Here’s a shot from the Eastern Sierra Death Valley Experience Workshop that I lead last month in March. There wasn’t much for clouds that morning Mono Lake just a few on the horizon so I used a mid range lens to fill the frame with what I found interesting. It was a weekday but there was still quite a few people on the shoreline so we were mainly shooting into the water to avoid the crowd. Some people might consider a lack of clouds or shooting crowded place a bad idea but you can always make something out of it and have a great time while photographing.
You might be surprised at many landscape photographers need clouds or will not take a shot. I’ve seen some throw fits, throw things and curse at the sky. Being from Southern California, I do not mind it one bit and am very used to it. You don’t need the sky, you can just minimize interesting subjects in the scene you are photographing. It’s best to take advantage of time out there and excercise your eye. In the shot here the colorful band on the horizon is interesting but it merely just background decoration.
During post processing I desaturated the cyans along with a few other color during the process to match my taste. This kept the color managed to avoid a garished look and feel. I also had to make adjustments for the polarization in certain parts of the image. It’s a single exposure since there was enough information on the histogram.
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