Before Dawn at Mono lake, California - Tyler Westcott Photography

Before Dawn at Mono lake, California

For a variety of reasons, I continue to look back through my old archives from Yosemite, and my Large Format camera in general. This evening I came back to an image that I really love, but that was technically marred by a lens flare (or actually an internal reflection within my camera that isn't 100% fixed yet). This evening I decided to clean up the scan and crop the image to avoid the flare, and just share what I had - it's better than nothing.

My last trip to Yosemite was (sadly) about a year and a half ago, in July 2008. It was just after I got my Large Format camera, and I was still learning how to work with it, and was mostly unsuccessful. One of the moments I really wanted to capture was a sunrise out at Mono Lake, just on the eastern side of Yosemite National Park. I woke up to drive there for the sunrise, and arrived a little before 6AM. In the time before the sun crossed the horizon, the sky was mostly overcast, but at times picked up some color (blues in the shadows, and orange from the highest clouds just starting to catch sunlight) and it created a nice contrast throughout. The water was quite still and the whole scene was reflected.

I've kept the image somewhat dark, keeping in line with the reality of the scene to my own eyes. I shot the scene on Fuji Provia slide film, which has a fairly neutral color rendition. I have goal of shooting more large format and hopefully more Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada in 2010. Wish me luck.

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