Mono Lake at Old Marina Backlit Orange Sunrise

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Inyo National Forest, Mono County
sunrise Monday September 24, 1990, slide 90C_8-13
Olympus OM-4T, 80-200mm Zuiko, Benbo Trekker
Drum scanned 35mm Kodachrome 64 to 100mb RGB file
Adobe Photoshop 6.0 processed for accurate image fidelity
Lightjet5000 printed on Fuji Crystal Archive paper
signature bottom right

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Unusual Mono Lake is a favorite subject of photographers including mine. Despite waking in the pre dawn dark, packing up from roadside camping, then driving to its various shoreline locations, a great many times over the years, I have surprisingly few truly excellent images to show for it. Such almost always requires some exceptional atmospheric conditions which one can never with certainty predict the night before. Thus one must simply gamble on any morning hoping for the best. Dawn and early morning are its best times for photography as the sun is unblocked by the modest mountains to the east that appear low at their considerable distances. Also during early morning one is more often to find calmer air. And to the west the nearby towering Sierra Nevada presents an aesthetic usually snow covered backdrop.

From 1985 to 1991 California was in a six-year drought. Water levels at Mono Lake had dropped to lowest historic levels. Subsequent court orders have forced the Los Angeles Department of Water to allow more water to enter the lake from Mono's drainage basin instead of being diverted south. Lake levels have now risen 6 feet which has submerged all foregrounds rocks in this image permanently. One of the issues that forced the court action was that the lowered water levels both here and at dry Owens Lake far south caused considerable alkali dust storms that were a health problem. The drought weather pattern also tended to leave the long narrow Owens Valley in stagnant inversion conditions. On this morning I expected another lousy sunrise due to the obviously dirty atmosphere.

With the lower water levels one could venture out on a mushy peninsula of small pumice rock islands to put the rising sun just beyond the right edge of this frame. This morning was particularly chilly which can be seen in the frame as a low misty fog against the main tufa towers. Old Marina is the shore area just north of the Visitor Center and town of Lee Vining.

Just west of that shore edge behind my shooting position, the Sierra Nevada rises steeply from the lakeshore over 2,000 feet. Consequently cold sinking air from upper forests areas above that slope sump down onto the lake most mornings causing a stream of mist to form over the less chilly waters.

On this morning, dawn waned and sun peaked over the low rounded mountains 30 miles distant just over the Nevada border. What fascinated me was the unique orange color of the air which when dusty is more often a dull reddish brown. Different sizes of microscopic particulates tend to cause slightly different light spectral filtering of which orange is rare. Likewise remarkable was the considerable contrast light scattering gave to silhouetted backlit objects at different distances to the east. I quickly moved my tripod position such that the tufa towers intersected the geometry of distance hills then managed a couple images before the rising sun soon diminished the color.

Two miles west of the lake rises LeeVining Peak, a mile vertical higher, with permanent snowfields thus contributing to considerable springs in this area. Calcium in the spring water welling up beneath the lake bottom, combines with carbonate dissolved in the lake water to crystallize building the strange off white tufa towers. Towers in this frame are tallest in the lake. Darker hills at middle distance are about 17 miles distant and above 7,000 feet. Mono Lake at this date about elevation 6,375 feet, is one of the oldest lakes in North America, at a bit less than one million years old. The huge lake is about 13 miles east to west and 8 miles north to south. Algae growth in its saline alkaline waters support astronomical numbers of brine shrimp and brine flies which supports an enormous population of migrating bird life. One of the most common species is the California gull, clarus californicus, one of which can be seen mid right center paddling towards the right.

Crop at 100% print size:

   David Senesac
   email: sales@davidsenesac.com

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