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Sean Arbabi’s career


All images © Sean Arbabi | seanarbabi.com (all rights reserved worldwide)
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Highway 120 near the California/Nevada border at sunset © Sean Arbabi |
Originally part of the Great Basin, Mono Lake is a one-of-a-kind place. Home to trillions of brine shrimp and alkali flies, and over 2,000,000 migratory waterbirds, including 35 species of shorebirds, use the ancient lake as a resting, nesting, and feeding place. When you walk along the lakeshore viewing thousands of flies fan out as they avoid each of your footsteps, touch the salty waters painted red by the abundance of tiny shrimp, and gaze in awe at the monstrous clouds rolling over the Sierra, you feel how special and unique this body of water really is.
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The southern shores of Mono Lake and the Sierra Nevada at sunrise © Sean Arbabi |
A lake with no outlets, the alpine streams and annual rainfall that feed it remain in the natural bowl for tens of thousands of years- that is until Los Angeles’ Department of Water and Power (the DWP) began searching for new sources of water to supply their ever-growing Southern California metroplex. From 1941 to 1990, the lake level began dropping as the DWP diverted unrestrained amounts of water from Mono Basin streams. Mono Lake dropped 45 vertical feet over 50 years, lost half its volume, doubled in salinity, and exposed previously submerged tufa towers (limestone structures that grow exclusively underwater).
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Moonrise over the Eastern Sierra, as seen from the southern Tufa-lined shores of Mono Lake © Sean Arbabi |
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Courtesy of NASA |
People like David, and those who worked tirelessly at the Mono Lake Committee, fought Los Angeles’ DWP from draining the lake through numerous ecological studies, court cases, and injunctions. I 1989 I joined the cause, photographing the Mono Lake Bike-A-Thon, capturing over a hundred riders as they peddled 332 miles from the DWP offices to the shores of the lake, raising funds for the fight. Many of the decisions that came in favor of Mono Lake and the Mono Lake Basin allow us all- humans, birds, and wildlife- to enjoy its wonders. Sadly, Owens Lake, an ancient body of water covering 108 square miles nestled in southern Owens Valley 10,000 feet below the towering Whitney range, was not able to be saved, drained by the DWP over a span of roughly 40 years. Full in 1913, desiccated by the mid 1940s. Much of the Owens River was diverted into the Los Angeles Aqueduct, and today the mostly dry lake bed is the largest single source of dust pollution in the United States.
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Looking west at Highway 136 and Owens Lake below the Whitney Range © Sean Arbabi |
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David Gaines (courtesy of the Mono Lake Committee) |
So why did a photo of a highway remind me of David Gaines, a person I never met? Well, David was tragically killed in a car accident in the winter of 1988 along Highway 395, south of Mono Lake, on a stretch of road similar to the one I posted above. I drove along the road he did a few months later and captured that photo above on my first visit to the area. Someday I will use that road to take my two daughters to the shores of Mono Lake. I will tell them about the history of this region, about its ancient waters, and how we are still able to share it with future generations thanks to people like David Gaines. He may have been taken far too early, but he gave far more to the world than most.
Way back in 1990 when I was 22, during my college days at Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara CA, I had the chance to photograph Josef Muench at the tender age of 85 – father of David, grandfather to Mark – all great photographers in their own right, David probably being the most famous of the three.
Josef was a landscape pioneer, many of his images gracing the pages of Arizona Highways for much of the 1940s and 1950s. To my understanding, he worked for the magazine for roughly 50 years, and his stunning landscape images (shot with his 4×5 camera in 1936) helped place Monument Valley on the map. He returned hundreds of times and to many, his views are some of the most memorable photographs ever taken of this southwest location. He went on to capture images around the world, in Africa, Alaska, Asia, Canada, Colorado, Europe, and Hawaii. Even the unmanned Voyager Expeditions, launched in 1977, included one of his photos (in a group of 117 images of Earth’s landscapes) – a snow-covered Sequoia redwood taken in Kings Canyon National Park.
Born in Germany in 1904, some say Josef once threw a tomato at Adolf Hitler, hitting him in the face. I couldn’t verify this, but he sounded like my kinda guy. While writing this post, I was able to find a nice quote online, Josef talking about the deserts of the Southwest: “When I first saw the desert I liked it. It was new and different. It immediately took on a meaning to me. I had heard it was barren. It isn’t. A little cactus–so delicate and beautiful, can hide from you. You have to go slowly, and look carefully.”
I can’t recall how I found his information when I was in college, but when I contacted him to fill one of my school assignments, he was kind enough to schedule a time, welcomed me into his home, sat patiently while I set up my 4×5 view camera, and allowed me to capture this portrait, even giving his suggestions on how he might pose.
Portrait of Josef Muench, Santa Barbara, California – © Sean Arbabi | seanarbabi.com
We talked for a bit about photography, and although I wasn’t old enough to really interview him the way I would today, I knew I was with an old photographic soul, so I attempted to soak up his words of wisdom during our brief time together. Ironically we shared the same age (11) when we received our first cameras, and now I’ve had the chance to photograph some of the places he visited (although oddly enough, I’ve traveled all through the Southwest but never been to Monument Valley and have had the desire for years).
He past away in 1998 at the age of 94, but his images live on- just Google his name (Josef with an “f”) to review some of his work. May I be so lucky as to live as long as he did, viewing the world through photographic eyes.
They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery – this story fits the bill.
So many have inspired me in my artistic career, it’s nice to inspire another artist.
As far as my DSLR goes, yeah, I love it- it’s the camera I’ve always wanted. The image sensor ranks even higher than the D4 (in fact DxO Labs rated it the highest DSLR on the market), and that’s a big part of why I bought it. It’s also about the engine of this beast – 36 megapixels, which for an outdoor/ landscape/commercial photographer provides huge files to blow up nicely, tons of intricate detail, and minimal noise in a top-notch full-frame image sensor. There’s lots of extra bells and whistles – cool new LiveView functions, an incredibly fast auto-focus (although I still manual focus a ton), and a sturdy well-built frame.
This image was captured at 1/400 sec, using f/2.8 and ISO 100 in manual exposure mode while spot metering. You can see the detail of the bee here in a close-up.
It’s rare that a piece of equipment gets me excited about photography – usually it’s my subject, the location, the moment, the light. This Nikon camera has energized me about the images I hope to capture in the near future!