My most common way to approach Mono Lake photographically is to focus on the immense scale of the pace rather than on closer elements of the landscape. I like to set tufa towers against distant desert hills under the wide sky, or perhaps place them in front of the distant eastern face of the Sierra Nevada stretching away to the north. Initially I was doing something like that here, focusing on those offshore towers and using somewhat short focal lengths to take in the wider scene. But then I thought to include a bit of this near tower at the right side of the frame.
The closer tower changes things in several ways. It obviously adds one of those “intimate landscape” elements to the scene, as it is mere feet away from my camera position. Because it extends a bit into the water it interrupts the small waves and creates “white water surf” in miniature at its base. But most of all, I think that it creates a sense that we are looking past it and into the larger space of the lake, the distant towers, and the desert mountains at the horizon.
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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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him.
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