TUFASCAPES

Dust (2017)

Captured somewhere in Nevada, September of 2017. I was roughly 8-10 miles away from this scene here. This is a single exposure captured @ 321mm. © MIKE CLASEN PHOTOGRAPHY http://www.mikeclasenphotography.com

Venus Fortress (2017)

Somewhere under a Nevada sky, a rising full moon’s diffused light bathes the charred earth in the foreground, which was the result of a fire caused by a target shooter several months before this image was captured. Venus glows above this ancient landscape, which was once surrounded by, and submerged under the waters of ancient Lake Lahontan. © MIKE CLASEN PHOTOGRAPHY www.mikeclasenphotography.com

Storm Moon (2017)

With atmospheric landscape photography, sometimes and oftentimes the sky is actually more interesting than the actual landscape, and needs to be. In this particular image, the moon halo was the main subject, however the foreground represents another result from the storm that was moving through the area. The compositional elements of earth and sky resulted from the same weather system, which becomes part of the story this capture portrays. This image of a near full moon rise was captured 02-06-2017 when major storm systems had moved over the west coast of the US causing major destructive flash flooding in Nevada and California, among many other places. The fresh flow paths caused by canyon flooding from heavy rain had run through a recently burn scarred area caused by a fire that was started by a target shooter several months before. All of these elements contributed to a scene here you would not see otherwise. Normally there would be a bunch of cheatgrass hiding the terrain along with some other native Nevada foliage that was competing against the cheatgrass. The moon halo became more defined as the moon rose this evening, while lenticular clouds started to diminish, some still hung around on the horizon, all were quickly changing shape with the wind. © MIKE CLASEN PHOTOGRAPHY http://www.mikeclasenphotography.com

Wind and Waves (2018)

This was captured in a favorite area of mine, in the ancient Lake Lahontan basin. © MIKE CLASEN PHOTOGRAPHY http://www.mikeclasenphotography.com

Twilight Travels (2018)

Captured above the ancient Lake Lahontan basin, this is one of my favorite areas to visit and explore here. © MIKE CLASEN PHOTOGRAPHY http://www.mikeclasenphotography.com

Pathways (2018)

These flow paths were created in the ancient Lake Lahontan basin after some major flash flooding that occurred throughout Nevada in January and February 2018. © MIKE CLASEN PHOTOGRAPHY http://www.mikeclasenphotography.com

Grandma's B-Day (2018)

Captured after a storm was breaking up above a sub-basin of ancient Lake Lahontan. Just so happens it was on my Grandma's birthday 02/18/2018. © MIKE CLASEN PHOTOGRAPHY http://www.mikeclasenphotography.com

Settling Storm (2017)

This scene was captured in June of 2017. We have been lucky out here on the west coast of the US to have many storm systems come through over the past couple years. These type of Nevada skies were pretty much missing from the equation from 2011 - 2017. © MIKE CLASEN PHOTOGRAPHY www.mikeclasenphotography.com

Tommobu Pooha (2017)

‘Power of the Storm’ translated in the Native American Northern Paiute Language is ‘Tommobu Pooha’. This area of the Ancient Lake Lahontan Basin, has been inhabited by the Northern Paiute for thousands of years. This scene captures a short moment of a very intense lightning storm spanning over 60 miles wide that moved through the area of the Virginia Mountains, Pah Rah Range, and the Nightingale Mountains of Nevada, starting numerous wildfires on August 9th 2017. When I arrived at this area the lightning was consistently firing off in the distance beyond, and I saw a fire start where the main concentration of lightning is located in this scene. The black smoke quickly started rising from burning cheat grass and sage brush, and was then quickly dowsed by heavy downpours that swept across the lake bed, the fire was out within minutes after it started. This is a single exposure for the earthly portion, and an exposure blend/composite for the sky. Five different captures of lightning were blended together to display the intensity, of which all were captured within seconds of each other, which made blending them easy. This isn’t Kansas, so when lightning storms come to areas of Nevada close to where I live, I plan for, and take advantage of the photographic opportunities they have to offer and head into the storms – they are one hell of a show! © MIKE CLASEN PHOTOGRAPHY www.mikeclasenphotography.com

Lichen Fang (2017)

