Nature Light Photo

Photo of the Week – Death Valley Salt Sculptures

Salt Strands

While walking out on the salt flats at Badwater in Death Valley National Park before the sun dropped low on the horizon, I noticed that the salt that I was walking on wasn’t flat. I’m not talking about the saucer shapes in the salt ridges caused by the expansion of the surface. I’m talking about how the areas that appeared flat from a short distance were not even close to being flat.

Upon closer inspection, I noticed that the surface was a really beautiful series of salt sculptures caused by the minute forces of nature that also caused the overall beauty of the salt flats.

As the mineral saturated water percolates up through the salt it reaches the surface where the wind blows it into a mist. Mist drop by mist drop, the water evaporates, leaving it’s minerals behind in long strands of salt.

You have to get down on your knees to really appreciate the beauty and delicate results. Be warned, doing so will cause your pants to become salt incrusted as they absorb the salty water and it dries, but it is worth it.

The picture wast taken with Nikon D300 and a Nikkor 105 2.8 macro lens. The exposure was for 1/1000 at f4 and an ISO of 200.

Photo of the Week – Death Valley Star Trails

Star Trails at Texas Springs Campground

While camping in Death Valley recently, I spent a night at the Texas Springs campground in Furnace Creek. Behind the campground is this beautiful rock outcrop. I knew that it would be interesting once the sun went down.

I spent some time that night shooting the rock with long exposures. The light from the campground illuminated the rock and still left the night dark.

The image was taken with a Nikon D300 and a Sigma 10-20mm lens at 18mm. The exposure was for 6 min 54 seconds at f4 and an ISO of 200. There was no in-camera noise reduction.

Please leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Do Leading Lines Work?

Where did your eyes go while viewing this image?

Look at the image above and ask yourself where did your eyes go. My bet is that you ended up looking at the end of the rails at the top of the image.

The rails act as leading lines, drawing your eyes to the top of the image. You eye naturally follows the rails to see where they lead. It’s an instinctual thing, not something learned and you can use that knowledge to help your photography.

You would have liked the image better if there was something at the end of the rails. You were fooled when your eyes followed the rails and expected a reward to be there. That reward would probably be the subject of the photograph, but it wasn’t there.

That is the power of leading lines. They steer the viewer’s eyes to a spot in the image. Use them in your pictures to lead the viewer to the subject you want them to view.

The image was taken at the Lost Burro Mine in Death Valley National Park in California. The exposure was 1/500 of a second at f5.6 and an ISO of 200.

Please leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Photo of the Week – Death Valley Wildflowers

Death Valley Wildflowers

Death Valley National Park is not the first place that comes to mind when you think of wildflowers, but in the spring and from certain angles, it can seem that the desert floor is carpeted with them. This is the road from Furnace Creek to Badwater.

The image was taken with a Nikon D300 and a Nikkor 70-200 f2.8 lens. The exposure was for 1/250 of a second at f5.6 and an ISO of 200.

Please feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Photo of the Week – Devil’s Golf Course

The Devil's Golf Course

This image was taken at The Devil’s Golf Course in Death Valley. It is a close up of one of the salt ridges.

It was taken with a Nikon D300 and a Nikkor 70-200mm, f2.8 lens. The exposure was for 1/320 of a second at f8 and an ISO of 200.

Please feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Death Valley, the Hottest Place in North America? NOT!

White Top Mountain Panorama

I spent five days in Death Valley last week. During that time, I took Sandy all over the National Park. I traveled from Furnace Creek to Scotty’s Castle then went west to visit the Racetrack Playa again. I like to take Sandy and follow back country roads just to see where they go.

In this case I was just southeast of Teakettle Junction and saw this road that lead to the east and up into the mountains. Seemed like a good road, so I followed it. I ended up at about 7,000′ near White Top Mountain and it was getting dark. I stopped to camp for the night.

It was cold at five-thirty when I finished my dinner. I cleaned up, set up to sleep in Sandy for the night, and went to bed. I knew it would be a long night, but I thought it wouldn’t be a big deal. I was wrong. I had picked the night that a cold front passed through Southern California and I was on the edge of the storm when I went to bed.

I travel with an indoor/outdoor thermometer, just to amuse myself in the morning as I look at the difference in temperatures in the FJ and outside. It records the lowest and highest temperatures both inside and outside. The low outside was 10. The high was 48. Inside it was a toasty 50. That was the high. The low was 29. Inside.

IT WAS COLD!!!

I travel with three gallon jugs of water which I store in the truck on the floor of the front seat. They froze. Not solid, but about two inches from the sides. All of my drinks outside froze.

IT WAS COLD!!

I was OK until about four in the morning. Then it just started getting colder and colder. Finally, at about six. I decided that it was time to get out of there, so I packed up and left. The sun didn’t come up until after seven and it took until I got back to Furnace Creek before the temperature outside rose above 50 degrees.

