All images © 2007-2013 Aaron Meyers
Photography. Skiing. Hiking. The 3 things I tell people that I spend my time doing ... or at least I used to tell people until California started enduring drought after drought. When I planned a February ski trip I never thought that there would be so little snow that many Tahoe resorts were forced to close early. After spending a fun day avoid rocks while skiing at Squaw, Rebecca and a few friends and I decided to go to my favorite spot for sunset: Bonsai Rock. It was immediately apparent how low Lake Tahoe is. When I first visited in 2011 you could practically swim right up to the edge of the “ramp”. Now it’s 5 feet above the water. On the other hand there’s a ton of boulders that are great as foreground elements! Sunset that night was gorgeous but cloudless. The next day our skiing at Alpine Meadows was a lot like the day before but with one noticeable difference: the sun kept getting hidden behind thin clouds. With the sky looking juicy we left the slopes early and made our way back to Bonsai. A quick text message from Jeff/Escaype confirmed my own research: tonight was going to be beautiful! Rebecca and I were one of the first to arrive and we quickly staked out 2 different spots. Thanks to Social Media and Google Maps I had the feeling that it would get crowded quickly. By the time the sun had set there was a line of 20 photographers elbowing for spots (which is insane in itself because this area is so huge). In fact, I had to somewhat forcefully remove a photographer from setting up directly in front of her! Sure enough once the sun set, the sky lit up with reds, pinks, purples, and oranges and lasted that way for over an hour! Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8: 17mm, f/11, 1.0 sec, ISO 50
One of the main attractions in Iceland is a giant Ice-Lagoon filled with icebergs as they melt off a glacier and float away into the Atlantic Ocean. The powerful waves break up the icebergs and push them back onto shore, where they wash up on a black lava sand beach. The ice-lagoon and the ice-beach were 2 of the spots that I desperately wanted to see on my first trip to Iceland. I first went to Iceland in the summer but the weather was so crummy we barely saw the sky until 10 days into the trip. I got a neat photo from the ice-beach but never with any color in the sky. When I went back a year later, in the winter, I got a lot luckier and for the first time I was able to enjoy the entire Icelandic landscape (I could finally see the mountain tops, the beautiful peaks, the hundreds of glaciers...) On this particular evening we were hanging out at the Jokulsarlon ice-beach and the sun just managed to peak its way out of the clouds and cast a little bit of orange light into the sky. Willie, Alan, Rebecca and I kept dashing back and forth, trying to get close to these icebergs while also not getting completely soaked. Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8: 17mm, f/20, 1.0 sec, ISO 100
