Mono Lake: Mirror Of Imagination

For eons Mono Lake has collected the melt of ice and snow from the surrounding Sierra Nevadas and developed a rich and complex ecosystem in what may appear to some to be a lifeless desert sink. Yet Mono Lake’s unique brine shrimp and alkali flies feed hundreds of thousands of migratory water birds, and its tufa formations--calcium carbonate sculptures formed underwater by freshwater springs and exposed by dropping lake levels--fascinate lake shore visitors. Dennis Flaherty has spent the last decade capturing the many moods of Mono Lake on film, and this photographic essay describes the interplay of sky, cloud, sea, and shore throughout the seasons. Essayist Mark Schlenz adds an environmental history of the lake, framed by his own journeys to the headwaters and on Mono Lake itself.