So, why is am I telling this tale on a photography blog? Because there are a few lessons to be learned.

One, prepare for the worst. I knew it was going to be cold, but I wasn’t prepared for it to be that cold. The purchase of a new, warmer sleeping bag is in the near future.

Two, because I wasn’t prepared I didn’t take full advantage of the situation in a photographic sense. I should have stayed up and shot around the campsite. There were some great views. I missed them because I wasn’t ready to shoot in that situation.

Three, it might have been cold and I might have been warmer, but I didn’t embrace the situation. I should have tried to enjoy the experience more.

The bottom line is that you need to be prepared for the situation you put yourself into and that even though it might be tough, try to enjoy the present.

The above image was taken as the sun set behind the mountains. It is a nine image panorama. I encourage you to click on the image to the original in my Smugmug gallery. Doing so will allow you to see the details of the image.

Please use the form below to leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Book Review: Death Valley and the Northern Mojave – A Vistor’s Guide

I’ve been to Death Valley National Park several times and am planning my trip there over the upcoming winter break. After sometime searching, I have found what I consider one of the best guide books for the area. Death Valley and the Northern Mojave-A Vistor’s Guide written by William C. Tweed and Lauren Davis, published in 2003 covers the area in a deep, well thought out and presented manner.

The book starts with a quick description of the landforms and geology and goes on to describe the climate and life found in the region. The next two chapters are devoted to the history of the area divided into two basic aras; pre-1900 and post-1900. All of the first four chapters are a great read and very informative, but the value of the book starts in chapter five.

The next six chapters cover the Northern Mojave in regions. The areas are Indian Wells, Searles and Panamint Valley, Saline and Eureka Valleys, Northern Death Valley, Southern Death Valley, and the Amargosa Valley and Shoshone regions. Each chapter starts with a map of the region showing the featured destinations that are described in the following pages which are the meat and potatoes of the book, they give a complete and thorough description of each of the destinations.

Each destination is described in a way that lets the reader determine if it is really a site they would be interested in visiting. I have visited several of the areas described and the text of the book not only describes the ares well compared to the actual location, but also give a good history of the site from how it got it’s name to what historical significance it has or had. Following the description are good directions to the attraction. In addition to the description and directions, the authors include a good color photograph or two of the site. The photos are a nice touch and not usually found in guide books. I really appreciated the extra touch.

If you are heading to the Northern Mojave Desert area, including Death Valley, I strongly recommend you get this book as one of your resources for the trip.

Photo of the Week – Golden Canyon in Death Valley

This week’s image is a detail shot of the rock in Golden Canyon in Death Valley NP.

Death Valley Rock Detail

Please feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Death Valley Redux – Pt. 4 – Panorama Pictures

As I said in my first part of this series, I went to Death Valley for some great images and to try some new techniques. I tried HDR and the use of a wide angle lens, but that’s another post. I also tried lots of panorama images.

The idea of a panorama is fairly straight forward. Capture more in an image than the camera lens can see. In other words, make any lens wide angle.

The execution is also fairly simple. Start taking your panorama by setting up your camera to capture one side of the image, usually the left, and take pictures until you get to the other side, usually the right. The only thing you really need to worry about is making sure that you overlap the images by about 1/3 of the frame. Ok, there is more to it than that, but for the basics, that covers it.

What you end up with is a series of images that don’t look like much. In Lightroom, export the selected images into Photoshop by clicking in the Photo>Edit In>Merge to Panorama in Photoshop. Photoshop will run a series of actions that will blend the images into one panoramic image. Save it back into Lightroom and you are done.

Below are two image of one of the joshua tree forests in Death valley that I merged into one small panorama.

You can see how the image on the left side doesn’t quite cover the same area as the image on the right side, but when you put them together, you get the entire field of view.

Above is just two images put together into a panorama so that you can see how it works. You can actually stitch together MANY images to make a huge panorama. The process works the same, but you select more images to stitch together.

If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to leave them below.

Death Valley Redux – Pt. 3 – What is That Orange Bush?

As I was driving on the paved roads of Death Valley looking for wildflowers and other photographic subjects, I noticed areas that had a large number of “orange bushes”. The sight of so many in many places made me think about a possible photo opportunity.  I finally stopped to take a closer look and try to capture an interesting image.

I had never seen a plant of this type and was curious as to the details of the organism. Looking closer at the plant, I had two thoughts. One, it was a very unique flower of the bush (sage) that it was growing out of or, two, it was some kind of parasite.

After some research it turns out that my second thought was correct. It was Cuscuta californica, California dodder or chaparral dodder. It is a parasitic vine that grows throughout the south western United States and lives on small shrubs and other plants.

That information is all good and well, but the bottom line is that they are a small, bright spot of orange in the middle of the desert and have tremendous photographic potential.

Below are two examples of the plant. I would really like to take this picture when the sky is more interesting.

Cuscuta californica

Cuscuta californica

Please feel free to leave comments or let me know if you have any questions.