Mono County

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• Elias Hicks.

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An old shot from our trip to the stunning Mono Lake. We were lucky to see an awesome sunrise but forgot to pack our tripod which we realized only once we were at the location. So I decided to wing it and do the shots handheld by hiking up the iso of my D800. Needless to say I only got a few shots that were usable and I had to do a lot of noise cancellation work on them to get half way decent images. But this shot was one of the better shots of the day. Hope you all like it..

• Sigmund Freud.

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Mono lake’s south tufa beach is one of my favorite locations to photograph. Due to its proximity to the Tioga pass, there is never a shortage of interesting cloud formations, and usually, the golden hour light is spectacular. Unfortunately, May and June in coastal and southern California are not the best months to photograph. May grey and June gloom are the local terms to describe the conditions.

Eastern California was my secret escape during these months, and Mono Lake was a must-visit location every time we went up Route 395. On this day, there was what looked like a lenticular cloud forming above one of the prominent peaks surrounding the lake. I hoped the wind would whip it up quickly, but unfortunately, that didn’t happen until the light was completely gone. So while I wanted to stay put, my wife thought it would be nice to eat before the few diners around us closed for the day.

• T. S. Eliot.

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It's been a while since I posted any photos of my favorite place to photograph, the eastern Sierras. Today's subject is the beautiful convict lake just after a spectacular sunrise. After our sunrise shot, I walked around the lake to see if we could find any driftwoods to use as a foreground interest. The water level was pretty high that day, so most of the exciting foreground items were underwater. But there was a large tree that fell to the lake during a recent storm.

As I came by the tree, I decided to take a chance and get the shot as the sun was rapidly rising. We had only a few moments of golden hour light left. If you are a photographer who leaves immediately after sunrise, this image should tell you why it is important to stick around for a bit. If you look at the light in this scene, the warm glow on the light falling on the mountain peak is almost gone, but there is enough ambient light for showing off the great details in the shadow area. This later golden hour/early morning light is fantastic when you want to showcase details in the shadows—kind of like nature’s High Dynamic Range lighting. About 10 mins after this image was taken, the light on the mountain became too strong for the camera to record any details in the shadows.

• Henry James.

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While Yosemite Valley is a spot that we have been to many times over, the same is not true for another equally majestic and easily accessible part of the park, the Tioga pass. We have been to Tioga Pass only twice, and both time we were passing through the park as part of bigger trips. Both trips occurred fairly early in my landscape photography career, and recently, while cataloging my old photos, I had a chance to revisit some of the old pictures from our first trip.

I took this shot during our first visit, which was during a trip to Crater Lake. Since we were in a hurry, we only allocated an afternoon to explore the whole pass, and we picked the 4th of July week to hit the park. Every parking lot was packed, but finally, as we were driving back, the sun started to put some color on the clouds, and we managed to find a parking spot near the Tioga lake. I don’t know what forced me to abandon this shot, but I am glad I managed to get back to it.

brown wooden house on ground

• Christian Nestell Bovee.

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So after getting some cool shots at the hot creek geological site during sunrise, which I posted earlier, we decided to head to Mono Lake for sunset. Now the first time I was at Mono Lake was when we passed through the area on our first northern California trip. We actually stopped right at noon so being the high desert we didn’t had much luck getting any decent shots. But we were floored by the stunning beauty of the place. Fortunately we got many opportunities to comeback to this stunning location and witness some of the best sunset and sunrise skies at this location. But very rarely did those translate to good shots forgotten tripods, sudden desert storms, heavy traffic and other nuisances often messed with a decent photography experience here.

So this time I wanted to be fully prepared and we did manage to get to the location well in advance for sunset. I tested some compositions and were ready for the sunset sky. My wife, who is by now an expert on sunset conditions, was not very hopeful as huge clouds were making the sky very dull and grey and soon the sun went under behind the tall peaks of the Sierra. I was about to abandon hope and leave when the sky suddenly burst out in vivid pink, orange and red hues, painting the clouds in all kinds of colors and shapes imaginable. I used the lee big stopper to bring the water to stillness and a 2 stop grad to get some colors on the sky. Almost 4 years since buying the D800, it still blows me away with how much details it can gather if you do even a half decent job of exposing the shot.

