A sweet short regular weekend ride with Piyush on his VFR. My first serious attempt at landscape photography, inspired by my friend Arup Biswas who shoots large format. I slowed down, used tripod, ISO100 and long shutter speeds to capture silky smooth water at the mono lake at sunset and sunrise. I am still amazed to taste the rewards of landscape photography.
Day 1 (Sat 18 Oct): Early morning start at 7am. Uneventful ride till yosemite and then we started stopping often at the lakes. It was cloudy, so I missed the blue waters of my favorite lake - Tenaya. But we got some fine scenary at lake Elery, with some early snow on the mountains. Reached Lee Vining around 4:30 and went for the south tufa area of Mono Lake. The last 1 mile was packed gravel and I got really stiff when riding squirrely on it. The wing handled it very well and in the next trip I had no worries at all. When I started doing long exposures as the sun went down, I got addicted to the quality of images I was getting, it was pretty exciting for me. There was not much dramatic clouds, so I thought I could come back another day. Finished the day with a good dinner at Nicely’s restaurant opposite our motel.
Day 2 (Sun 19 Oct): Started at 6am for the tufas again, to catch sunrise. It was even better than last evening, despite the cold. We had wind chill upto 20F. I never enjoyed landscape photography like that before. I got seriously addicted. We went for the June lake loop soon after. This year the fall colors were not as intense as they should have been, due to an early cold spell. But I got enough to satisfy my hunger for landscapes. We got scenic roads all the way through 395 and Sonora pass. Took a cat nap at Cold Springs before the final ride to home via Oakdale.
Pictures:
- Priti’s flickr set
- My flickr set