Hues of Blues
It’s been quite a while since a post. Despite my single digit readership getting back to writing these still makes me happy. After moving across the country, I’ve managed to get my home server out of storage and get the new home network going so that I’m able to edit photos again. I took a few in my blogging hiatus but I had others before the break as well. I’ll start there because I’ve got some good ones.
At the beginning of December 2024, I flew out to Reno, NV for work. It was a short trip - flew in one day, discovered complications with paperwork, and left the next day (after a short presentation). I planned to visit Lake Tahoe if my flight landed on-time, which it did! I quickly grabbed some calories and protein from a nearby gas station and drove up to the lake. My intent was to get a sunset photo of Bonsai Rock (which, spoiler alert, is the finale of this post) but I arrived early enough that I was able to walk around some nearby beaches. If you’re aware of the area, yes, there is a nude beach and I absolutely attended though in both full attire and solidarity. Had there been anyone utilizing the beach as advertised, I would’ve backtracked and moved up the hill to photograph some of the ponderosas with the lake in the background. Fortunately I was able to find a handful of compositions from the beach, featured in these first two photos.
As the ripples gently moved towards shore, I was able to get this photo. I like this one because it feels as though it can’t figure out if it should be abstract or geometric. The directional contrast between the lines in the rocks and the waves moving in is intriguing. There was another shot where the ripples lined up with the banding but it seemed much more confusing because of it and so, I decided to showcase this one instead.
This is the other composition I was able sneak a peak of at the nude beach. It’s possible that moving to the left would’ve been the better angle to line up the rock with the center of the cloud. Looking back over it, I wish I had done that just to be able to see the comparison. Unfortunately this was too long ago that I can’t remember my thought process in the field. I certainly like the symmetry and that the rock breaks it. Another thought I have is if putting my ND filter on would’ve made for a more pleasing look on the water. It might’ve. I only have a 6-stop ND filter, though, and given that this was in full sunlight, I’m not sure how long I really could’ve left the shutter open. It might’ve worked.
After the beach, I went back to the car, consumed the remainder of my gas station calories, and drove back up highway 28 toward Incline Village to my researched Bonsai Rock location. I was there early enough to identify a composition for what I was hoping would be a spectacular sunset, and putter around beforehand getting different angles on the scene. This angle of Bonsai Rock with some elevation allows the rock and bonsai to break the horizon and mountain ridge in the distance which is handy for drawing one’s attention to the scraggly little tree. I adjusted the color on the photo to feel less overtly blue. I admit, adjusting the hue slightly was primarily to break the blue-ness of this blog post up a bit and I prefer the overtly blue sky and water contrasting with the setting sun’s yellows painting the rocks. While editing this photo, I also noticed the smooth rocks on the right and how nice they looked. Looking back, there was no photo who’s composition featured those rocks. Perhaps next time I make it to Reno…
The back side of the rock featured this scene. I think the subject here is the little pine tree growing out of (ironically enough) Bonsai Rock. It’s in focus and the green stands out from anything else in this scene. It’s also framed nicely against the far mountain making it the center of focus (at least my eye is drawn there). I think it also stands out because it and the mountain behind it have no reflection - they break the symmetry here. After this shot, I moved into position for sunset, threw on some additional layers over my t-shirt, and waited.
As I’ve taken on this hobby, I’ve found sunsets are far more climactic in my head than they are in reality. In my head, the sky transitions about five times faster and once the perfect moment hits, time freezes while I get my shots. It’s possible there is music in my head that builds to this moment as well. At any rate, this is not how it goes. Nevertheless, I think I was able to snag this one at the right time. If I ever decide to hang this on a wall, which might happen, I’ll have to edit the lens flare on Bonsai Rock out. I made an attempt but I think the job is probably better suited for Photoshop, Gimp, or Affinity Photo. I combined three images into an HDR to pull out definition in the trees on the left as well as the rocks in the foreground. It’s possible that it’s a touch heavy on the saturation. Reducing the global chroma in darktable helps. I’ll leave it here for now if you care to leave an opinion!
Thanks for reading! As I was finishing up the last few edits to these photos, I realized that I completely forgot to finalize the blog posts from Italy last year. I’ll get to work on that one next!