A Day Trip. Well, an Evening and Night Trip.
Tufa Formations. As the sun went down, it lit up this small portion of the tufa formation.
On Monday, June 15th, I decided to take a day trip to Mono Lake. There wasn’t any particular reason, I just hadn’t been to the lake in two years and figured it was time for a visit.
The above sentiment is one of the reasons why I like where I live. The Reno-Tahoe area is in relative distance to a lot of incredible scenery. Tahoe is literally (said this in a Chris Traeger voice - if you get that reference) 40 minutes away, at least the northern part. The California Coast is around 4 - 5 hours or so (still doable as a trip!). Burney Falls is around two to two-and-a-half hours away. And Mono Lake is around two hours away (well, maybe two-and-a-half).
So it’s still a decent drive, but something that doesn’t really drain you of energy, say like a 8-12 hour jaunt somewhere (though I’ve done that too, in the past).
Of course, when I made the decision to go to Mono Lake, it was around 4:30 pm. So the day was really close to finishing.
So it’d be an evening/night trip, since I knew I wanted to be there at sunset.
Mono Lake is an incredible place to visit, primarily due to the geological formations that populate the area. For certain parts of the lake, the tufa formations jutting from the ground and along the shoreline have been there for centuries, in certain cases. These tufa towers are a result of underwater formations (when the water level was apparently higher), where calcium-rich springs met with carbonate-rich water and were insoluble to the alkaline waters (I think that’s right?). These towers were eventually revealed when the lake level dropped to it’s current capacity.
More tufa.
Walking along the tufa formations gives Mono a definite, otherworldly feel. And yes, it’s cliche’d to say that about Mono Lake, but it holds true. You definitely have to be cautious where you step as you make your way to the edges of the lake. As for myself, I was being cautious because I was still wary of cutting myself again on jagged rock.
It definitely makes it somewhat difficult to find a composition since there are several places that you’d like to go, but shouldn’t just because you’d step on those fragile formations. But there’s still a lot of perspectives to find from what’s available. I think one shot I’d like to get here would be a Milky Way shot, but that’ll have to come later.
When I arrived, there were several birds that were flying around the area, in particular, two gulls that seem to be cruising and skimming the lake for an early evening snack. In and out they flew, zig-zagging through the frame, gliding quietly atop the surface of Mono Lake. I wanted desperately to capture their flight against the backdrop of the sky and the tufa formations in the lake, especially if they started flying toward the camera, which they did when I first set-up.
Of course, waiting for zig-zagging birds to line up properly within the frame again amidst the setting sun wasn’t going to happen, at least this time around. Especially if I was trying to capture it!
However, there was a shot I thought was pretty fortuitous, despite not getting what I had hoped.
I didn’t realize it at the time, as I was only paying attention to the birds, the fading light and how the clouds were catching it. I triggered the shutter whenever the birds came into view, hoping to catch them in a frame. I also got a capture just of the scene itself, maybe thinking that I could get the birds in a different frame since I had to adjust my shutter speed to account for their flight, and blend them together later.
I did miss capturing the birds in frame for the most part, though I got a couple of blurry captures which didn’t make sense to use. But as I was editing, I sat there again thinking about how unique Mono Lake was in terms of topography, how it resembled something extraterrestrial. As I thought about that, I noticed the cloud formation in one of the captures I had for the scene, a very fascinating cloud in the left, upper-third of the picture that resembled a flying saucer.
I didn’t see that cloud as a flying saucer when I was taking the picture. I only recognized it when I started editing it. I thought it was an appropriate little “cloud” to show up during this capture.
Mono Lake is such an otherworldly place. What’s surprising is the little grey cloud shaped like a “classic” flying saucer.
Focal Length: 16 mm (vertical)
ISO: 100
Aperture: f/11
Shutter: 1/10 sec.
So does anyone else see that flying saucer?