I thought of many names when looking at this image, the first was “Follow The Leader”, influenced by a Korn Album cover. Then “Rock Stars”, then “Liking the Lichen” (cause I do!), then “Moon Wash”, etc… But, I stuck with “Lichen Fang”. The title was influenced by the ‘almost’ full moon and lycanthropes. Yes, I am into sci-fi and fantasy stuff. Also, there are lichens on the foreground rock, and the pronunciation of lichen was pretty much the same as ‘lycan’ from the movie Underworld. So, anyway, kind of a weird way to name an image but the scene was all about the moon, the fang-like rock in the foreground, and the jagged teeth-like rocks in the middle-ground. Also, this scene would not have worked out as well without weathers blessing of ‘killer’ lenticular clouds on this day. Yes, “killer’; it’s old slang, but we are talking about lycan’s here! So, there you have it…. This scene was captured during the rising of an ‘almost’ full moon in February of 2017. I was with my photog friend Will, hiking through a canyon which recently had some major flash flooding a month prior. I am not giving out specific locations because, I invested the time, research, exploration, gas, technique, and pre-visualization, etc., and also because I believe one needs to explore and see with their own eyes, this makes one's journey more unique and interesting. Four years later during 2020, some A-hole shot the point of this rock off, it is no longer ‘fang-like’, another issue when locations of photo’s are posted online or advertised; this poses a risk for the area being overly visited, desecrated, and comp-stomped - to hell and back (yes, pun intended due to the whole Lycanthrope thing). The technical; this is an exposure blend for the sky, and a focus stack for the earthly portion. © MIKE CLASEN PHOTOGRAPHY www.mikeclasenphotography.com

Breaking Down (2014)

This image was captured in February 2014 for a UNR advanced photography project. This scene was the background canvas for a composite photograph consisting of two human bodies lacking any identity, which were suspended in mid air. When I captured this image, it was to kill two birds with one stone; capture a landscape image for myself, and to capture background image for a conceptual photography project. At UNR, they were not into “pretty pictures”, which pretty much applied to any landscape image for the most part. What does the image mean? What is the photographer trying to show, or tell, with the image? Conceptual photography was what they were teaching. I strive to capture timeless images, which most of the time requires a landscape that is very old, mysterious, and fascinating, mixed with stormy weather and longer exposures a lot of the time. These fractured pieces of tufa, were once part of a tufa megaform that formed at the bottom of ancient Lake Lahontan, an inland sea that covered a large part of Nevada thousands of years ago. The ground is pretty much the same color as the tufa due to it consisting of very small fragments of the tufa mound that has been breaking down over the years since the ancient waters receded. The sage brush and other desert flora in the area also resemble the color of the tufa in winter, this adds a challenge with processing to create separation, considering the diffused light. This is a revamp of the original image, not a do-over, but a continuation from the original processing back in 2014. This photograph is NOT for sale in ANY medium, and is for display purposes only. © MIKE CLASEN PHOTOGRAPHY www.mikeclasenphotography.com

Ancient Fire (2012)

This image was captured at Mono Lake back in October of 2012. I know there are a gazillion images from Mono Lake and so many are the same or similar, but unique atmospherics can help set them apart from one another. This was the type of afternoon, where you can only hope for the weather conditions that were at Mono Lake on this day. It was a photographers heaven! I was shooting to the east where dark gray/blue ominous storm clouds were swallowing up the horizon while sunset colors were starting to unfold. Calm reflections of the storm spanned across Mono Lake, it was a show to say the least, and I was unaware of what was starting to happen behind me. I was moving rather fast, tripod and camera attached, and trying to get as many tufascape (I made it up) compositions as I could of the storm and sunset colors, which were starting to unfold on the east side. I started to head for another spot and turned around to walk behind some tufa spires, when BAM, there it was! Nobody else was in the area I was at, so there were no photo bombs at all to dodge compositionally. At the time, I could not recall a sunset more powerful than this, and still, I am sure I have seen one, but this one blew me away and gave me photog anxiety. It had been so long, that I almost forgot about this trip in 2012. I revisited the images in 2017, and I found this capture that I had bracketed during the shoot, and created an HDR image using Photomatix Pro back in 2012, I have not used Photomatix since then really. So, I opened up the old HDR image in PS and started working on it, but there was a little funkiness in the sky and other areas from the auto blend, so I decided to do a manual exposure blend, consisting of three bracketed exposures, to expand the high dynamic range, using Tony Kypers TK4/5 panels. I have quite a few more images to work up from this trip. I have found lately that I want to process older images that were captured between 2011 and 2013 when I started taking my photography seriously and educating myself with the visual art of photography through college, online training, and lots of infield and digital darkroom practice. I guess, I liked my perspective back then, and all of my photos from that period were not focus stacked or anything, they were simply bracketed captures. © MIKE CLASEN PHOTOGRAPHY www.mikeclasenphotography.com