• Jean Anouilh.

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While we lived in California for over six years, we only managed to properly explore the Tioga pass section of the Yosemite National Park. We have crossed the Tioga Pass road many times while en route to other locations, and we always try to time our trip so that we are passing the are during golden hour. It’s still a challenging location to shoot, there is not much in the form of accommodations and summer months the area is immensely popular, but the real challenge is from the ever-changing weather conditions, a mountain pass in the Sierras means that the wind and clouds are constantly changing light conditions. Places and events like this used to frustrate me a lot as a traveling landscape photographer, but as I learned the tricks of the trade, I managed to adjust my photography to the elements.

A pro tip here: always assume that nature will not cooperate!

Now about this shot, on this day, the pass was experiencing strong winds. The winds meant that the lake was choppy and that the pass was getting pumped full of clouds. The clouds pretty much eliminated any chances of getting a decent sunset shot. But we had an abundance of quickly changing light conditions and pretty strong contrast. So I decided to try using my ten-stop ND filter, which allowed me to make the lake a bit more exciting and get the substantial dynamic range under control. Processing as a back and white image also helped in getting some beautiful reflections on the lake surface as well as capturing the strong contrast of the scene.

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• Persius.

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One more shot of the fantastic Hot Creek. For this shot, I used a longer focal length to give the mountains afar a bit more prominence. Basically, the past two visits we made to this location I didn’t have much luck with the spectacular sunrises this area is known for but thankfully the location is so spectacular it doesn’t really matter. The tame sky actually brings more interest to the stunning mountains and the beautiful Hot Creek snaking its way down into the valley. Thanks for visiting I hope you enjoy this image.

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• Francis Bacon.

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Took this shot while we were driving across the stunning Sonora Pass north of Yosemite national park. I heard about this pass recently thanks to a travel book and was absolutely blown away by the vistas from this beautiful mountain pass. When we started driving west we had clear skies and beautiful cool weather but once we were about 20-30 miles in we could actually see clouds getting pummeled into the narrow valley from west and it started actually to snow.

It was really cool to experience our first flurries since we left east coast at such a beautiful location. I made this shot just before the clouds rushed in and flooded the entire valley. Hope you all like it, thanks for visiting..

• Khalil Gibran.

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While hiking the convict lake trail at approximately the half-way point we came across a small but thick forest of aspens and cottonwood trees. There is a nice elevated trail bridge which I initially thought was unnecessary until we came across the convict creek which basically feeds Convict Lake. The water was ice cold so I was really happy about the bridge being there.

I set up my tripod to its lowest setting for this shot, other than that it’s a normal low exposure shot. Thanks for visiting..

• Persius.

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After our trip to Sonora pass en route to our hotel we came across the intersection to Bodie statepark which houses an old abandoned mining town. So we decided to check it out. The drive is quite harsh after a certain distance as the paved road suddenly stops and you are faced with a bon jarring drive uphill to the town.

En route to our destination we came across this beautiful sight, a grove of trees perfectly shielded from the cold winds by the rolling hills. I love how late evening light and the golden hue of the hills perfectly complementing each other. After getting this shot we hightailed it out of there to get a sunset shot st Mono Lake. Hope you all enjoy the shot as much as I did making it.

• 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.

green and black vintage car parked beside brown brick building during daytime

• Edward Abbey.

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It’s now four years since I moved to California after about 9 years in the various cities of northeast US. Before my marriage my future wife and I were working at NYC and San Jose respectively and were forced to make a choice on where to settle down after the upcoming nuptials. My wife absolutely refused to do the long distance relationship even for a minute after the wedding so we mutually agreed to look for jobs at each other’s cities and to move to a city where both had good offers. Thankfully fate interfered and the consulting project that I was a part of came to an abrupt end a week before my wedding, my wife had her doubts but I took it as an absolute sign and packed everything I owned into my trusty little mazda cancelled my lease and drove cross country to the wonderful state of California.

