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
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
The landscape of Mono Lake and Mono Basin seems reduced to essentials: rocks, mountains, water, sky, light. And all of this is in a place of uncommon quiet and immense space — it is difficult to truly comprehend the scale of the basin. These qualities seem especially strong if you come down from the peaks and intimate landscapes of the nearby Sierra Nevada.
I was out there early on this July morning — having literally “come down” from those peaks near the Sierra crest in predawn darkness. Rather than getting close to the famous tufa formations, my goal was to photograph the lake and its surroundings from a distance, using long lenses to bring together some of the close features and distant elements of the landscape.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email
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This view looks roughly north across the expanse of Mono Lake and Mono Basin. The foreground formations are tufa towers, exposed as the lake’s level dropped decades ago when Los Angeles began taking the water from feeder streams. The main body of the lake lies beyond the tufa. What appears to be the far shoreline is actually Paoha Island, a volcanic feature. In the far distance are desert mountains of the basin and range country.
I knew some history about the fights over Mono Lake’s water, but I learned something new on this visit. A few decades ago Los Angeles Water and Power bought out water rights up and down the Eastern Sierra, drastically changing the environment — and in places turning former lakes into dusty wastelands. This taking dropped the level of Mono Lake by many feet (it was too late for Tule Lake in Owen’s Valley) until court orders and regulations forced an agreement that LA would begin to protect the watershed, with a goal of eventually restoring the lake to a level closer to its historic level. I thought that serious progress had been made… but decades later the lake’s level is still dangerously low.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email
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(All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.)
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