Fire Garden (2016)

Beyond the fire scarred rocky foreground, the Virginia Mountain Complex Fires rage in the distance during sunset on July 29th, 2016. Wildfires are common in Nevada’s dry desert environment due to invasive cheat grass, other grasses, sage brush, Juniper, and other desert flora; fuels for fire. The five Virginia Mountain Complex Fires were caused by a lightning storm on July 28th 2016. The fires were roughly 20 miles from each other, and about 35 miles north of Reno Nevada, where I live. One of the largest fires, the Tule Fire (the one you see here), made its way to Pyramid Lake causing the evacuation of Sutcliffe Nevada on July 30th, and temporary closure of the lake. At the same time wildfires were raging in California, and the atmosphere was already hazy from winds blowing smoke from the California wildfires over the Sierra Nevada into Northern Nevada. The setting sun was creating a golden/orange glow from smoke particles in the lower atmosphere. I missed the local news on July 28th, so I had no idea of the fires. I was watching the 5 o’clock news on July 29th 2016, and it started with a weather report warning for a lighting storm in this specific location, and to avoid the area, stay inside, etc. So I immediately loaded up my gear, and headed out to do some photography during the lighting storms. Right as I came over the hill before this area, I could see large plumes of smoke from the fires stretching the entire span of the mountain range. The sun was casting late afternoon light on the huge smoke plumes, which were mixed in with the storm clouds. It was like driving into hell! I was not sure how close in I could get to the fires safely due to its intensity from winds pushing the fires, and I wanted to avoid and not interfere with all the fire response vehicles heading down the highway to fight the fires. I didn’t even know about the fires until I actually saw them. The picture you see here, was one of the very first captures I took on this day, I figured it was the safest area to do some photography across the highway, away from the fire path. After shooting around this area into twilight, I crossed the highway and went up to a ridge to get a closer view of the fire, and I shot into the night until around 10:30pm. A little geek out tech detail… This is a focus stack for the landscape and sky, with some additional exposure blending for the sky, and some perspective warping in the immediate foreground to line things up better. I enhanced the veiling flare in the image here, the image was also cropped to cut out the Highway which was directly on the middle/right side of the image; a little peeve of mine is to remove any indicators of human interference in the landscape when composing the shot, but it doesn't work all the time. If interested in more details about the Virginia Mountain Complex Fires, including a fire map, follow the link below: https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/4902/ © MIKE CLASEN PHOTOGRAPHY www.mikeclasenphotography.com

Moonglow Mushroom (2015)

A full moon rises behind light cloud cover casting a ghostly glow beyond a fractured toppled tufa-mushroom in the ancient Lake Lahontan basin. These tufa formations were created thousands of years ago from discharging springs at the bottom of ancient Lake Lahontan, located in what would later be named, North America. This sub-lake of ancient Lake Lahontan desiccated in the early 1930’s due to man's involvement, revealing more tufa creations throughout the area. What this place must have looked like to the native peoples from hundreds and thousands of years ago when they viewed these lands. Imagining the night skies not impacted by light pollution from modern cities, and the beaming stars and moonlight illuminating this ancient landscape, it is truly fascinating! The snow patches in the foreground were from the only light snowfall we received in the beginning of 2015 out here in Nevada, a continuation of the ongoing drought. Needless to say, right after the start of New Year 2017, rain and snow had returned to the west coast, Sierra Nevada, and surrounding areas, with a vengeance! Captured January 2015, this is a single exposure. © MIKE CLASEN PHOTOGRAPHY http://www.mikeclasenphotography.com

Remnants of a Land Before Time (2016)