I’d be lying if I claim that I was sure it would turn out ok, I simply wasn’t, as with most people I never liked change and was absolutely scared shitless. But it has all worked out in the end we both ended up moving to West Hollywood and having pretty decent jobs with wonderful new set of friends and tons of national and state parks to keep us entertained. For some reason all this thoughts went through my mind when I was working on this shot night and I think I found the perfect quote to go with the image of this amazing location.

• 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.

• Golda Meir.

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The final shot I took at Lundy Lake, a beautiful Alpine lake surrounded by massive eastern Sierra Mountains near the little town of Lee Vining. This was our first visit and we only reached the spot just as the sun started to light up the tip of the mountains due to some overflowing creeks. I kind of realized that my options were limited in regards to scouting and thus was forced to look for interesting compositions from just the lakeshore near the parking lot.

Thankfully this was one of the locations where the scene itself is grand enough to make up for lack of variety. We tried to find the trailhead for the hike up Lundy Canyon but were unsuccessful. Plus my wife was very interested in getting her hands on the delicious coconut mascarpone pancakes that are served at Toomey’s a local breakfast joint at Mammoth Lakes.

Bodie Ghost Town in California is such an interesting place to visit. It looks as if everyone rushed to leave at once leaving homes, the church, the school and cars in place as they fled. Nature has added a rich pantina over time and created some striking images.

• George S. Patton.

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As we were walking back from the Hot Creek outlook, we noticed that the sun was now illuminating the small hiking path in beautiful golden light. So when we passed this tree bathed in golden glow and I took the camera out trying to get a shot and when I turned around I realized that instead of getting the whole tree in the frame, if I could use a short tele focal length I could bring the mountains in the background really up close and make an interesting photo.

So I created this stitch panorama shot with about three images, trying not to get anything overexposed. When I took the shot, I couldn’t see any color on the mountain top, it was pretty much in bright sunlight. But when I processed the images in camera raw and increased contrast, I got decent orange glow back on the tip, which was a total surprise. I believe this is another solid reason to stick with ND Grad filters.

• Edgar Degas.

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While we were at Convict Lake looking for sunrise location, I had noticed a nice driftwood which I wanted to be part of my composition. But when I returned next morning I panicked as I couldn’t find any driftwood at the location and ended up taking my first shot with some boulders as foreground interest. So was followed was a frenzied search for any decent piece to driftwood and finally we found one about 50 meters away from where we found it the previous day.

One thing that came good from all this was that I managed to get a stronger ND grad out of the bag to take this shot. And managed to get a bit more color in the mountain peak. Also who knew driftwood could drift.

• John Keats.

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On our recent trip to the Bishop/Mammoth lakes area, I had a chance to add a quick visit to the south tufa beach during sunset. I have a bit of history with the place and have never missed an opportunity to visit. The sunset light was gorgeous on this day, but it was a rare clear day. If you are not familiar with the area, golden hour cloud formations tend to be quite dramatic due to the Tioga pass nearby. As I walked towards the tufa formations, I noticed that the sunset colors were intense by the horizon but quickly became softer at higher elevations. To take full advantage of the colors and cut the sky as much as possible, I switched to my 70-200mm lens. It was one of those rare windless days at the lake with water mimicking glass, and I wanted to include it in my image. After a bit of frantic searching, I came across this swooping curve on the coastline, and the whole scene looked perfect.

Composing with a telephoto lens is often tricky, and when you add the constrain of quickly dying light, the process often comes down to luck. Thankfully I remembered that I had a leveling base on my tripod head and set up a quick pano shot. I was hoping that I got all the images in good focus and that the light was consistent. Thankfully everything came together perfectly, and I love the results.

• William James.

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Another shot from the beautiful sunrise we witnessed at the South Tufa Beach region of Mono Lake. This one was taken a little later than the photo I previously posted so I had better results handheld. This was actually one of the most spectacular sunrises I have ever seen and had some really vivid colors that one usually associates with sunsets.

