Island, Peninsula, Reflected Clouds. Lake Tahoe, California. June 21, 2014.© Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The waters of Lake Tahoe’s Emerald Bay reflect early morning sky and clouds and silhouette Fannette Island

I have a long relationship with Lake Tahoe… but very few photographs of the place. When I first began cross-country skiing many years ago — before much of anyone knew about the sport on the west coast — I most often went to Tahoe, skiing the many accessible areas of relatively easy terrain. Later, as the sport developed and dedicated cross-country ski areas began to appear, some of my favorites were in this area. This past weekend, when we had occasion to visit the lake again, it suddenly hit me that I had barely been there at all in the past decade, and that I have almost no photographs of the place.

As I usually do, on one of my mornings at the lake this past weekend, I got up at 5:00 AM and was out the door as the sky was beginning to become light but well before sunrise. As I drove south down the west side of the lake there was a cloud bank above the mountains to the east side of the lake, and initially the light was not spectacular. Eventually, not far from Emerald Bay, beams of light began to penetrate the clouds and the alternating areas of light and shadow moved across the landscape of the west shore. I stopped at a spot that would likely not seem special to most passing by, and made some photographs of the forest as this light back-lit the trees. I drove on, stopping briefly at the Emerald Bay overlook to see the view but not really thinking about photographing here. I continued south and explored a few side areas, filing away a few locations for later shooting, and then turned back to the north, with the plan of getting back to our lodging to join the late-sleepers for breakfast. As I descended toward the inner curve of Emerald Bay I saw the deep blue water, the far edge of the lake in haze, and clouds reflected in the surface of the Bay next to Fannette Island.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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