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Mono Shoreline, Autumn. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.
A spring morning along the shoreline of Mono Lake.
After all these years of visiting and photographing the Sierra Nevada, I start to think I know the place. Actually, I do for the most part. However, there is sol much there that it is impossible to really “know” all of it in a single lifetime. This fall’s two autumn-color visits to East Side reminded me of this. Although it happens regularly, I was surprised by the number of things I “discovered” for the first time in places that I thought I knew really well. I’ve shared a few of the resulting photographs recently, and now I add this one to the collection.
I had decided to look away from the aspens and head to Mono Lake on this autumn morning, and I had a specific place and photograph in mind elsewhere along the shoreline. I photographed that subject before dawn, and after finishing I decided to move on. But as often happens, while I watch the road enough to avoid getting into trouble, while scanning the passing landscape I caught sight of this little scene in a spot that I usually pass quickly in route to something else.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
Thème du mois de Janvier 2025 : En noir et blanc
For the 1st theme of this year: subjects with black and white patterns or a treatment of photos in black and white, in light/dark...
Gray will be accepted as well as a few small touches of color provided that they do not exceed 10% of the photo
IMG_7923sfxF
My first digital 10D memories of Mono Lake and a great view point, did not do anything with this image all those years ago...
just reminds me of standing up there looking down.
Taken some time in 2004
A splash of early morning dew - another example of how photography can perfectly capture the little moments in life.
Mono is an ancient (1 million + years) alkaline lake that is highly photographed for it's forms of tufa (calcium carbonate pinnacles), deposits formed over thousands of years underwater (now left exposed because the lake level is low, but rising). This is a shot from South Tufa. Although you cannot see it here, there is an Osprey nest on the highest tufa.
Sometimes I like to use telephoto lenses for landscape to achieve the compression effect and also the dreamy look. Whenever I come to Mono Lake, I always try to do something different. In this case, I was using a macro lens to shoot at these tufa islands in the distance with the snow capped mountains in the backdrop.
Lens: Sigma APO MACRO 150mm F2.8 EX DG OS HSM
The weather forecast looked so much better than the actual location. Long exposure works so-so in such a grey sky, with really slowly moving clouds. So in the usual spirit of 'I don't really know what to do with this photo' I went for a mono.
GRAILED x NORWHERE presents the Unisex Mono Boots in this round of CAKEDAY
- Slink, Maitreya, Belleza, Legacy M&F, Gianni, Jake, and Unrigged (resizable)
- 20 color options in Fatpack Hud changing 7 faces
- Materials enabled
My 2 recent early starts have been less than fruitful due to the thick fog.
I must have been desperate for a shot to snap this clump of reeds but I quite like it in Black & White.
Picking up where I left off with my previous two posts, Gregg, Ryan and I arrived just after 4 AM at Mono Lake. Gregg and Ryan opted to stay behind at the car and catch some ZZ's as they were going to be driving home, but I had only been down next to the lake for about 10 minutes before both of them came down with their tripods. The sky looked very promising and it looked like out luck was about to change after a tough night of getting shut out at Glacier Point and a four hour delay in trying to get across the Tioga Pass.
This was my fourth time trying to shoot Mono Lake. On my previous three attempts I had either gotten up at 3:30 to make the drive over from Yosemite or had driven down from Reno and on all three tries, I had NO clouds whatsoever when I arrived, so I was more than a little excited to finally see partly cloudy skies above the lake when I arrived.
After shooting the Milky Way for a bit, I turned the camera on the lake and shot for about 90 minutes before the sun finally broke through the clouds. There were about 20 of us at that point, and we shot right up to 7 AM which was the time I had set as a deadline as I needed to get back for a birthday party. We then set off for the six hour drive back to Gregg's house, arriving exactly at 1 PM, 25 hours after we had set off the day before. All three of us were exhausted but had a great time shooting. I told the guys as we were leaving that I was hoping for a great sunset, good Milky Way shots, and a great sunrise. Two out of three ain't bad. We are already looking forward to our next excursion.
As the year draws to a close, many people share collections of their favorite images from past posts. While I could do the same, I prefer to focus on the wealth of unprocessed data waiting on my hard drives.
Here’s a newly processed image from Mono Lake, which had been sitting in my backlog for far too long. It captures a memorable moment from the final night of my 2023 astrophotography trip.
The plan was to meet my friend Roi Levi, who drove up from L.A. to join me. Unfortunately, his car broke down just a few miles from Mono Lake. But that didn’t stop him - true to his dedication, he instructed the tow truck driver to drop him at our meeting point. Once there, he transferred his gear into my car, and we spent the night photographing the stunning tufas of Mono Lake.
His determination was well rewarded: we were treated to perfect conditions and a brilliant display of airglow along the horizon. For this panorama, I aimed to enhance the sky’s vibrant colors with subtle low-level lighting on the foreground. The result is, certainly, as colorful as a mono image can get.
EXIF
Canon EOS-R, astro-modified
Sigma 28mm f/1.4 ART
IDAS NBZ filter
iOptron SkyTracker Pro
Low Level Lighting
Sky:
Panorama of 11 panels, each a stack of 7x 45s @ ISO1600, unfiltered & 3x 105s @ ISO6400, filtered
Forground:
Panorama of 11x 60s @ ISO3200
Maple leaf on tarmac.
I thought this would be a good subject for mono, and then I made the mistake of trying it in Nik ColorEfex which proved to be more interesting (at least for playing.
This is 1 of 2: the Nik Silver Efex version with lots of grit and detail. Hope you enjoy both anyway.
For my 100x Way Behind project, lol.
Thank you for taking the time to look. I hope you enjoy the image :)
Not the most colorful snack but then the earthtone snacks are the most health, Dried Turkish Figs and Walnuts for the Flickr Friday Snack.
I thought this image captured today would work nicely as a mono.
I revisited the park where springs keep a section of water open all winter. We are now finally in full spring melt so there is a vast span of open water where twenty days ago had been ice. As a result, there were not as many swans congregating where they do when the ice is competing with the springs for dominance. There was one juvenile that appeared to be losing its grey feathers and getting the snow white plumage indicative of an adult. That swan was curious enough to make its way to the shore where I was located. I captured this image on its approach.
My old Minolta 135mm manual lens was attached to the a6000.