I think I am getting a bit obsessed with this area due to the stunning golden hour light you get in this area and clear beautiful star studded skies. Hopefully next time I will remember my tripod. Thanks for visiting hope everyone enjoyed the shot.

• Socrates.

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For the weekend after my wife’s birthday she wanted to go somewhere where we could see some stars and fall colors. Since we lived in Los Angeles we decided to pack up and head towards Mono County. After living in New England, California Fall colors are not very exciting but to quote Forrest Gump “In the desert, when the sun comes up, I couldn't tell where heaven stopped and the earth began. It's so beautiful.

We had such a hectic week before the trip that I forgot to pack my tripod, so high iso and hand held was the only option for this sunrise shot which was taken at the South Tufa Beach of Mono Lake. We had a spectacular sunrise with colors and amazing cloud formations. Thanks for visiting hope everybody enjoys the shot.

• George Halas.

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Another shot from our hike around Convict Lake hiking trail. This shot was taken early in the morning before there was too much boat activity to disturb the calmness of the water. As we rounded the corner and at exactly the halfway point there was a nice view of the two granite peaks and some shadows as one of the blocked part of the rising sun. Add to that crystal clear blue waters and warm light from the morning sun made a nice atmosphere.

• Socrates.

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After our quick trip to Sonora pass we reached Mono Lake just in Time for sunset. Unfortunately the clouds that followed us back east were too thick to allow for much of a spectacular sunset. So we drove up this road towards Nevada and found a nice spot on the road to watch the clouds and this was all we got to see. Since I didn’t have my tripod, this was taken hand held and then stitching together about 5 shots.

I cannot wait to return here when there is some dusting of snow on those mountains and see how they look in morning light. Thanks for visiting hope you all like the shot..

• Rumi.

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Sonora pass highway has to be one of the most under rated scenic highways in whole of California. I have tons of books about the central sierra mountains and most of they were dominated by Yosemite and Tioga pass roads. Last time we visited the area we decided to checkout this location and were rewarded with some beautiful shots.

This is a panorama stitch shot I made of the Sonora valley just as the mist started to come in thick and cover most of it. I highly recommend this location to anyone who visits the area. Thanks for visiting and have a nice day..

• Pierre Bonnard.

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Convict Lake is an easy location to love. Awe-inspiring mountains surround it with some fantastic light on the mountain peaks at sunrise. There is a beautiful trail that allows one to admire the beauty of the lake from all angles, and if the number of anglers in the morning is an indication, a fantastic fishing spot. So not a big surprise that I make it a point to visit this gorgeous morning spot even in winter.

This was my first time in February at the lake, and I was surprised that the road to the lake was open. Another endearing aspect about convict lake is that the warmth in the sunrise lingers on a bit longer than in other locations due to the lake's site. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the best conditions on our visit, the wind was relentless, and it was proper cold. The trail was icy, and the ice over the lake was making some terrifying noises. My five-year-old hiking boots finally had a chance to shine, and I could get to the edge of the water without falling over. One of my favorite images from my little morning adventure.

• Emily Dickinson.

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Another sunrise shot, this time it’s a short crop of the beautiful glow on top of the Sierra Nevada peaks as the first light of the day hit them. It’s a sight I will never grow tired of and always feels like the reward for waking up so early. This particular day was very windy and cold, we were in no way prepared for the chill but stick it out and were rewarded with this view. I have seen this quite a few times now but every time it’s different and every time I was rendered speechless.

Since the wind was strong that day, the water was very choppy and basically took away any opportunity for a reflection, so I focused entirely on the mountain in the background and just used the lake as a foreground interest.

a wooden house in the middle of a field

USA 2011 - Monolake

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• Victor Hugo

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I have waited for a long time to post this image. I took this shot in the summer of 2015 during a trip to the eastern sierras. This location is called the south tufa beach and this spot is easily reached from the parking lot. On this day as we were driving to the Mono Lake area suddenly, it started pouring. The strong winds immediately cleared out the rain and suddenly we saw a huge rainbow to the roadside. We parked the car to the roadside and took a couple of shots. While taking the images we realized that there were, in fact, three rainbows. We were excited to see the rainbows, but I was wishing for a slightly more interesting landscape.

