Silver Lake Sunrise
A group of Bay Area photographers met at Mono Lake for a weekend of landscape photography of the coming fall colors. This was taken at Silver Lake near the Jun...
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A group of Bay Area photographers met at Mono Lake for a weekend of landscape photography of the coming fall colors. This was taken at Silver Lake near the June Lake and the morning stillness created an awesome reflection of the mountain while revealing the gravel bottom near shore.
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Oct, 2015Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
This photo was taken at Silver Lake, one of several lakes in the June Lake Loop area in the Eastern Sierras, Inyo County, California. It was my first visit to this lake, actually my first visit to the Eastern Sierras to photograph the fall colors and our organizer scouted many areas and introduced this lake to us on the last day of our trip. The lake rents boats for recreational use and many fishermen are there to try their skills and luck.Time
I recall our meeting time was about 6:00 a.m. but we were staying in the Mammoth Lake area about 30 or more miles from the others in the photography group so we arranged to meet the group at a gas station at the intersection where the road leads you to the lakes which would have been a midpoint between ours and the others' motels. My wife and I got up early and waited at the gas station by 5:30 a.m. and no one showed up. Fearing that we were going to miss the sunrise we drove into the lake loop road around 6:00 a.m. and we had no idea where this lake was or where the others were meeting but we found a parking lot and stopped to look around. Fortunately, we saw one or two people that had joined the photography event and they told us to meet the others around the bend so we drove around the bend in the road and parked at the boat launch area. We got set up around 6:30 a.m., just in time for the sunrise. The lake was located in a canyon so we were not going to see the actual sunrise and the organizer told me to compose the shot on the west wall to get the first light as the sun rose above the mountain.Lighting
The early morning usually ensures no wind over the water so we got a mirror effect over the water but the fishermen were also early birds and launched a couple of boats which caused some ripples in the water from the wake of their moving boats but the ripples smoothed out before the first light. It was magical to see the golden rays of the sun hit the west wall moving along the facade as the sun rose. As the sun got higher the light lit up the golden leaves of the trees along the water's edge.Equipment
I shot with an Olympus OM-D E-M1, Zuiko 12-40mm F/2.8 Pro lens, tripod and polarizer lens.Inspiration
It was the first view of this beautiful lake in the early morning, calm water, during the fall, with some cold fog mists floating above the water and the sunrise; you couldn't ask for more. This has remained one of my favorite lakes that I photographed.Editing
I did some basic post processing in Lightroom to make sure the pebbles in the water were clear and the contrast and color of the golden tree leaves were visible.In my camera bag
I have an OM-D, E-M1 camera body with several spare batteries, Hi-Tech Graduated and ND filters, CPL lens, Zuiko 12-40 mm lens, Zuiko 70-300 mm lens, cable release and a tripod when needed.Feedback
Find that location, try scouting the location in advance to determine compositions and use apps that give you sunrise and sunset or other astronomical (stars and moon) info to determine dates, times and paths of the sun and moon, etc. Get there early to set up and bracket your shots to ensure that you get one exposure that is good.