Captured in April of 2016. Coral like tufa formations stand the test of time in haunting stillness on a shoreline of ancient Lake Lahontan. This is an exposure blend… This image is NOT for sale in ANY medium. © MIKE CLASEN PHOTOGRAPHY http://www.mikeclasenphotography.com

Across Ancient Islands (2016)

This scene was captured July 8th of 2016. The lenticular clouds on this day, formed and transformed on into the night, what a show it was! What you are seeing here is an ancient landscape formed and sculpted by volcanism, weather, and the waters of Ancient Lake Lahontan. Old shorelines, and partially tufa encrusted hills and mountains, mark the geology around this area. The hills, and peaks in the distance were all islands at one point, thousands and thousands of years ago. There is a little portion of a sub=lake of ancient Lake Lahontan in the background of this image, not visible due to downsizing. When the sub lakes of Lake Lahontan rose, they would eventually spill over into other areas, like the valley below. This is a focus stack for the landscape portion, and exposure blend for the sky. © MIKE CLASEN PHOTOGRAPHY www.mikeclasenphotography.com

Popcorn Explosion (2016)

This image was captured in August 2016, when the California wildfires, and Virginia Mountain Complex fires in Nevada had brought in quite a bit of smoke to the area, which really boosted the power of sunsets and sunrises. This particular sunset went on for roughly an hour or better, and golden colors in the clouds and atmosphere started forming well before sunset. It was one of those days where I needed to go for a ride to get my head out of the funk it was in. I didn’t really plan on doing any photography, didn’t really care to, just needed to go for a ride to get away for a few. This image was the unplanned result. Tech details: - Focus stack of 10 images for the landscape portion (6 auto focused captures, 4 manual focused captures). - Exposure blend of 4 images for the sky portion. - Both the stacked image, and exposure blended image, were then blended together, all with the help of Tony Kypers TK4 Panel. - A little bit of perspective correction in the bottom portion of the frame to create a better flow, and geometrical feel with the image. This photograph is NOT for sale in ANY medium, and is for display purposes only. © MIKE CLASEN PHOTOGRAPHY http://www.mikeclasenphotography.com

Smoke Moon Rising (2016)

A sagebrush stands strong, spared from the fast burning cheat grass that surrounded it. A full moon rises behind light smoky skies caused from wildfires in California and Nevada, August 2016. Cheat grass is very invasive, and is a wildfire threat. The recently charred earth in the foreground was due to a fire caused by a “careless/care less” target shooter.. This was not a planned photo shoot, as none of my images are rarely from one. I am very mobile when I do landscape photography, and never could quite understand how anybody could stay in one place for a couple hours or more waiting for the right conditions to occur, etc. I guess I am more into the “picture hunt” aspect of landscape photography, constantly moving, composing with my eyes, seeing different possibilities, and all too often scrambling to find SOME interesting foreground elements for the capture. Or, I am a spaz, and impatient, and can’t sit still for very long. Connie and I were four wheeling, exploring the recent burn scar out here. I did not think the full moon rise would be visible due to the smoke and clouds above the mountains, so we figured we would just head on back home since it was getting dark. Well, you know how it goes, your out there in the middle of nowhere, and you have to take a leak. So, I stopped the Jeep, walked to the back of it to do my business and there it was, a red moon breaking over the mountain range with thin slivers of clouds going through it. So, I grabbed my gear, and started “scrambling” to find some interesting foreground element, which really what I had on my mind when scouting earlier, was a burned up sagebrush – they do look cool as black skeletons. I found this little guy that survived the burn, standing strong next to a wash cutting through diatomaceous earth leading around to the smoky moon. This vertical comp was from the last sequence of shots I captured, specifically for an exposure blend. The red moon with slivers of clouds in it, might be another future work, we’ll see. © MIKE CLASEN PHOTOGRAPHY www.mikeclasenphotography.com

Ten Minutes of Storm Light (2015)

