Ever think much about Contrails?
Air travel is great, but it often pains photographers day and night. During long exposures at night you’ll often see plane lights streaking across a dark sky and during the day you’ll frequently see contrails polluting the sky. On a trip to Yosemite last summer it became painfully evident how bad contrail pollution is, while taking in the scenery at the Tunnel View lookout. I counted 8 contrails in the sky above Yosemite valley at sunset. I find it interesting that the National Parks and Wildlife Refuges protect that which is on the ground but by and large ignores the air above it. Is protected land any worse for the wear because plane traffic can fly 10,000 or 30,000 feet above? I tend lean toward the land being worse off. Sadly most people don’t notice how much air travel flies overhead, because few sit still long enough to notice. Leave a camera in place for a time-lapse or a long exposure and you’ll quickly see how much of our sky is polluted by air travel.
Contrail Pollution, Yosemite National Park
Related Reading:
- Airplane contrails worse than CO2 emissions for global warming: study
- Jet pollution: drawing a line in the sky
[tags]photography, conservation, pollution, tunnel view, Yosemite National Park[/tags]
Contrails are a problem when photographing the San Francisco skyline from Marin County, but it is surprising that there are so many of them over Yosemite.
Contrails are indeed a frustration in Yosemite. I haven’t had one ruin a killer shot yet, but if the situation presented itself I wonder if I would remove it in post. Not sure if that’s taking things too far.
Totally agree Jim. Last weekend in the Valley it seemed like every jet crossing the skies used Yosemite as a waypoint! NPS has done something about noise polution from helicopters above the Grand Canyon – they should do the same for Yosemite.
Hi Jim. Right with you. As an opposite example, like you I did a trip up the Kongakut in Alaska for 10 days some years back and I find myself explaining, almost as the definition of wilderness, how refreshing it was that we saw almost no planes fly overhead the whole 10 days. In this case the absence of contrails practically made it a true wilderness experience for me. And I guess the fact it was so noticeable for me that there weren’t any goes to show how habituated I have become to them polluting the rest of our space.
Having said that, flying over Yosemite and looking out the window at the valley is pretty awesome (though I would gladly forgo it to save the experience from the ground).
geoengineeringwatch.org