Scott Shots Photography Blog. Follow the adventures of Truckee / Tahoe, CA photographer Scott Thompson. Photographs, locations, advice, how to's, QandA's
Happy New Year from Tahoe! Shot last night at Palisades Tahoe ski resort. Tons of fun out there.
I was hoping to get a bit higher up the mountain. But security wasn't having any of that... lol.
Shot with a Canon R5 MarkII and a 15-35mm lens, set at 15mm. ISO 3200, lens aperture of f/7.1, and a shutter speed of .4 of a second. Shot on a tripod. A bit of noise reduction was used in Photoshop.
Yup. Snowliage is supposedly a word... I love the look of fresh snow on autumn foliage! And this morning, I ran around Downtown Truckee, California with the camera for a bit, capturing a few lovely scenes. These two shots were my favorites.
Both shot with a Canon R5 MarkII and a 24-105mm lens. Handheld, no lens filters or tripod.
The fall colors have been incredible here the last few days. Hopefully they stick around longer for some more photos. And I hope you get to enjoy some of the color in your area!
There was some wild weather up here in Tahoe yesterday. My brother was in town, and we got out for some Lake Tahoe shoreline hiking and photography fun. It was beautiful out! Until it wasn't... The wind, rain, then snow came in fast and seemingly out of nowhere. Tragically, some boats capsized on the lake and about six people lost their lives (the news story).
This is how the lake look prior to the bad weather. When it started getting windy and rainy, we hiked back to our car.
On our drive back home, it started snowing! I asked my brother to turn up a rough road that I knew went up to a very high elevation. The snow was actually sticking to the ground up there. We went to a Mule Ears wildflower grove that I know about. The flowers were in bloom, and they were covered in a thin layer of snow. Perfect! I got out the camera and went to work. This shot below was my favorite. Shot with a Canon R5 MarkII and a 24-105mm lens, set at 43mm. It was a handheld shot so the shutter speed was fast, 1/200 of a second. The lens aperture was as small as it could be so I could get the best depth of field as possible, f/22. This led to the ISO being a bit higher than I usually prefer, ISO 2000.
Now available as large fine art prints on my website, HERE.
Thank you for looking, and I hope you all have a safe and great day!
It was a beautiful morning out in Downtown Truckee, California today. Finally, we have been getting some snow again. And it was actually cold dry snow, not wet sloppy snow. This made for some very nice photogenic scenes around town. I took quite a few photos, but these two were my favorite. I also shot a little video clip of our Commercial Row in Downtown. This little strip of town has a lot of history to it.
Both photos were shot with a Canon R5 Mark II and a 24-105mm lens. Handheld, no tripod.
As always, prints and photo products of these images are available on my website www.TruckeeTahoePhotos.com. Thanks for looking and I hope you are all having a great day!
Yesterday afternoon was a lot of fun. It started with a group cross-country ski lesson with my friend Martin of MVB Coaching. Martin is an endurance sports coach who offers coaching to folks all over the world, through the magic of the internet. I've shot many photos of him for his website and social media, and Martin gave me my first XC ski lesson last year.
The group lesson was great for beginners, and it was good to be reminded of the basics as I know I've developed some bad habits... After the lesson, the two of us got out for a long ski and we tried to find a nice spot for a sunset shoot. There actually wasn't a lot of nice lake views at the Nevada Nordic ski area, but we did find a couple decent spots. For some reason, my Garmin watch did not record the activity, but it was a lot longer of a ski than I'm used to, I was exhausted when I got back to the car.
The sunset was not as explosive as we had hoped, but we still got some nice shots with Lake Tahoe in the background. Here's a couple of them below.
Both of these photos were shot with the Canon 5DS R and a 24-105mm lens.
The shot above was ISO 400, the lens aperture was f/14, and the shutter speed was 1/320 of a second.
The shot below was ISO 1000, the lens aperture was f/5.6, and the shutter speed was 1/200 of a second. A flash was used for this shot, or else Martin would have been looking very dark.
Martin was giving free hour-long lessons all day, my group was a fairly small one compared to the other big groups. He was passing out business cards in hopes to get some folks signing up for his lesson/training packages. It was a smart idea!
And of course, the obligatory selfie with the camera, lol.
Thanks for looking and I hope you are all having a great weekend!
