One of the great icons of the American West proved maddeningly elusive on a partly cloudy winter evening in the Yosemite Valley. Timing is everything when it comes to landscape light. Although on this visit I was in Yosemite for several days, the great Half Dome was either basking in glaring full sunshine or playing hide and seek with clouds. However, I think this image has some merit, for a full-on photo of Half Dome is a California cliché. It's sort of like photographing a deer; everyone knows what a deer looks like, so perhaps the better photo is one that contains some mystery, a departure from the literal image of "deer." So it is with Half Dome.
