Tag Archives: california

Morning Trees, Shadows

Morning Trees, Shadows
“Morning Trees, Shadows” Trees in morning light as mountain shadows recede across a meadow.

I made this photograph on the final morning of my late-August visit to the Tuolumne Meadows area of Yosemite. Since I had until noon to vacate my campsite, I figured I would do some early morning photography before breaking camp. I had a particular sunrise photograph in mind, and after completing that I looked around with no particular agenda and decided to head up to the meadows around Tioga Pass.

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Lake, Tufa, and Morning Clouds

Lake, Tufa, and Morning Clouds
“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.

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Tuolumne Sunset

Tuolumne Sunset
“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.

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Tufa, Dawn

Tufa, Dawn
“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.

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