Shaver Lake, Minus the Lake

For the past year, Southern California Edison was draining Shaver Lake so that contractors could add a liner to the dam. I guess it’s supposed to cut back on erosion and leakage. I recently saw some pictures of some of the ruins from the lake bed so I drove up Monday afternoon to hope to capture some cool pictures. Having a longer lens will help because the public is not allowed access to the lake bottom.

Once I finally got there (long story), I set up my tripod, camera, 300mm and 1.4 tele-converter and took some photos. Decided to switch lenses (17-40mm) so I could get a few photos of the whole lake….just because. Didn’t realize until I got home that my big lens developed a focus problem. All of them are slightly out of focus. Can’t really see it until I zoom in at 100%, so I decided to at least post them here so others can enjoy them. As far as printing them large, forget about it.

Here’s Shaver Lake showing the dam and the new liner.

You can see the old dam that was built in the 1920s on the bottom of the photo. When it’s re-filled, you won’t see it.

Using my larger lens I shot a few photos of the old spillway, dam and some of the ruins including an old water wheel. I converted these to Sepia for the antique-look.

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Mike is a Central Valley California landscape and nature photographer whose subjects include scenes from Merced County, Yosemite, SeKi, and the eastern Sierra. He is currently living in Atwater, CA.

The text and photographs are © Copyright Mike Matenkosky (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Mike Matenkosky.

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