Still lake with protruding rock formations
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Gallery: experiencing silence at Mono Lake

November 3, 2024 / 48 Comments

At our best and most fortunate we make pictures because of what stands before our camera, to honour what is greater and more interesting than we are.

Robert Adams

Mono Lake is a graphic reminder of the consequences of human activity for the natural world. In 1941, the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (DWP) began diverting water from Mono Lake’s tributary streams, sending it 350 miles south to meet the growing water demands of Los Angeles. The impact on the lake was dramatic.

This is what is known as a terminal lake, as it has no outlet. It is fed by a number of tributaries and also by underwater springs. Because these waters have nowhere to go, they evaporate in the desert air. The combination of this natural process with unnatural human interventions has resulted in a captivating and unworldly landscape. A world of jagged rocky outcrops known as tufa towers reflected in perfectly still waters.

The science behind the tufa towers

Beneath Mono Lake, calcium-rich freshwater springs seep up from the lake bottom and mix with lake water rich in carbonates. As the calcium comes in contact with the carbonates in the lake, a chemical reaction occurs, creating calcium carbonate, or limestone. The calcium carbonate precipitates around the springs, and over the course of decades to centuries, a tufa tower grows around each. These tufa towers can grow to heights of more than 30 feet underwater.

As LA drained the lake’s waters it dropped by forty-five feet in forty years, lost half its volume, and doubled in salinity. Tufa towers that were below the surface started to appear above it. Once above the water line, the towers can no longer grow and are susceptible to erosion, creating some often-beautiful shapes. But while we may be awed by their beauty, the low lake levels are harmful to wildlife here, especially the brine shrimp and alkali flies that are food for several million annual migratory birds.

In 1978 the Mono Lake Committee was formed to fight back against the draining of water from the lake. In 1983 they won a legal battle compelling Los Angeles to partially replenish the lake level, and in 1994 it was agreed that the water should rise to 6,392 feet above sea level, as a balanced solution to the needs of people and wildlife. It isn’t there yet, being still nearly nine feet below that level, but must be considerably higher than when we first visited in 1991.

Revisiting Mono Lake

We were stunned by the lake then, but our old slide photos fail to capture its beauty, so on our recent California road trip we were determined to include it in our itinerary. We visited first thing in the morning, after an early breakfast, and for a while found ourselves the only people at the lake shore.

For this week’s Lens Artists challenge Edigio asks us to explore how we portray silence in our photography. He introduces us to the principles of silence in photography espoused by the American photographer Robert Adams. These include:

  • silence of light
  • silent witness to environmental change
  • landscapes without human presence
  • silence as a form of protest against the destruction of the environment and the loss of natural beauty

I could have hunted through my archives as I often do, searching for images to convey moments of silence. But I decided instead to share with you the silence I experienced here by the shore of Mono Lake, as it fits so well with those principles of Adams’. And unusually for me, I’m opening with a brief video clip so you can experience that silence for yourselves as you view my images:

While I like to shoot video from time to time, still photography is my passion. How best to capture that silence then in a still image?

Still lake waters help, as do the reflections in them. A total lack of other people of course. And a calm blue sky overhead. The only living things in my images, apart from the many flies too tiny to be seen, are the birds, but they were largely silent too.

Still lake with protruding rock formations
Still lake with protruding rock formations
Still lake with protruding rock formations
Still lake with protruding rock formations
Still lake with protruding rock formations
Still lake with protruding rock formations
Still lake with protruding rock formations
Still lake with protruding rock formations
Black bird on a rocky outcrop
Black bird on a rocky outcrop
Brown bird on a rocky outcrop
Bird in shallow water
Unevenly shaped jagged rocky outcrop

I’ll finish with a couple of photos taken from the path down to the lake. There are many tufa towers to be seen there too, a graphic illustration of how high the water levels once were. Where today we park our cars and walk several hundred yards to reach this shore, was once under water. The 1994 agreement won’t restore water levels to this extent, as it’s a compromise between the needs of people and of wildlife and the environment, but it’s nevertheless a demonstration that such compromises can be reached. A lesson for us all perhaps?

Rock formations protruding from bushes
Rock formations protruding from bushes

I last visited Mono Lake in October 2024, when all these photos were taken

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