American Southwest Day 3

Today my goal was to try and get something that was perhaps a little different. Mono Lake is, after all, a widely photographed location with dozens of photography workshops every year and hundreds if not thousands of photographers making their way to this iconic location.  I marvel again and again how blessed I was to be able to spend so much time there, completely alone and with nearly perfect weather. 

When I woke up and checked my email, I found out I would be sending off my Nikon F100 to some fortunate soul....that worthy bidder on Ebay would soon have the camera and all 3 lenses. I would have to send it from the post office in Bishop as I made my way to Death Valley. I can say that the Nikon F100 introduced me to what photography should be. Perfect ergonomics, ease of use, an amazing view finder, and the ability to blow through a roll of 36 exposures in 4.5 seconds. Combine that with the insanely affordable manual focus Nikkor lenses out there, and you have a system that can produce amazing results and build your skill as a photographer. 

But I digress......

This was a completely relaxing day. I woke up at about 6:00am and went to the lake to expose the shot I had planned, then took a serendipitous shot that I walked by dozens of times, but needed the right light to see. I really like both of these morning shots. While I don't know they have the impact of the shot from the day before, they are exactly the shots I hoped to capture and technically they are well done.


Burning Bush. Nikon F100 28mm Nikkor AI-S Series E. f/11 1/8 second. Fuji Velvia 100 film


The picture above was the planned shot and the one below the extra shot. I wanted to give a sense of how tall the sufa were. Standing there, the look kind of fragile, and to some extent they are. They are mainly made of calcium carbonate (tums, rolaids) and I don't imagine that they are extremely durable. I also saw the picture for the next morning, my last in this spot.

Sufa Stands. Nikon F100 28mm Nikkor AI-S Series E. Fuji Velvia 100 film. Unknown exposure.

I spent the rest of the day just hanging hanging around the area. I tried to get to Bodie (famous ghost town nearby) but the road was closed. Normally that would provide much of a deterrent for me, but I could not get my car around the gate and it was a 13 mile hike. I had a shot planned for sunset, so I headed back to lake in the late afternoon. When I got to the park, there was another car in the parking lot, but I never saw anyone by the lake. I set up my camera and waited for the light. The best part of this style of shooting is I can really just sit back and appreciate what is happening around me. As the sun went down, it got as calm and as quiet as maybe I've ever experienced in the outdoors. Without getting too sappy, I can honestly say that moments and places like this sometimes make it easier to believe in a loving God than sitting in a stuffy chapel fighting fits of claustrophobia.

Silent Chorus. Nikon F100 28mm Nikkor AI-S Series E. f/11 at 1/4 second. Fuji Velvia 100 film

This particular roll of Fuji really cemented my love of the medium of film, but also confirmed my desire to change formats from 35mm to medium and large format. These images are so amazing. On the light table and projected, these images are beyond anything I've ever done digital. Even with low resolution flat bed scans loaded digitally and displayed on 72dpi monitors, they look great. But the small 35mm slides will never be able to be printed larger than 8x12. The detail just isn't there. Medium format can easily be printed 16x20 and large format can go 40x50.

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