Mono Lake Tufas
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- Omar Khayyam
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Some of our favorite spots to photograph in all of California are connected by this wonderfully scenic drive called Rt 395. We have done so many trips up this highway and lived on pretty much every small town that dot the highway. This shot was taken at the south tufa beach of Mono Lake near Lee Vining, CA.
The pirate ship, which is the small island of tufa formations that you see in the middle is actually quite far from the shore and would appear quite small in wide-angle photographs. I wanted to convey a sense of size of the tufas on the shore compared to the pirate ship tufa.
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- Ralph Waldo Emerson.
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We have driven up the beautiful Rt 395 that snakes through some spectacular eastern California scenery over twenty times in the few years we were residents of California. I first picked up the idea from a tourism brochure published by Bishop chamber of commerce. I still remember the trip very vividly. I had high hopes, but the initial 200 miles had me seriously doubting by judgement in picking this route as a long weekend destination. But after we passed the barren landscape of northern Los Angles, the foothills of the Sierras began to emerge, followed by massive snowcapped mountain peaks and stunning alpine lakes. I still remember breathing a sigh of relief.
After the success of the first trip, we knew this must be a repeat location and since then we have been to the route over twenty times. We often pick a town or location as our base and explore all the scenic spots and hikes nearby.
From our repeated visits we have identified the characteristic of some of the popular spots, for example the south tufa beach at Mono Lake near Lee Vining. This stunning lakeshore with its massive tufa formations is a surefire best for sunset/sunrise photography. Over the years we have figured out the reason why? And it’s the Tioga pass. Tioga pass follows a fault line in the Sierras and its one of the few places where wind can force the clouds from west to east direction. So as the sun heats up the air the wind starts to pick up from west to east jamming massive amount of clouds through the pass. Once the clouds reach the eastern side of the mountain, they spread out setting the scene for the golden hour side light to do its job.
I took today’s photo in one such occasion, we had a pretty normal sky at mid-day but since I knew how it usually goes, we headed to tufa beach and started looking for interesting tufa formations. About an hour or so before the wind started to pick up, and clouds started to emerge from the Tioga Pass. By the time sunset was near we have all the conditions for some superb light show.
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- Anonymous.
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Photographing the south tufa beach at Mono Lake feels like cheating in many ways. The place is gorgeous. Its unique position across the Tioga pass means the sky is always interesting. The beautiful tufa formations provide many patterns and details, making it almost an easy place for stunning landscape photography.
I usually prefer shooting here at sunrise to get beautiful reflections on the water, so I was not too enthusiastic when we got an opportunity to head to Mono Lake for sunset. The sky was uncharacteristically bare, and sunset means choppy waters and hence no reflection shots. Thankfully I decided to go, thinking that I would explore the shoreline a bit and hopefully find some spots to return to later.
What greeted me was a perfectly still lake with perfect reflections of the fantastic tufa formations. Since I planned to explore, I had my recently acquired Nikon Z6 and the 70-200 f2.8 instead of my trusty D850 and 24-70 combo. I was still a bit new with the lens, but there were few others on the lake, and I had all the time to hit my usual spots to make some beautiful images. Today's photo is a three image panorama of the pirate ship tufa formation. I posted a similar picture some time ago, but that included some foreground elements. For this shot, I wanted to isolate the tufa and showcase its details against the incredibly blue canvas that nature provided that day.
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Seen earlier this year. I hadn't seen the mono basin covered in snow before... and with dark brooding clouds at the same time. To say that Jean Day...
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The first morning of the workshop, we had a real nice sunrise. Not quite as epic as the one we were treated to while at Convict Lake, but it was...
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Willie and I spent a weekend in the Yosemite high country taking photos of the Milky Way, beautiful lakes, and meteor showers. During the day we...
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- Forest Gump.
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If you asked me to name a location in Cali that would get you an amazing sunrise/sunset shot any time of the year, the location, I would direct you towards is the south tufa beach at Mono Lake. This spot has always been a surefire place to capture one of famed California desert sunsets/sunrises. Usually, desert locations provide some stunning colors during both sunset and sunrises, as attributed by today's quote but the proximity of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and Tioga Pass almost always guarantee amazing cloud formations above Mono Lake. Couple this with the stunning tufa formations of south tufa beach and you have all the classic ingredients needed for a perfect landscape shot.
To get a great shot here, I’d advise reaching the parking lot at least an hour before sunset or sunrise. Now while this can be a quite a popular destination, most people just stay along the large tufas at the end of the raised wooden walkway, if you walk east along the shore you could easily find much more dramatic tufa formations with no one to disturb your scene. If you choose a sunrise shoot there you might also be blessed with a perfectly still lake and in that scenario whip out your polarizing filter and use the reflections in the lake to create even more interesting scenes. In my opinion, a 2 stop soft ND grad would go a long way in getting a great composition here. Once you are done with the Lake shoot, there are tons of hikes and other interesting spots to explore in the magnificent Sierra Nevada Mountains.
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- D. H. Lawrence.
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Our most recent trip to Mono Lake wasn’t a planned one. When I looked at the maps, it said the road to south tufa beach was closed due to snowfall. I had hoped to explore the backroads near the Hot Creek geothermal area, but the roads were closed with about 2 feet of ice, and I didn’t want to hike with our two-year-old in tow. We only decided to try our luck at Mono Lake because my wife is fond of a little restaurant near the lake and fancied it for dinner.
Surprisingly the road to mono Lake was free of ice and the parking lot empty, and even though we visited during sunset, the water was perfectly still. The colors in the sky were dwindling fast, s I had to rush a bit to get the images I wanted. The pirate ship tufa formation, as usual, got my full attention. A simple compositional element I look for in nature is a strong diagonal, and when you find it in a place like Mono lake, it's almost a crime not to use it. I don’t think it would have worked as well if the water was choppy, but the perfectly still water helped make this image.
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- Walt Whitman.
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The pirate ship tufa formation is one of the star attractions of Mono Lake’s South tufa beach. Its massive size can be framed very well with the other tufa formations by the shore. And on those ideal still windless days, the reflections make them look spectacular. While we planned our trip to Bishop, the forecasts called for a very windy weekend, and I initially didn’t plan for this location. But since the trip's objective was to show my sister, who was visiting us, the natural beauty of eastern California, and Mono Lake is such a unique place, we thought it warranted a visit.
I am truly grateful for making that trip as we found a perfectly still lake at sunset, and I was able to get some fantastic images there. While I have seen Mono Lake like this before, it's usually at sunrise, never during sunset, so it was a special treat. The next day I returned hoping for similar conditions, but the wind was so strong we abandoned our plans without taking any images.
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