Sunset at Pyramid Lake

[GrantKaye]

We've had a week of prolonged storminess here in the Sierra. Last weekend, as the first reaches of the tempest were flirting with the crest of the range, I headed out to Pyramid Lake north of Reno for a sunset. I was hoping for long trains of lenticular clouds, and dazzlingly colorful clouds, but I was met by muted colors and no sign of UFO clouds...at any rate, the sunset was still magical, as was the landscape, and the company. If you haven't been to Pyramid Lake, I highly recommend it. it is the sole collector of water from Lake Tahoe and the Truckee River, and sits in a truly stunning desert locale.

I would love to hear your thoughts on the results. I as of right now do not use GND filters, but having had a look at some inspiration work by others from this site and elsewhere, I am thinking about going down that road.

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The above are my selects, there are a few more images and a lengthier writeup on my blog, should you care to leave LL and have a look, you can find the link in my signature, below.

Aloha,
Grant

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

That's a very fine set of images.

My favorites are the first (in first place) and the next to bottom (second place). Thanks for sharing them.

Eric

[francois]

Grant,
You serie is impressive and, like Eric, the first one is my favourite. The clouds produce a nice V shape and the shoreline lead the eyes to the pyramid rock. I like it very much.

[wolfnowl]

Some very good work there, although I must admit that whenever I see a tilted horizon I wonder if it was done for artistic effect or simply uncorrected...  

Mike.

[GrantKaye]

Thanks to everyone for the comments. Mike - good catch...I'm usually a stickler for straight horizons and think I mistakenly uploaded the wrong version of the first image (and perhaps others?)...either way thanks for pointing that out, I'll make sure to fix it.

[GrantKaye]

I went back to Pyramid Lake Saturday evening, this time armed with some GND filters. As most of you probably already know, they make a huge difference in being able to balance scenes with a wide dynamic range of light. To me, I feel like with them in hand, I am getting closer to making photographs the way I want to....but I do feel that I need to be careful with flirting with "painting" instead of photographing, mostly due to color shifting from longer exposures with these filters. These are not HDR - each is one image. What say the critics?

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And of course the obligatory self portrait with my wife before we left.....

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And then, we thought "why not go to the Black Rock playa on the way home?" (actually 2 extra hours out of the way). I'm incredibly lucky to have such an agreeable partner....

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