Yes... I got out yet again on the cross-country skis recently at Donner Lake, here in Truckee, California. I try to get out a few times a week for exercise and to enjoy the Great OutDoors. And of course, I almost always bring the Canon camera with me.
I wasn't really expecting to shoot much. There was some strong winds with the snowstorm the night before, so most of the snow wasn't looking perfect in the trees, the wind tends to knock it off of the pine needles, it falls onto the soft snow on the ground, and it leaves a less than perfect look. However, out at the lake shore, away from the trees, the snow was still looking nice and smooth. The sun was out so we had bright whites, a bit of blue sky, and some dynamic looking clouds. It all motivated me to actually take the camera out of my backpack and get some cool shots!
These below were all shot handheld with the Canon 5DS R and a 24-105mm lens. No lens filters, flash, or tripod were used.
I thought I was done shooting and was on my way back to the cross-country ski trail when I stumbled upon these icicles. They had the perfect background so I got the camera back out, and went back to work. Yes, I said work... These will all be on my website soon, available as large and small fine art prints. I also offer image licensing of my images, high resolution versions can be purchased and downloaded through my website, and used in publications or in a business's printed and online marketing efforts.
Thanks for looking and I hope you all had some great outdoor time today as well!
There was a break in a big snowstorm recently. It had been dumping all day, a decent amount of snow piled up fast. I took the opportunity to make some tea, grab the camera, and walk across the street to Donner Lake in order to enjoy a little outdoor time.
When I got to the lake, I was surprised and pleased to see these cone shaped snow covered rocks! The cone look made them a bit unique compared to most snow covered rocks. Also, the lake was coated with a slushy slurpy layer of snow. The whole scene looked kind of surreal so I fired off many photos and even waited around until sunset, with hopes for a fiery colorful sky.
Sunset did not fire off quite like I had hoped, but there was still a bit of warmth to the clouds. It was beautiful out!
These were all shot with the Canon 5DS R and a 24-105mm lens. All handheld, no tripod or lens filters. The camera settings varied but the shutter was always 1/200 of a second. I like using a fast shutter speed when shooting handheld in order to ensure that the image will be nice and sharp if I print it up big.
The image above was looking to the east, the image below was looking to the west toward Donner Summit.
Okay, this was weird... I found this hole below with a little feather floating in it. I have no idea how it formed, or if the feather had something to do with the snow not sticking there. But it looked very interesting and was very photo worthy.
As you can see above, the snow on the surface of the lake was more of a slushy slurpee and not frozen solid. I tried going out with the camera again this morning for a sunrise shoot, but the slush had melted and the scene was no longer really photo-worthy in my opinion (see the photo below).
It was a fun photoshoot yesterday! I spent a lot of time out there walking up and down the shoreline. I shot many different compositions, but these were my favorites.
Oh! And earlier in the day, while running errands, I saw this Tesla Cybertruck in the wild! I've seen one driving around town before, but this was the first time seeing it in a snowstorm. I've been told Teslas handle the snow fairly well with their all wheel drive. This one had cables on the rear tires, so it was probably driving like a tank, no slipping and sliding.
Thanks for looking and I hope you all had a great weekend too!
Yes, I'm excited about the snow this year. We are way behind schedule on the amount of it that we have received. I shouldn't complain after last year's incredible amount of snow that we got. It was a bit much last year... Last night, it started up again so I grabbed the camera and headed down to Downtown Truckee to try to get more Christmas holiday themed photos. Unfortunately, it was mix of rain and snow in Downtown and there wasn't much snow on the ground, but I ended up with this shot of a favorite little art gallery down there anyway. The Piper Gallery exhibits all paintings and sculptures, no photography, but I still love checking out the work there anyway.
Shot with the Canon 5DS R and a 24-105mm lens. ISO 3200, a lens aperture of f/4.0, and it was a handheld 1/30 second exposure. The lens image stabilization was on, and Photoshop's AI noise reduction was used as ISO 3200 produces a lot of digital noise with this camera.
When I woke up this morning, we actually had a little layer of snow around town. It was looking great! Definitely not a large snow storm, but it was nice to see that little bit of white layer on the ground. Everything looks so clean, crisp, and photogenic. So I took a short walk with the camera, across the street to Donner Lake here in Truckee, California.
