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Yosemite Journal

Recipe for a Perfect Photo: Clear Sky, Sunset and Water

Photographers were poised to capture the firefall on Feb. 18, when clouds had obscured El Capitan during the day.Credit...Jim Wilson/The New York Times

YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, Calif. — The photographers were packed so tightly along the riverbank that they looked like paparazzi stalking a starlet. In this case the Lindsay Lohan in question was a wispy little ribbon of water falling thousands of feet down the face of El Capitan, the world’s largest single chunk of granite.

For about one week each February, the setting sun hits the water of Horsetail Fall at such an angle that it glows, looking like a stream of lava against the darkened rock.

The so-called firefall attracts hundreds of professional and amateur photographers from across the globe, who flock to Yosemite Valley to capture the ephemeral scene.

“Firefall is like a photography tailgating party,” said Terry McCafferty, 64, a retired police officer from Fremont, Calif., who travels to photogenic places in a large white Suburban with his camera-wielding buddies.

The lava-like effect requires a clear sky and enough snowmelt to furnish the fall with sufficient water. Many years it appears only as a pale golden streak, or not at all.

Mr. McCafferty has photographed the firefall for 10 years and only once got a good picture, which he keeps on his iPad to show off to firefall newbies.

For many here, the unpredictability of the natural display is central to its allure.

“So many things have to come together to make the firefall work,” said Dan Tracy, 59, a retired high school English teacher from Watsonville, Calif. “It appeals to me as a photographer, but also as a gambler and an optimist.”

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A sought-after shot of firefall, when the setting sun hits a stream of water at Horsetail Fall, on Feb. 17 at El Capitan.Credit...Jim Wilson/The New York Times

Photographers have long been a dominant force in Yosemite Valley. Many of the 3.5 million people who visit the park each year come to snap photographs from vantage points made famous by Ansel Adams and other photographers.

“Photography has always played a huge role in the park,” said Scott Gediman, spokesman for Yosemite National Park. “In fact, photographs were instrumental in the park’s genesis.”

In 1861, the photographer Carleton E. Watkins hauled hundreds of pounds of camera equipment, sheets of glass and chemicals into Yosemite Valley in a darkroom wagon. For the first time, Mr. Watkins captured photographic images of these granite cliffs and waterfalls.

After seeing Mr. Watkins’s photographs, President Abraham Lincoln signed legislation in 1864 preserving the valley for the public and leading the way toward what would become the National Park Service.

In a strange coincidence, the molten effect of the sun on Horsetail Fall resembles another famous and highly photographed firefall here, one involving actual fire. Beginning around 1900, park workers collected Red Fir bark and built a large bonfire atop Glacier Point. After dark they pushed the red embers off the cliff in a cascade of glowing red coals, a must-see spectacle for the summer tourist set.

But in 1968, park officials ended the Yosemite Firefall, citing its man-made unnaturalness (the park banned feeding bears for the same reason). Five years later, the photographer and mountain climber Galen Rowell was driving through the park after a winter climb when he spotted the light catching in Horsetail Fall. He rushed across the valley and took what is believed to be the first image of the illuminated waterfall.

Mr. Rowell died in a plane crash in 2002, but his “Last Light on Horsetail Fall” remains the most well-known photograph of the apparition.

For decades, photographers showed up here in winter, hoping to catch the same trick of light but never sure when it might occur. Then in 2009, Michael Frye, author of “The Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite,” used video from four Yosemite webcams to determine the optimal window for the firefall, which he now pegs from Feb. 16-23.

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A view of the Yosemite skyline during a storm on Feb. 19 suggested there would be no firefall.Credit...Jim Wilson/The New York Times

“Shooting Horsetail Fall has become so much more popular, in part, because with the advent of digital cameras, photography itself has become so much more popular,” Mr. Frye said.

Concerned about traffic and parking problems in the valley, park officials do little to publicize what they have come to call the park’s “firefall season.” Still, most photographers here learned of it online. In fact, on one day 45 people from a Silicon Valley photography meetup group made the trip.

On a recent evening, hundreds of photographers from Japan, Europe and across the United States gathered in the two prime spots to photograph the falls. Many arrived five hours early to stake a claim with their tripods, jockeying for unobstructed views of the cliff.

The mood was jovial; people swapped information about the technical minutiae of their cameras, sipped wine and relaxed in camp chairs.

Some arrived with personal photography tutors, cradling high-end digital cameras and huge telephoto lenses worth thousands of dollars. Others took a more laid-back approach.

“I’m no photographer; all I have is my iPhone,” said Cindy Saavedra, 46, who drove up from Fresno, Calif., with her three children and two other families, all of whom plunked down in lawn chairs with bags of Cheetos and Funyuns to watch the show. “I made a New Year’s resolution to see more natural wonders, so here we are.”

As the sun dropped, the chatty horde went quiet; the only sound the rapid-fire slap of hundreds of camera shutters and the click-click of smartphones.

“It’s happening!” a woman gasped. Despite low water, a faint sliver of water turned golden for about 10 minutes, as if generating its own light. Then the sky went dark.

“It’s done,” said Stephen Duzs, 53, of Budapest, folding up his tripod. “Elvis has left the building.”

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 12 of the New York edition with the headline: Recipe for a Perfect Photo: Clear Sky, Sunset and Water. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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