Open Mind and Open Eyes

Gary Hart Photography: Splash of Rainbow, South Tufa Reflection, Mono Lake

Splash of Rainbow, South Tufa, Mono Lake
Sony α1
Sony 16-35 GM II
6 seconds
F/11
ISO 100

As landscape photographers, it’s easy to arrive at a photo location with a preconceived idea of what we’re going to shoot. That’s often because there’s a single perspective that gets all the attention, dominating the images of the location shared online and skewing the perception of what its images should look like.

Stillness, South Tufa, Mono Lake

At Mono Lake, despite its sprawling layout with lake views that span 270 degrees, photographers (myself included) tend to gravitate the east-facing beach with a solitary tufa tower that resembles a battleship floating just a couple hundred feet offshore. I can’t deny that it’s a striking feature worthy of photographing, but certainly not to the exclusion of other opportunities at South Tufa.

Fortunately, since this spot is at the most distant corner of South Tufa, getting out there requires walking past most of the other views on the route. So each time I take a workshop group for its first visit to South Tufa, as I guide them out to this distant beach, I make a point of emphasizing all the possibilities along the way, encouraging them to stick with me all the way out to the battleship view, but to file away other scenes they might want to return to as they go.

But photography at South Tufa isn’t just about the views—equally important is the light. So another point I try to emphasize on that initial walk is understanding—given that there are photo-worthy views that include both lake and tufa facing east, north, and west—how much the scene will change with the direction of the sunlight. Since our first visit is usually a sunset shoot, I remind everyone how different the light will be when we return for sunrise the next morning. I point out where the sun will rise and encourage them to visualize the different light we’ll see that will opportunities in multiple directions, and to identify potential compositions that might work in that light.

Since we’d been there the prior evening, as soon as this year’s group arrived dark and early on this autumn morning, everyone scattered quickly. I brought up the rear, checking in with everyone on my walk out to the battleship tufa beach. As much as I like the scene at this east-facing beach, one challenge is that it’s in the midst of what might be best describes as a tufa garden—a collection of stubby shrubs and 10-15 foot high tufa towers—that makes it very difficult to see what’s happening in the other directions. But with a nice mix of clouds and sky this morning, I knew the potential existed for a nice sunrise and made a point of keeping my head on a swivel to avoid missing something in the other directions.

About 15 minutes before sunrise I noticed the clouds in the west start catching light, and shortly thereafter the Sierra peaks in the same direction lit up. I let the near me know that this might be a good time to wander over to the other side of the tufa garden and headed in that direction. The walk to the other side is probably less than 100 feet, but by the time I got there the light on the base of the clouds had intensified significantly. And much to my amazement—given that there was no sign of rain here, nor any rain at all forecast for the area that morning—realized that a splash of rainbow was perched atop the hills across the lake.

Not knowing how long the rainbow would last, I ran around hailing as many in my group as possible, and we all went straight to work trying to make a photo before it went away. I’m a strong proponent of finding compositions where all the elements work together, which is no small feat at South Tufa, given all the randomly situated tufa towers and rocks jutting from the water. Fortunately, as I moved around trying to organize all the visual elements in my scene, not only did the rainbow seem to be waiting for me to finish, it actually intensified as I did it.

It probably didn’t take more than a minute or two, but it felt like forever before I found a composition that satisfied me. As you can see, this rainbow was never destined to be the main subject—at its best it was simply a colorful accent to an already beautiful scene. But what an accent it was.

In addition to the distant rainbow and sunlit clouds, the other important elements I needed to organize were primarily in my foreground: the tufa peninsula jutting in from the left; the small tufa island at my feet, the submerged tufa stones; and (especially) the reflection.

To make all this work together, I started by centering the little island in my frame, and balancing the rainbow with the tallest spire of the peninsula. With the scene left/right balanced, I decided I need to get my boots muddy and set my tripod in shallow water to turn the foreground tufa into an actual island. Since the best clouds were fairly low, I only included enough sky to include them (by putting the top of my frame where I did, viewers can infer that the clouds stretch much farther than they did), and was careful not to put the little blip of tufa on the far right too close to the edge.

Now for the reflection. I didn’t really care for the empty water between the reflection and the little island, so I slowly dropped my tripod, keeping an eye on my LCD and stopping when the reflection filled almost all of that watery void. I put on my Breakthrough 6-stop dark polarizer to smooth the water, and it to reveal the interesting detail on the lakebed without erasing the colorful part of the reflection. Finally, I focused on the small rocks just beyond my foreground island, and clicked.

This is not a scene I’d have normally gravitated to, but I was drawn by the light (and stayed for the rainbow). Had I not seen the rainbow, I’m not even sure I’d have taken the time to build the composition I ended up with, but this is just one more reminder that if you open your mind and your eyes, things just have a way of working out.