This image was captured in November of 2015 during a winter snowstorm that was building up throughout the Sierra Nevada and surrounding areas. I photographed for an hour or so within 30 miles of this area in the ancient Lake Lahontan basin, in relatively flat and softly diffused light conditions, no sun whatsoever. Right before sunset, the storm cleared up quite a bit, and a window opened up for about ten minutes, casting the last rays of sun upon the entire span of the partially tufa encrusted Mountains. Shortly after taking this picture, the snow moved in again, I photographed a little while longer, but figured I better get while the getting’s good, it did not take long for the snow to create whiteout conditions with low visibility. It was not so much fun driving back home with headlights creating a “snow warp” effect. I passed several wrecks and overturned cars on I80 heading back to Reno. I made it home safely, with some good memories of this short afternoon venture. This is a single exposure, exposed for the highlights. During post, I created two smart object layers from CRAW, dropping the exposure 1 stop on one of the smart object layers, then exposure blended the two layers, and further processed the image using luminosity masks via the TK Panel, to build up depth and dimension. © MIKE CLASEN PHOTOGRAPHY www.mikeclasenphotography.com

Shore and Sky (2014)

This is a single 30 second exposure captured in high winds during a winter storm at a sub-lake of ancient Lake Lahontan in Nevada. It took quite a few attempts to capture a sharp image, due to wind gusts up to 60 mph. I shielded the camera with my open jacket during the long exposure. Captured February 2014… This image is NOT for sale in ANY medium. © MIKE CLASEN PHOTOGRAPHY http://www.mikeclasenphotography.com

Projecting the Past (2015)

Captured August 2015 for a TMCC photography course project. A toppled broken tufa spheroid reveals the fascinating workings of its inner core, which were created thousands and thousands of years go under the waters of ancient Lake Lahontan. This ancient tufa formation, which resembles a speaker cone or an eyeball, is roughly ten feet in diameter. © MIKE CLASEN PHOTOGRAPHY www.mikeclasenphotography.com

Exploder Dream Fantasy (2012)

So the name for this image was not totally taken from anything I saw in this scene, except for the sunset explosion over the Sierra Nevada, and the dream like tufa spires in the foreground. The name ‘Exploder’ is a heavy metal guitar solo by Akira Takasaki from the Japanese heavy metal band “Loudness” back in 1984-ish. Dream Fantasy is a song from the band Loudness which includes a drum solo, also from around 1984-ish (been a long time). Combine both names, and there you have it. This was captured at Mono back in October of 2012. This was the type of afternoon, where you can only hope for the weather conditions that were at Mono Lake on this day. I was shooting to the east where dark gray/blue luminous storm clouds were swallowing up the horizon, and light was dancing off the landscape and clouds. Calm reflections of the storm spanned across Mono Lake, it was a show to say the least, and I was unaware of what was starting to happen behind me. I was moving rather fast, tripod and camera attached, capturing the storm and sunset colors that were starting to unfold on the east side. I started to head for another spot and turned around to walk around some tufa spires, when BAM, there it was… I was like, holy shit! Nobody else was in the area I was at, so there were no photo bombs. At the time, I could not recall a sunset more glorious than this, and still, I am sure I have seen one, but this one blew me away. It had been so long, that I almost forgot about this trip, and I only processed a few pics initially after it, and it was pretty crappy processing for what I knew back then. So I revisited the images back in 2017, and I found this capture that I had bracketed during the initial shoot, and merged to HDR using Photomatix Pro back in 2012. So, I opened up the merged HDR image in PS and started working on it, and this is what I came up with. I would probably process this differently now, and may still do that... © MIKE CLASEN PHOTOGRAPHY www.mikeclasenphotography.com

Desolate Awakening (2015)

A sunrise lights up a desiccated lake ‘somewhere’ in Nevada. This was not a capture I planned on working out. I only took three bracketed sequences of this shot (literally setup and captured them in a couple minutes), as I figured it would be a wash due to shooting directly into the sun. For one bracketed sequence; I blocked the sun with my fingers to get rid of the sun flares in foreground. Blending the exposures worked out ok.. If the little cloud would not have been there to diffuse the sun somewhat as it was rising, this would not have worked out with the sun star, as it would have been too bright and overpowering. This is one of the very few times I have woken up early up to shoot a sunrise, and this was the last time... Captured April 2015... © MIKE CLASEN PHOTOGRAPHY www.mikeclasenphotography.com

Desert Jewel Stormset (2016)

Captured May 2016 at a sub-lake of ancient Lake Lahontan. This is a stand and shoot single exposure. This image is NOT for sale in ANY medium, and is for display purposes only. © MIKE CLASEN PHOTOGRAPHY www.mikeclasenphotography.com