Category Archives: Photographs: Mono Lake Basin

Photographs: Mono Lake Basin, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Dawn, Eastern Sierra, Mono Lake

May 29, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Dawn light comes to the eastern escarpment of the Sierra Nevada and Mono Lake.

Some years back I visited Mono Lake very early one morning with my brother, Richard, who is also a dedicated landscape photographer. My recollection is that we had arrived separately in the eastern Sierra and somehow ended up meeting here near the town of Lee Vining and heading out to this familiar spot before dawn to make photographs.

I never know exactly what will turn up here. Yes, I can always photograph those tufa towers, but I’m usually often interested in special atmospheric effects: haze, clouds, broken dawn light, the glow on the peaks of the eastern Sierra, reflections in the morning-smooth water. We began by photographing fairly conventional photographs of the tufa towers before the light arrived. It was a cloudy morning, though the deck of clouds was broken, allowing some light to make it through the gaps and a momentary band of light to strike the mountains as the sun came up beneath the far edge of the clouds in the east. I must have made this photograph fairly close to that moment. Most of the scene is in shadow, but bands of light appear on the peaks, and a bit of softer light illuminates the foreground tufa.

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Photographs: Mono Lake Basin

Evening Shadows, Mono Lake

January 26, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Evening shadows fall across the western shore and islands of Mono Lake

The landscape of Mono Lake, near Lee Vining, California, provides a stark contrast to the Sierra Nevada just to the west. From the alpine ridges of the Sierra along and just north of Yosemite, the eastern slopes of the range drop quickly to Lee Vining and the broad valley beyond. The lake sits in a dry basin that has no outlet, so the water simply (for the most part) evaporates.

The lake is huge, stretching far to the east beyond Lee Vining. The landscape of the lake is simple, partly because the surrounding area was once submerged when the lake was much larger than it is today. Far in the distance is Boundary Peak and the ridge of the White Mountains. The sun sets early here, since the tall peaks of the Sierra raise to the west, and in this photograph deep shadows are already angling across the western shores of the lake.

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Mono Lake Basin, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Sagebrush and Aspens

November 6, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Sparse, colorful aspen trees in the high sagebrush country east of the Sierra Nevada.

Back in October I made my annual trek to the east side of the Sierra Nevada to photograph autumn subjects, including but not limited to aspen trees in their fall colors. As often happens at this time of the year, we encountered a wide range of conditions ranging from beautiful sunny days to one day on which it snowed the entire time as we drove over the crest and down highway 395. Overall, this turned out to be a fine year for aspen color, though it was not exactly a typical year. The color came a bit early and seemed to change quickly in a number of areas. Even though many of us were concerned that the past two years of California drought – perhaps combined with the effects of global climate changes – might have reduced the colors, in the end the effect was simply to change the timing a bit. (And long time aspen photographers know that, in a sense, there really is no such thing as a “typical season” for aspen color.)

The final day of our five-day visit was a diverse one, and it took us to a range of quite different locations. It started in Mammoth Lakes, where we were surprised to find that it was snowing lightly when we left our motel in the pre-dawn darkness and headed out into Long Valley. After stopping there to photograph the morning snow flurries along the eastern Sierra, we continued to the east and drove all the way to Benton before turning around and heading back toward Mono Lake, investigating the interesting fall color in this less-visited area. As we reached highway 395 again we found that the snow was continuing to fall along the eastern escarpment here, too. We stopped in Lee Vining for a (very) late breakfast and decided to continue on to the north. After a stop to photograph the vast stands of aspens on the summit north of Lee Vining, it looked like the weather might be photographically interesting out toward Bodie, so we headed that direction. I photographed this little high desert valley with its small stands of autumn aspens momentarily illuminated as cloud shadows raced across the landscape. Mono Lake and the surrounding mountains are visible in the distance.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Mono Lake Basin, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Paoha Island, Mono Lake, Evening

September 22, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

Pastel colors in evening clouds above Paoha Island reflect on the surface of Mono Lake

On this evening I ended up at Mono Lake on more or less a hunch about the clouds – thunder clouds had built to the east out over the basin and range country and even a bit over the Sierra, and I had heard a report of thunder and lightning a bit north of here, so I decided to chance an evening visit to the south shore of the lake. Mono Lake evening light can be very special, but it can also be a bit tricky. Because the tall peaks of the Sierra Nevada crest lie directly to the west, the light leaves the lake itself well before actual sunset, so you often might end up relying on the clouds themselves to provide most of the interest. Smoke from a wildfire to the south near Mammoth Lakes had also been affecting the atmosphere, creating a lot of haze and some unusual colors.

In any case, I drove out to a point along the south shore of the lake – not the well-known South Tufa site, though visible from there – and watched the mostly uninspiring light of this very hazy evening. But there I was, and there wasn’t time before the end of the light to get from Mono Lake to other places that might be interesting, so I stayed and photographed and thought about how I might be able to work with the light and conditions that were available to me. There were beautifully shaped clouds, and they rose high enough above the lower atmosphere to gain some clarity. The haze muted the shapes and colors of the far hills and the darker shape of the island. So I composed the scene to just barely hold the island and a bit of the lake at the bottom, and used that to anchor a scene that was mostly sky.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Category Archives: Photographs: Mono Lake Basin

Dawn, Eastern Sierra, Mono Lake

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Evening Shadows, Mono Lake

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Sagebrush and Aspens

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Paoha Island, Mono Lake, Evening

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Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.

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Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.