Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Donner Lake/Reno At Night - Lake Tahoe/Reno 2012 (Part 1)

If you live in the SF Bay Area, you probably know it never snows here. Many people like me who live in the SF Bay Area love snow. The nearest place that does get snow is in Lake Tahoe and Reno. Many of us go there in the winter to go ski and snowboard, but for me, I don't like any of that. I enjoy taking photos of snow and playing in it. :) Here are photos of Lake Tahoe and Reno I took during my trip in Christmas of 2012. I will be splitting them into several parts as I took a lot of photos there. Hope you enjoy.

Full Resolution Photos and Prints: If you want to see full resolution photos or buy prints of any of the photos you see, they are up on my portfolio for viewing. To see my best Lake Tahoe/Reno/Donner Lake photos from 2012, use this link. To see my best sunset and night photos of 2012, use this link. To see all of my photos from this trip, use this link.

Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11

Okay, now let's get started with today's photos. :) These photos are from my first day of the trip, on my way to Reno, NV. My first photos are just before sunset, and after I arrived in Reno, NV, I took some night street photography in downtown.

This was on the road right before sunset. First snow I saw and I turned out first chance I got. :) Story doesn't just stop here, see the rest under the next photo. :P 

 So I turned out and parked on the side of the road doing some long exposures because it was right before sunset, dark out... The next thing I know, this cop car drove by and screamed at me and this other car parked there, this is private property, you can't park here. LOL So I continued my trip after this shot. A lot of snow though. :P Loved it! 


Obviously this photo was taken after sunset. I stopped at the Vista Point on I-80 to see Donner Lake. This first one was a 30 second exposure. 

I noticed the 30 second exposure seemed a bit dark so I pulled out my remote shutter release and did a 1 minute exposure instead.  

 The hotel I stayed at was Harrah's in Downtown Reno. Before I headed to the hotel lobby, I took a night long exposure from the parking lot. Sure was cold, but it was worth it. The day I arrived, the weather was pretty good, no snow. I picked the good days to go and leave Reno so driving wouldn't be hazardous. 



As my parents went to go check-in to our hotel room, I decided to get a long exposure inside the lobby. The blur is all the people walking around.  

 Here is another long exposure in the lobby. Can't believe the people on the left barely moved! XD 



After I dropped off some stuff in the hotel room, I decided to go downtown and do some night exposures of the lights. 

Here is another shot of Cal-Nevada with a car driving by.  

 Here is a shot of the road between Cal-Nevada and Harrah's. 



I thought all the lights would make great bokeh! I was right. :) Looks cool doesn't it? 

Here is an in focus shot of the photo above. Love night time long exposures, they are fun, except I was freezing to death in the cold. LOL 

 Here is another bokeh shot with my lens on the 35mm (farthest zoom). Looks cool doesn't it?



Here is the Reno sign. I tried to to a bokeh on this too, but it didn't turn out cool. The lights were too close together.  

Long exposure of Eldorado. 

I hope you have enjoyed these snow photos and long exposure night photos! These are all the photos I have for today, next time I will start on photos from the next day. Please don't forget to share the blog post with your friends and family members! Also, if you want to get notifications when I post up more photos, "Like" us on Facebook or follow me on Twitter and Instagram. These links can also be found on the top of the right sidebar.

Next Post >>