Category Archives: Photographs: Mono Lake Basin

Photographs: Mono Lake Basin, Photographs: Nature

Mono Basin, Wildfire Smoke, Dawn

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Mono Basin, Wildfire Smoke, Dawn
Smoke layers from a nearby wildfire drift across Mono Basin at dawn

Mono Basin, Wildfire Smoke, Dawn. Mono Lake, California. September 17, 2016. © Copyright 2016 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Smoke layers from a nearby wildfire drift across Mono Basin at dawn

Late summer and early fall are the wildfire season in California and especially in the areas around the Sierra Nevada. (That statement used to be more accurate than it is these days, as drought and anthropic climate change have now extended the fire season in the state.) Like most people who spend time in the outdoors I have complicated responses to wildfire. I hate to see forests and wild lands destroyed, especially by some of the recent super-hot fires that have done more serious damage. At the same time I fully understand that fire is a natural and even necessary component of the natural life in these areas. In recent years I have tried to find beauty alongside the destruction, and it has opened my eyes to seeing fire in different ways.

During my recent mid-September Sierra Nevada photography jaunt, mainly focused on visiting a few high places and scouting early aspen color, a very smoky fire broke out in the Owens River area. I first spotted in while driving down from Yosemite in the evening after a backcountry hike, and the next morning there was a big cloud of smoke over the lands southeast of Lee Vining. Mono Lake was still mostly clear, except at the south end, but beautiful layers of smoke were beginning to drift across the lake before and during sunrise, muting details and rendering more clearly some of the larger elements of the landscape. I moved around the lake and surrounding areas looking for vantage points for several hours, until eventually the smoke-filled Mono Basin so much that I decided to leave.

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 and Amazon.
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Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Mono Lake Basin, Photographs: Nature

Mono Lake, Sky and Mountains

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Mono Lake, Sky and Mountains
Mono Lake, shoreline, and mountains to the east.

Mono Lake, Sky and Mountains. Mono Lake, California. July 15, 2016. © Copyright 2016 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Mono Lake, shoreline, and mountains to the east.

The landscape of the Mono Lake Basin offers tremendous diversity — everything from intimate scenes of tufas and other features, to grand landscapes stretching off far into the distance. It is even a place to photograph wildlife in the context of landscape. In the right conditions the water becomes a subtle and varied element of the landscape, too.

I recently visited here early on a summer morning. I was staying back up in the Yosemite Sierra, but I decided to drive down for one morning of “east side” photography, including the lake and then some areas further south and east. At first I wasn’t too excited by the “empty” blue sky, but when I saw it as a counterpoint to the textured blue of the lake’s water I thought it deserved a photograph.

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 and Amazon.
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Photographs: Mono Lake Basin, Photographs: Nature

Tufa, Sky, Passing Birds

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Tufa, Sky, Passing Birds
A small flock of birds flies above tufa towers and the vast expanse of Mono Lake beneath summer morning sky

Tufa, Sky, Passing Birds. Mono Lake, California. July 15, 2016. © Copyright 2016 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A small flock of birds flies above tufa towers and the vast expanse of Mono Lake beneath summer morning sky

It is easy to think of the tufa towers and being the iconic features of Mono Lake, and arguably they perhaps are. They are certainly the destination for many visitors to the lake, and I have often been to them before dawn to photograph the first light striking their forms. A small group of the towers are included in this photograph, too, though I don’t feel that they are necessarily the predominant feature here.

When I think of Mono Lake, other things come to mind before the tufas. One of the first associations is the immense space encompassed by the lake itself, the larger basin that contains it, and the huge expanse of sky overhead. Very close to that are two related non-visual associations — a great stillness (interrupted only perhaps by a few birds) and a profound silence. For me, this is a place to approach quietly and without hurry.

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 and Amazon.
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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Mono Lake Basin, Photographs: Nature

Storm, Mono Lake

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Storm, Mono Lake
Dark clouds of a massive summer thunderstorm move across Mono Lake.

Storm, Mono Lake. Eastern Sierra Nevada, California. August 7, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Dark clouds of a massive summer thunderstorm move across Mono Lake.

This has been the “summer of the monsoon” in the Sierra Nevada. Although the range is terribly dry after four years of drought and this past winter’s truly anemic snow pack, summer has brought a greater than usual amount of monsoonal flow from the south, producing a great deal of thunderstorms and rain. In July I saw an odd juxtaposition of nearly snow free peaks and ridges that looked like late September of a dry year… along with green meadows and full ponds where the rains had fallen.

By the time of this early August visit to the Yosemite High Sierra and then a few days of backpacking on the east side of the range further south, things were drying out a bit and the foliage was taking on the usual late-August dry appearance. I camped down in Lee Vining Canyon the first night, and being close to Mono Lake I managed to head out there and make photographs after setting up camp. Thunderstorms were forming above the Sierra crest, and they had sprinkled on my camp. They then drifted east of the range and continued to build, so as I looked along this section of the north shore of Mono Lake, with Black Point and Negit Island visible in the foreground, the sky in the distance was turbulent, dark, and full of falling rain.

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 and Amazon.
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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.