Photographing in the morning and evening twilight can be a bit of a crapshoot. The light can be soft yet intensely colorful… or it can simply fade away to gray. Familiarity with the patterns of clouds and light can improve the odds, but you still have to head out there and take advantage of whatever happens. That was my plan on this late-August evening when thin clouds stretched across the sky, presenting the possibility of colorful light.
Continue reading Tuolumne River, Dusk
I arrived here well before sunrise, thinking that clouds overhead and clear sky on the eastern horizon might produce a colorful sunrise. It did! So I made monochrome photographs! OK, I do have some color photographs of the early morning color, too, but I really did come back with as many monochrome photographs as color photos. Maybe MONO Lake calls for MONOchrome images?
Continue reading Lake, Towers, Distant Mountains
This is another “quiet” photograph — no brilliant colors, not really an iconic location. It simply captures, I hope, something of the feeling of being in the High Sierra as the day winds down, the light warms as sunset approaches, and begin to stretch across the landscape. It is a beautiful time of day — everything slows down, it gets quieter as people go to camp for dinner.
Continue reading Subalpine Meadow, Evening Light
The light on this scene was a surprise. I had left my campsite high in the Sierra Nevada while it was still dark, arriving at the shore of Mono Lake well before sunrise. For a moment I was the only person there before others began arriving. There were lot of clouds — which can be a blessing or a curse for sunrise photography, depending on where they are and whether there are breaks in the right directions. I expected to arrive at this formation in fairly dismal light, then go look for compositions and set up for sunrise.
Continue reading Tufa, Stormy Sky