All images and material © 2016 by Mike Clasen Photography • All Rights Reserved • Use By Permission Only
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
The wind was ripping across Washoe County in Nevada at 60 to 80+ mph on Feb 6th, 2015, and this was the reason I was, where I was, when I captured this scene. The dust storms throughout the ancient Lake Lahontan Basin in NV were insane on this day and made for perfect conditions for long exposures, and to capture something unique. The price was dirt in the ears, eyes, nose, mouth, clothing, and equipment being used, but it was well worth the whole experience and the end results. Being the only person physically out there in these crazy weather conditions and experiencing it all was beyond awesome! Watching the rapidly changing skies and lighting conditions, watching the sand storms rip through the area and getting caught in them, getting caught in rain that moved sideways, all created somewhat of a challenge when shooting in these conditions. A rain cover can be used on the camera with the bottom sealed on the tripod to keep dust off of it – sort of… This image consists of two photographs that were blended together. The sky and the mountains in the background was a long exposure of 90 seconds (gives an idea of how fast the clouds were moving), where the foreground landscape was a fast exposure to freeze movement of tumbleweeds and sagebrush. I chose to freeze the landscape due to it just being a yellow blur in the long exposure, lacking any foreground/middle-ground detail really. The monolithic presence of the tufa megaform on the desert lake bottom stands around sixty feet tall and was formed thousands and thousands of years ago under the surface of the great Lake Lahontan when it was an inland sea. This image won second place at the 2015 Annual Student Art and Design Exhibition in Photography, at Truckee Meadows Community College, NV. It was printed as a 24"x36" print for this exhibition. © MIKE CLASEN PHOTOGRAPHY www.mikeclasenphotography.com
A full moon illuminates tufa spires at Mono Lake, California. This is an older image captured in May of 2013, which I revisited recently and reprocessed. © MIKE CLASEN PHOTOGRAPHY www.mikeclasenphotography.com