These were both also shot with the Canon 5DS R and the 24-105mm lens. A much lower ISO of 200 was used. Both were 1/200 second handheld shots, and both had small lens apertures.
The top shot of the dock is a classic Donner look, I like including that sunburst for a little added visual interest. The small lens aperture of f/20 helps create the star effect to the sunburst. I liked the bottom shot of the shoreline and Donner Summit because of the somewhat repetitive patterns to the little lake waves, the shoreline, and the clouds. In my opinion, it created a visual pleasing look.
Yup, I enjoy that snow! We're supposed to get more tonight. Fingers crossed that it will actually be a decent amount but the forecast isn't looking good for that.
Thanks for looking and I hope you all have a great day!
After shooting some friends signing and performing at the Cottonwood Restaurant a couple days ago (post with those photos), I took a walk in Downtown Truckee for some snowy photo fun. We were finally getting a decent snowstorm. It's been a slow year for the snow, there is usually a lot more of it by this time of year.
Mix the nighttime snow with the Christmas lights, and streetlight... and you get a very photogenic scene! There was a homeless guy walking around the area, looking like he was out of his mind and acting strange, so I had to work fast. Just a few quick photos and then I left. I didn't like the way he was looking at me and my somewhat expensive camera. I'll be back for more photos when we get more snow soon. For now, I am happy with this shot!
Shot with a Canon 5DS R and a 24-105mm lens, set at 45mm. The ISO was 2000, the lens aperture was f/4.0, and it was a 1/80 of a second long exposure. Shot handheld with lens image stabilization on. Longer exposures do not work well with scenes like this. If it were a long exposure on a tripod, the snow would look like long white lines instead of little white spots. With a very long exposure, you might not event see the snow at all.
Fingers crossed that I'll be back to this scene soon. We are supposed to get more snow today, but so far it's only been rain. Bring on the colder temps!
Thank you for looking and I hope you are all having a great day.
Quill dog and I got out for another snowshoe hike yesterday while it was dumping snow, again... It's been snowing a lot so I decided that we would take a big hike to a favorite spot of Quill's - Dog Beach at Donner Lake, in Truckee, California. I'm not sure if that's what it's officially called but if you say "dog beach" to any Truckee local, they know exactly where you are talking about.
I shot a quick video while out there. It was a big hike but not a lot of photography was accomplished as the wet heavy snow made it impossible to keep the lens dry. I was only able to fire off a few photos before the lens was wet and the photos were blurry. The video is a quick look at our adventure. Not much in the way of photo advice or tutorials, just a quick look at the day in the life of a Truckee photographer and his dog.
Here are the "keeper" photos, all available as large fine art prints. Shot on a Canon 5DS R with a 24-105mm lens.
I had a morning photoshoot scheduled today with Coach Martin of MVB Coaching. Martin trains athletes for marathons, cross country skiing and more. His beginner cross country ski lessons helped me get going with the sport right away. (He also does online consultations and training if you're interested...)
Last night, I looked at the Skyfire app and it was forecasting a great sunrise with lots of color. So a change in the plans was made and we decided to meet up even earlier, in the dark, and head out for about a 30 minute trek to a great view spot at Donner Lake, here in Truckee, California.
The forecast was correct! We ended up with some beautiful photos with a colorful sky and stunning scenery behind the action. Here are a few of my favorites from this morning:
Shot with a Canon 5DS R and a 24-105mm lens. A flash unit on the camera was used. No lens filters or tripod. The photo above was ISO 1000, aperture f/4.0, and 1/200 of a second. The photo below was ISO 640, aperture 7.1, and also 1/200 of a second. A decent amount of work was done to the RAW images in Photoshop in order to balance everything out.
Once we were done shooting images at the peak sunrise color, Martin found this wood chair and took a quick break. Gotta stop and smell the roses, even when you're a competitive athlete.
I thought I'd share a screenshot of the Skyfire app. As you can see, Friday morning was in the orange which means "GO SHOOT!" It's the best sunrise/sunset forecast app I've ever used. A dollar a week for the subscription adds up but for me, it's totally worth having.
Yes, that is frost on my beanie, it was chilly out. Tons of fun, good exercise, and some great photos too.
Thanks for looking and I hope you are all having a photogenic day. Cheers to the weekend!
