All images and material © 2016 by Mike Clasen Photography • All Rights Reserved • Use By Permission Only
A friend of mine and I found this magical tree one day when hiking up in the Sierra Nevada in an area I like to call “Hobbit Land” due to the VERY old Sierra Juniper’s that are standing watch on the crest of the Sierra's. Sculpted by wind and weather, this Sierra Juniper has a base diameter of roughly 12 feet, maybe more (I am guessing), and appears to be reaching out for something in a twisted stance. It is very old, and was truly something to witness. The branch in the middle foreground with a flat end, was cut by some careless person long ago, and that is not the only area of this tree that has had portions of it’s limbs cut off. Who would want to desecrate this ancient spirit of the Sierra's? The tree is so old, who knows when the cuts were made… I initially captured this scene for focus stacking and exposure blending, but a single exposure with a deep depth of field at f/13 worked out. This is not an HDR image… I did not have any wiggle room in this composition for cropping, I was completely zoomed all the way out at 16mm, sitting down with my back against a granite wall, to capture what you see here. Captured August 2014 © MIKE CLASEN PHOTOGRAPHY www.mikeclasenphotography.com
Stars poke out through an early February twilight sky with Venus being visible between prehistoric tufa formations. Captured February 2015… © MIKE CLASEN PHOTOGRAPHY www.mikeclasenphotography.com
This is a single exposure captured last July on a Western Sierra Nevada slope. The West Coast of the US and the Sierra’s had a LOT of rainfall during spring and summer of 2015, and also, the Sierra’s had relatively NO snow during winter. The consistent amount of rainfall provided for some unique opportunities for photography; to capture the Sierra’s under conditions that normally just would not be there. During this capture sequence, there was a constant drizzle coming down, and the fog and low lying clouds just kept moving throughout the area diffusing the sunlight nicely, and creating a moody scene. With my lens tilted upwards at about a 35-degree angle, I had to shield the camera with a shower cap (they work great), and also held a Ziploc bag extended out and over the lens to keep the drizzle from falling on the glass. I recently found a rain shield that mounts on the hot shoe and extends out over the lens, hopefully this will serve its purpose fairly well. © MIKE CLASEN PHOTOGRAPHY www.mikeclasenphotography.com
