This Photo Book Explores Lake Tahoe from Below
'Clarity' dives into North America's largest alpine lake, highlighting the beauty of, and threats to, its renowned clear water

Photojournalist Dylan Silver听had been shooting his adventures on and around Lake Tahoe听for four years when, in 2014, he bought his first waterproof camera housing and began training his lens not at the lake but into its clear waters. In the six years since, Silver has amassed a colossal photo archive with thousands of images that document its听underwater world and shoreline environments.
Lake Tahoe鈥攄eep enough to swallow the Empire State Building and holding enough water to submerge an area the size of California鈥攊s a geologic wonder and recreation paradise located in the High Sierra on the California-Nevada border. In Silver鈥檚 photo book听Clarity: A Photographic Dive into Lake Tahoe鈥檚 Remarkable Water, which was published in May,听images capture the interplay of sunlight, sky, water, sand, and stone through the looking glass of Tahoe鈥檚 renowned clarity.
Decades of research and studies have documented numerous threats to Lake Tahoe. And听Silver鈥檚 photographs highlight听just what is at stake as climate change, urban runoff, algal听blooms, and human impacts literally haze听the waters. 鈥淚 began this project purely for selfish reasons, to experience the lake in a fun new way, but over time I created this massive archive that I hope helps people understand changes in Tahoe鈥檚 underwater environment,鈥 Silver says.
Tahoe is oligotrophic, or low in the kinds of听nutrients that cloud many lakes. 鈥淪ometimes it鈥檚 so clear and bright under the surface that it seems you can see into the distance forever,鈥 says Silver, who took this image of rippling sunlight and waves in the winter of 2015 during a period of reduced lake听levels that allowed him to wade for several hundred yards in knee-deep water.

鈥淚 like the contrast between bright-white snow and blue water,鈥 says Silver. He began visiting Tahoe as a child and lived there听for 12 years. He snapped this image on the west shore, south of Emerald Bay, in late spring following a snowstorm. 鈥淚t鈥檚 one of the least-developed areas of the lake, so there is a long stretch of shoreline with no houses or private property.鈥 Wintertime听is when the water is most clear, 鈥渟o you can get the best definition.鈥

Sunlight surges across the sandy bottom like an electrical storm in this image of a rounded granite boulder. The lake鈥檚 clear waters are due to granite bedrock from the Tahoe basin decomposing听into granules, sinking to the bottom, and leaving听little suspended sediment, as well as the fact that much of the area鈥檚 precipitation falls directly into the lake rather than entering it听as runoff. Silver听took听this image in Secret Cove, on Tahoe鈥檚 east shore. 鈥淪ecret Cove is a nude beach. But I didn鈥檛 shoot this one nude,鈥 he says. 鈥淭oo damn cold.鈥

While he occasionally scuba-dives, Silver prefers freediving with a snorkel, fins, wetsuit, and weight belt, allowing him to travel fast and light, and using听a paddleboard to reach inaccessible shorelines. He听wears a five-millimeter wetsuit in the summer and a nine-millimeter suit in the winter, when water听temperatures can plunge to the high thirties.
