Mono Lake, a remnant of the pre-historic lake that covered parts of Nevada and California, has always been one of my favorite places in the Sierra. It is thought to be one of the oldest lakes in North America (760,000 years!) and was also described by Mark Twain as “the loneliest place on earth.”
That explains a lot.
I have always felt Mono Lake exists at a higher realm than the rest of us – one that transcends the world that we live in now. Is it the tufa towers? Is it the millions of flies that scramble along its shorelines in the summer? Is it the sheer immensity of space it occupies? Or is it the water, the precious commodity that has bound the area’s ecologic energy together for thousands of years?
I can’t really put my finger on it, but the most transcendent experiences I have had occurred at Mono Lake. The first was on a sunrise shoot a few years ago, where I felt (I swear) the earth tilt, as sunlight flooded the basin and the coyotes simultaneously howled as they welcomed the new day. Surreal doesn’t begin to explain the experience…all I can say is it was other worldly, and I have never forgotten those two seconds of my life when all life on earth was in concert with some higher being.
The second experience occurred on the day I took this shot, last weekend. My hubby and I always have wanted to photograph Mono Lake in the dead of winter, but the last few winters’ lack of snow and our unreasonable schedules prevented this, but this year, the timing was right. And there was a ton of snow. Because of this, we had to snowshoe to the South Tufa Area, along Mono’s shore, to photograph. We spent the afternoon there virtually alone - the only other beings were a few human visitors also making the trek to the shoreline and a band of wild horses who inhabit the normally tourist infested area in the summer. We shot and sat and snacked until 4pm, when it suddenly became very, very cold. We were prepared though and debated staying until twilight to see if the sky turned sunset pinks and reds, and in turn, illuminate the lake. It didn’t look promising, so we started to trudge back up to our car, a mile and a half away.
We should know better. The sky did in fact turn into a luscious display of color – reds, pinks, purples, blues (and I’m sure there were other unidentifiable shades and tints) as we were on the trail. At the same time, the coyotes again howled, this time to welcome the darkness and simultaneously, I noticed three stars twinkled (I swear) adding to the evening’s performance. Again, all life on earth seemed to exist in concert for these brief seconds, as I continued my trek to the car with clunky snowshoes, poles, cameras - and a dead camera battery in tow, unable to capture any of it except in my own memory.
This shot of Mono Lake is slightly abstract. I cannot really take a straight shot of the lake, at least one that I like. I’ve tried, and when I see the results, I shrug my shoulders…Meh…not very interesting. But when I intentionally take photos that are slight abstractions of reality, and then edit to my taste, I find that at least to me, it begins to illustrate the other worldly-ness of the place, a feeling a straight photo cannot convey.
Mono Lake…it never, ever disappoints.
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