“Spring Trees, Flowers, and Meadow, Applecross” — Spring grass, wildflowers, and trees in a meadow at Applecross, Scotland.
This scene on the western Scotland coast not far from Skye was a pleasant surprise. We were on a long drive to the village of Applecross, and our route had taken us through a lot of typical country — rugged coastal areas, broad valleys, high peaks with a dusting of new snow. But out here a lot of the country seemed rocky and rough with few trees. But as we came to a bridge over the River Applecross, suddenly everything was green, the broom flowers were yellow, and there were spring-green trees.
“Lake, Tufa, and Morning Clouds” — Mono Lake tufa towers silhouetted against morning sky and distant mountains.
With this post, I am doing something unusual for me — I’m sharing monochrome and color versions of the same photograph. By that I mean literally the same file, though interpreted differently. (The monochrome version was posted here recently.) Usually I settle on either color or monochrome, but in this case I feel like both have something (different) to offer.
“Tuolumne Sunset” — Looking westward at sunset sky, Tuolumne Meadows.
On this late-August evening I headed to a spot along the Tuolumne River that I had scouted earlier that afternoon. I’ve previously photographed from this location at sunset, so I had a general idea of what I would be working with. The photograph I had in mind was not this one — it fact, the planned photograph had me pointing the camera in exactly the opposite direction, toward the Sierra Nevada crest.
“Tufa, Dawn” — Mono Lake tufa formations under cloudy sunrise sky.
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.