So, after the rainbows, we kept on driving to Mono Lake and lugged our gear to the coast and then the skies opened up again. We were the only people who braced the torrential downpour and decided to stay. Thankfully the rain stopped soon, and the skies cleared up allowing the sun to flood the scene with some warm light. This also gave me my second chance of the day to see beautiful rainbows. I saw this beautiful double rainbow above the tufa formations of Mono Lake which much more intense colors were than the ones before. This time they also formed right above a stunning landscape scene, so I did have all my prayers answered. This entire scene only lasted a couple of minutes and was truly one of the most magical moments I have ever seen.

• Josh Billings.

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I have always had a fascination towards astrophotography and whenever I get the time. Often it's difficult to convince the missus to stay well past sunset in the cold waiting for the stars to rise. During our last trip to Mono Lake, I bargained with my wife to spend a night shooting the stars. This time I was smart to employ her as an active participant. So this shot was taken by her while I ran around and light painted the pirate ship tufa formation. She was super excited and spend time worrying about the shot rather than the cold. All in all a happy wife happy life story.

• Abraham Lincoln.

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Another stitch Panorama shot from Mono Lake basin. This one was taken just after sunrise and since I didn’t have my trusty tripod with was taken hand held. I am just realizing how helpful my arca swiss tripod head is in making Panorama stitches. I had to take so many shots to get this stitch and it still didn’t come out as sharp as I usually like. I wanted to condemn this image for facebook or instagram but sheer beauty of the location and the perfect sunrise is why I overlook my own skepticism and post it in flickr.

Hope everybody likes it..

USA 2011 - Monolake

• Henry David Thoreau.

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In my post two days ago, I mentioned the first time we made the trip up Rt 395 and the incredible beauty of the area. On our first trip, we saw some spectacular locations like Alabama hills, Mt Whitney, Mono Lake, Mammoth Lakes, etc. But we soon returned and made sure to explore every small town along the great highway. During one of those trips, we got to experience Convict lake.

It’s a stunningly beautiful alpine lake nestled between the foothills of the Sierra. The lake is usually choppy with the amount of wind present in the Sierras. But if you are lucky, in the morning, sometimes you can score perfect reflections. It took us a couple of tries, but eventually, we ended up at the lake during a perfectly still morning. The scenery was achingly beautiful and got us the perfect canvas to capture the beauty of morning light. I consider it one of my best sunrise shots.

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• Ralph Waldo Emerson.

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We have been visiting the Eastern Sierras since the year we moved to California. It was totally by chance that I heard about the hot springs that dot the landscape near Mammoth Lakes. I found very little information online and after scouring Pinterest, Panoramio, and Google Images finally found an approximate location. So on our most recent trip, we decided to go looking for some of these elusive hot springs. What we found was this shallow pool that was created by the snowmelt and stunning wind free reflection of the snow covered Sierra Nevada Mountains to the east bathed in beautiful morning light.

This is a stitched panorama I made of about 4 images with a 1 stop ND grad. I hope everyone enjoys it as much as I did taking it.

USA 2011 - Monolake

• Saint Augustine.

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Fall color panorama from June Lake Loop road near Mono County, California. We went on this trip as part of my wife’s big birthday to see some fall foliage. I was initially wondering about the red and vibrant orange colors one usually associate with New England being missing in Cali where most coloration is yellow. Once we were there I understood the reason, the difference mostly is the wind around this area which mostly blows out the leaves while they are still yellow. We actually patches of foliage shielded from wind near Bishop which were bright orange and red in color but they were small groves at best.

These were one of the best groves we found on the trip and the light was very tricky to master. It took couple of trips to the same location to get the shot right. Thanks for visiting and hope you all enjoy the shots.