I’m getting excited about the upcoming Death Valley photography workshop. It’s only a month away. I thought about the photographs I took last year that I hadn’t quite gotten to and decided to revisit them.
So this week I went back and took a look and am excited about what I found. These aren’t done yet; they haven’t been printed on paper which is often the most time consuming step in the workflow. But I would like to share them anyway.
Zabriskie Point is one of my absolute favorite places to photograph in Death Valley. In the past I’ve always liked sunrise the best. But this last trip I found some treasures at sunset. Here are two of them.
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They feel very organic to me and when blown up on my monitor I find them fascinating. The two have totally different feels to them. The top on has a soft quality of light while the bottom has a massive, dark presence – dark, powerful but not ominous. I’m very eager to work with them both on paper and see then matted and framed.
So much of the south end of the valley is dominated by salt that I thought some photographs of the different moods of the salt flats would be interesting.
This first one was taken at midday, not a time we photographers generally have our cameras out. But what really caught me was the soft ridges with gentle folds that stretch across the center of the image contrasted with the jagged salt formations in the foreground and the chaotic mountains behind.
A different mood entirely is the salt flats of Devils Golf Course at sunset on what was otherwise a very cloudy day. Talk about luck.
A photographic visit to Death Valley requires a sunrise or sunset on the Mesquite Flats Dunes. This was a sunrise and it’s not so much about the dunes as it is about the flats themselves and the Panamint Mountains that frame them to the south west.
I really like the soft quality of the morning light on these strange formations that are found everywhere throughout the dunes.
Golden Canyon must be one of the most visited places in the Valley, judging from all the cars that spill out of the parking lot and park along the road. So photographing in Golden Canyon can be challenging because of the masses of people. Unless you go for sunset on an overcast day and not on a weekend.
One of the things about photographing in overcast conditions is you have the most wonderful open shade light. And Golden Canyon abounds in little vignette images that are really very rich.
This is an abstract detail of one of the canyon walls. And I have more where that one came from.
I’m so excited about these that I couldn’t wait to share them, my Death Valley work in progress.
To see more of my photographs click here.
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