All images and material © 2016 by Mike Clasen Photography • All Rights Reserved • Use By Permission Only
This image was captured in May 2015 at Lake Tahoe in mid/late afternoon. The recent storms passing over the Sierra Nevada had brought many photo ops to say the least! This image is an exposure blend of two long exposures to show the rapidly changing light scenario within several minutes. MIKE CLASEN PHOTOGRAPHY http://www.mikeclasenphotography.com
A full moon rises behind light cloud cover casting a ghostly glow beyond fractured, and toppled tufa formations. 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. 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! Captured January 2015, this is a single exposure. © MIKE CLASEN PHOTOGRAPHY www.mikeclasenphotography.com
*Published in the February 2017 Winter Wonderland Gallery of Landscape Photography Magazine. This image of the North Fork of the Yuba River in California, is a B&W conversion. Processing for this single handheld exposure, involved using CRAW/Photoshop, with Tony Kypers TK4 Panel, and NIK software's Viveza and ColorFX Pro filters. This was the third time I have re-processed this image since 2011. I am pretty satisfied with the image overall, considering the conditions in which I took the photograph (no water droplets on the lens), and the quality limitations of the camera I had at the time, which was a Canon Rebel T1i with a Canon EF 18-55mm lens. The timing was perfect for this capture, heavy snow fall had temporarily turned into light snow flurries when I stopped the car to photograph this scene, and there was a fresh clean white coat of snow covering the underlying dirty layers of snow along, and atop rocks on the Yuba river. After capturing this scene, we turned around and headed up the Golden Chain Highway to head over the mountain back down to Sierra Ville, and on home to Reno, Nevada. I had just let go of my 2005 Nissan XTerra due to financial woes after the recession, and I had recently purchased a new, better gas mileage, front wheel drive, Kia Forte. We hit a steeper section right at the top of the mountain, and started to slide backwards and sideways. I tried a couple more times to make it over the top, and had to turn around and head back down towards Sacramento to find some chains, and give Donner Summit a try. At this point, the snow was building up and really coming down. We made it to Sacramento, found some snow chains, and then drove the new Kia over Donner Summit in one of the worst white out blizzards of the year. We made it back to Reno safely, and had a few pictures to remember the more peaceful and serene parts of this journey. © MIKE CLASEN PHOTOGRAPHY http://www.mikeclasenphotography.com
