All images and material © 2016 by Mike Clasen Photography • All Rights Reserved • Use By Permission Only
The Sierra Nevada is one of the most spectacular mountain ranges to witness fall color. I used a higher f-stop to increase depth of field and to create a “sun star”. The ISO was increased for a faster shutter speed to stop the motion of the trees, leaves, and grass from the High Sierra afternoon winds. A polarizer was used to bring out more fall color in the Aspen leaves and to reduce glare. © MIKE CLASEN PHOTOGRAPHY www.mikeclasenphotography.com
This single exposure was captured using four off camera speed lights to illuminate ancient rock art on conjoined tufa barrels, while balancing the off camera flash with the setting sun and matching its warmth by using 1/2 CTO gel filters. One off camera speed-light was handheld and directed towards the tufa barrels in shade, while each of the other three speed-lights were positioned on the ground at different angles to illuminate the face of the tufa barrel’s to reveal the ancient rock art. An f-stop of f/18 was used to yield a fine crisp sunstar. This image was captured during the fall of 2014 for a project I created called “Light on Ancient Art”, which detailed ancient rock art in northern Nevada that was illuminated by off camera flash. These tufa formations were created thousands of years ago from discharging springs at the bottom of ancient Lake Lahontan. This area is also located in the Great Basin Desert which is the largest desert in the USA and covers most all of the state of Nevada. © MIKE CLASEN PHOTOGRAPHY http://www.mikeclasenphotography.com
I recently drove out to Mono Lake and explored Planum Crater, a really cool area to check out. It is just a short hike to the plug-dome, and its pretty amazing! After exploring and shooting around the crater (image to come), I headed down to the lake to do some night photography. For those that have visited Mono Lake over the years and were there in 2015, you probably noticed the exposed beach rock along the shores of Mono. The lower lake level brought new photo ops that would not otherwise be available. I did not know what to call this image, its just a starry night photo captured on our “other worldly” world, Earth. This is one of the most spectacular places on the planet, but one of the most over photographed at the same time. I captured multiple frames of this particular composition, some had many jet trails in them, some had none, some had a totally clean sky, but this capture had one object burning up in the atmosphere and I liked the dynamic angle of the milky way, and the burning object, so I went with it. This is one exposure. Thanks for checking it out! © MIKE CLASEN PHOTOGRAPHY http://www.mikeclasenphotography.com
