All images and material © 2016 by Mike Clasen Photography • All Rights Reserved • Use By Permission Only
Photographed in November of 2014 for a TMCC Lighting Photography course project, this is a single exposure using multiple off camera speed lights with CTO gel filters to illuminate ancient rock art on interlocking tufa barrels. These tufa formations were created thousands of years ago from discharging springs at the bottom of ancient Lake Lahontan, in what would later be named, North America. © MIKE CLASEN PHOTOGRAPHY www.mikeclasenphotography.com
This scene was captured March of 2016 during one of the few photography outings I had been able to pull off that year. Beyond ancient toppled tufa-mushrooms, a full moon illuminates lenticular cloud formations, while thorns dance with the wind. © MIKE CLASEN PHOTOGRAPHY www.mikeclasenphotography.com
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
