Lake Tahoe hidden spot

I always do a search for good photo locations when I visit an area, and a trip to Lake Tahoe in California was no exception. I read in an interesting blog post that Emerald Bay was a great location and so I decided to try some sunset shots there. Not too great as the sun didn’t really co-operate, but I did get chatting to a fellow photographer also out that evening and it turned out to be Scott Thompson – the author of the original blog post that had taken me there! He told me of some waterfalls just down the road from where I parked that were great for sunrise images so the next morning I was there again and over the wall, across the river and there I had snow, the waterfall and the sun rising in the distance!

I moved around that area to try to capture different views of the rapidly flowing water, looking for compositions that appealed to me. This one with a side view of the many elements of the Lower Eagle Falls was particularly appealing:

It is always fascinating to search around an area for the perfect shot and so I left my waterfall and tried one of the rocky areas with a view of Emerald Bay. Using a small aperture on my lens gave me this image of the rising sun creating a starburst behind one of the trees struggling to grow out of the rock:

And finally, a broader look at the lake and bay with an interesting tree providing some foreground interest:

Incidentally, this morning was almost the end of my career as a photographer. As I was coming down the hill to this location in my rental car, I felt the car start to slide on the wet (and, yes, icy) road as I tried to brake. Luckily, I managed to slow down before the bend, but I did then check the tires on the car. This was the front wheel:

All the way back to San Francisco we were watching out for the slightest bit of rain or water on the road. Not a great amount of grip left on this tire!