to start at 5:22pm but clouds had settled in and we started to get sad that we drove/waited all this time for nothing. At about 5:31pm we noticed the bottom of the falls started to glow. Sure enough a couple seconds later the clouds parted and the entire falls lit up on fire, right before our eyes! We had 7 minutes to snap our hearts away (and stop and just gawk at this amazing site) before the sun set and the firefalls returned to waterfalls. I rented a Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 VR for this shoot. I wanted to make sure I got the sharpest images possible. I stuck my old 70-300mm lens on my D80 and an extra tripod and snapped away with that as well. I should have paid more attention to my good camera/lens because I made some silly mistakes (like allowing the photos to be over-exposed) due to my running back and forth between cameras. I hope you enjoy these photos of Horsetail Falls (Fire Falls)!

For two weeks every year Horsetail Falls, in Yosemite National Park, becomes one of the most sought after spots to photograph. Made famous by Galen Rowell in his "Natural Firefall photograph" (Ansel Adams did document this photograph but as a black-and-white landscape photo), many photographers (including myself) try to duplicate his effort. Situated on the northern side of the valley, and at the extreme eastern end of the El Capitan monolith wall, the falls catch the last rays of the setting sun for only about one month of the year.  At midwinter, the sun sets below the southwestern rim.  As the year progresses, the sun sets a bit further north along the western horizon.  By the end of January, if you are standing at the El Capitan picnic area parking lot, you can see the sun setting in the Gunsight, the V between Cathedral rocks on the eastern side of Bridal Veil Falls.  By the first few days of February, it sets to the right of the lowest Cathedral rock.  Provided the sky is clear, the sunlight illuminates the entire El Capitan North America wall, and if you are in a position east of the falls, it backlights the water, making it glow with amazing colors In mid-to-late February each year, when the atmospheric conditions as well as the angle of the sun, hit Horsetail Falls just right, the entire falls look as if they are *ON FIRE*! In order for the falls to burn you need sunlight (the clouds can't be blocking the setting sun), and water (which occurs when the snowpack above El Capitan is melting). There are 3 places that you can easily view Horsetail Falls. The first, and most popular, is the El Capitan picnic area (on Northside Drive). This provides the closest view, but it's at further east and a harsher angle and some people didn't see the falls light up from this spot while the other locations did. The two other locations are along Southside Drive, with the best spot being where we snapped away (GPS coordinates 37.72783,-119.609). We got to Yosemite at about noon on Sunday, hoping that the incoming storm would keep the clouds away and light up the falls for us. We scoped out all 3 locations and decided that the Southside Dr location was best. We arrived back there at 2:30pm, which was just in time, because photographers were starting to line up and we had to rush to claim a good spot. We made friends with the photographers around us -- which was a good thing because we had 3 hours to kill while the sun set. Peak "Firefalling" was supposed to start at 5:22pm but clouds had settled in and we started to get sad that we drove/waited all this time for nothing. At about 5:31pm we noticed the bottom of the falls started to glow. Sure enough a couple seconds later the clouds parted and the entire falls lit up on fire, right before our eyes! We had 7 minutes to snap our hearts away (and stop and just gawk at this amazing site) before the sun set and the firefalls returned to waterfalls. I rented a Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 VR for this shoot. I wanted to make sure I got the sharpest images possible. I stuck my old 70-300mm lens on my D80 and an extra tripod and snapped away with that as well. I should have paid more attention to my good camera/lens because I made some silly mistakes (like allowing the photos to be over-exposed) due to my running back and forth between cameras. I hope you enjoy these photos of Horsetail Falls (Fire Falls)!

Horsetail Falls is on Fire. This photo, towards the end of the Fire Falls shows the falls lit up without much of the rocks. You can also see that the sunset has progressed east (to the right) as some of the lower right rocks are lit and not much of the left side rocks. This is pretty neat. Note: there is virtually no saturation boost in this photo -- I simply knocked down the brightness to make this look more like what the eye saw and sharpened it up a bit.

The fire falls at Horsetail Falls are ending and the only thing left is a slight bit of waterfall still "on fire". So neat to watch!