Star trails circling above Half Dome over the dry bed of Mirror Lake, Yosemite National Park.

The Dry Mirror

Mirror Lake, Yosemite National Park, California

The backpackers' camp sits close to Mirror Lake, so we walked over — and in the middle of July there was almost no lake there at all. We sat down in what should have been the bottom of it. Nine hundred seconds, with Half Dome above and what water was left in the foreground: long enough for the stars to draw their arcs instead of sitting still.

Nikon Z 7_2 · 17-35mm f/2.8D · 17mm · f/2.8 · 900s · ISO 320

July 20, 2025

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