I’ve been quite busy this summer, and unfortunately have not had the opportunity for quite as many adventures as I (and Aubrey) would have liked. I have, however, visited Mono Lake in eastern California several times for a research project I’m working on. Although most of those images will have to wait, I thought I could share a few unrelated ones from the area.
On one of my trips my father paid a visit, and scouted the surrounding hills for interesting places to camp. In his explorations he discovered a plateau covered in flowers, and convinced me I simply had to go check it out. Well, it was nothing short of spectacular, complete with a herd of wild horses – it’s amazing that for someone who’s explored California for several decades there’s still always something new to find! That evening I was also surprised by a gigantic lined june beetle, clearly a male in search of a mate, whose pheromones he was hoping to find with his oversized flabelliform antennae.
Academic mentoring obligations kept me away from the Sierra for a longer trip, but Aubrey and our friends Randy, Cyndi, and Kevin, made it out to Sky Blue Lake for a short weekend. True to its name, the lake, and the skies, were remarkably blue. Being surrounded by the crisp mountain air and enormous piles of granite is such a wonderful feeling!
On my most recent trip to Mono Lake fall was finally starting to arrive. My father, along with my cousin and her boyfriend, camped high up in the surrounding hills and enjoyed the last rays of sunshine as the set over the distant Sierra crest. The following day, after finding myself surrounded by a photography workshop near the popular tufa formations, I explored some areas of Mono Lake I hadn’t yet visited where I found throngs of migratory birds, instead of people!
The final image I am sharing is one that might take a little explanation, a little head scratching on your part, and most certainly you’ll have to see it much larger (click the image, and I hope you have a large monitor). As you likely know, I study the behavior of flies (and mosquitoes), with a particular interest in understanding the neural basis for their behavior. While I have not done much of my own imaging of fly brains, I am intimately familiar with how they look. So, when I was waiting for the sun to go down along the shores of the lake and I saw these grasses, I thought, hey, that looks vaguely reminiscent of the sorts of shapes I might see in a fly brain. After I took a few images, an actual fly happened to land, in focus, in the picture I had already composed. I quickly made an exposure before it took off again. Perhaps the fly also had an interest in the inner workings of its own brain?
Tags: abstract, California, eastern sierra, fly, mono lake
Nice to see you have not vanished :-).. Enjoyed the images and narrative a lot! Paul
Wonderful images and interesting info… as always.