Sunrise Over Mono Lake Tufa

nobody@flickr.com (Steve Kody) — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 01:05:03 -0800

Steve Kody posted a photo:

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Here is another sunrise shot from last month at Mono Lake. It was a very quiet morning and I had the entire South Tufa site all to myself. It was very cold, about 28° F, and the water was perfectly still like glass. Luckily there were just enough high thin clouds to make the sunrise pretty impressive.

The Mono Lake Tufa State Natural Reserve was one of the 70 California State Parks that were to be closed due to budget difficulties. However, I was pleased to find out that the park was recently removed from the closure list. Local outreach and some new parking fees convinced the governor to keep the park open. Water levels continue to slowly rise in the lake as new conservation efforts agreed to in 1994 take effect. The target water level is 8 feet higher than what is shown in the photo. Within a few years most of these particular tufa will once again be under water. Interesting to note is that once the new water level goals are achieved, the lake will still be 25 feet below its historical norms.

Canon 7D
EF-S 10-22mm @ 10mm
4.0sec @f11, ISO 100
Lee 0.6 & 0.9 Soft GND Filter
Lens distortion correction in CS4

Twin Tufa Sunrise - Mono Lake

nobody@flickr.com (Steve Kody) — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 10:20:03 -0800

Steve Kody posted a photo:

First photo on Flickr. Yay! The tufa at Mono Lake might seem like a cliche by now, but why not, I like this image. I was generally more focused on the sunrise and silhouetted tufa formations off to the right so this image was somewhat accidental. I got some other great images, but in the end this was slightly more appealing to me. I actually like the 'simple' sky and mix of nice soft gradients and soothing colors. It was a cold 28°F this morning which must have kept the other photographers away, I was lucky enough to have the whole south tufa site all to myself.

Canon 7D
EF-S 10-22mm @ 12mm
1.6sec @f13, ISO 100
Lee .9 Soft GND Filter

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Sunrise Over Mono Lake Tufa

Twin Tufa Sunrise - Mono Lake