I have been friends online with Steve Brockmann for over a decade. I have admired his work musically and he has supported my photography as well. Steve is a fantastic musician and I was excited to learn that he was putting together a new album. I want to say he’s a fantastic guitarist (because I love rock guitar), but he plays multiple instruments and doesn’t miss a beat on any of them. A few months ago he sent me a message asking if he could use one of my photographs as the cover art for his album “3”. We quickly worked out the details and I sent him the file, honored to be a part of the project. The album features 12 instrumental tracks written and performed by Steve, and I have been enjoying it immensely. “3” is slated for release on April 2 and you can check out some of the tracks (and maybe even make a purchase) here. For one low fee you get both Steve’s amazing music and one of my photos on the cover – how can you lose?
So with the album release this weekend, I figured it was a good excuse to give some background about the cover photo. It was taken at Mono Lake in California, just east of Yosemite National Park. Mono Lake’s iconic tufa towers have been featured in rock albums before, most notably (to me at least) on Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here”. I left work early on an autumn Friday afternoon an drove across the state to Mono Lake. I didn’t want to fight the crowds at the South Tufa, so I went to a nearby beach for sunset. This beach is known for its sand tufa, looking like alien sand castles along the shoreline.
Sand Tufa, Mono Lake, California (Kyle Jones)
As the sun set the clouds became dramatic and I turned my camera north toward Mono Lake itself. I rushed to find a spot on the shoreline to mirror the clouds while the color lasted.
Sunset, Mono Lake, California (Kyle Jones)
Once sunset was over I made my way to South Tufa State Reserve with the goal of capturing the Milky Way behind some of the iconic tufa structures. I arrived to see large crowds leaving the area, since the sun was now gone, and I was the only one going the other way. I walked around the beach until I found what I was looking for – some tall tufa towers that aligned well with the stars of the Milky Way. I set up my camera and took a series of shots to capture both the towers and the stars. The three shots that I eventually used to composite the photograph for the album cover are shown below.
Source Photos, Mono Lake, California (Kyle Jones)
For the first two photos I set my lens to f/8 and focused on the towers so I could capture their texture. For the photo on the left I shined my flashlight from the right with the goal of getting some fairly even lighting across the tufa. For the middle shot I shined my light from the left to provide some fill, and I cooled it (made it more blue) in editing to provide a contrast. I then opened up my lens to f/2.5, focused on the stars, and raised my ISO to 6400 to capture the Milky Way in the photo on the right. These were all then layered in photoshop to create the final photograph below.
Tufa Night, Mono Lake, California (Kyle Jones)