Fire on the Horizon, Dante's View, Death Valley National Park

Two weeks ago, on an overcast afternoon, I went to Dante's View in Death Valley National Park hoping for some drama at sunset. When I got to the parking lot it was cold, windy, hinting at rain and not very promising. I hiked out to the view to look things over. I did not have my camera because it was looking more like "dinner time" then anything else. I wandered around considering what I would do if the sun would/could break through. I had my choice of were to work because with the clouds, wind, temperature and the appearance that rain was imminent, it was very empty and only one other person had a tripod and camera (and he was leaving as I walked by him).


It was my first visit to Death Valley National Park and it was to be my last sunset in the park for a while. I looked around for a few minutes and noticed that the earth at one saddle in the trail was a rich red color and would make a nice foreground. I hustled back to the car realizing that I was losing what little light there was, grabbed my gear and hustled back to the saddle. This image is one of a few that I created on the saddle before moving out to a point that looked more directly west (this image is actually oriented more to the north).

The sunset opportunity did not turn out like I hoped but I ended up creating several images that I really like. As I type this I am struck with the thought of what I would have missed if I gave up and headed out to find dinner.


Image particulars: Canon 5D MKII, Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM at 16mm, f8, 1 second exposure, ISO of 100 and B&W Circular Polarizer. Post processing included Adobe LightRoom 3, Photoshop 5.1 and NIK Viveza 2.

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Favorite FlickR Fotos for Friday 2/24/2012

I spent last weekend in Death Valley National Park. I highly recommend visiting this treasure and capturing your own images. A weekend is not enough time to see everything but you can visit some of the more iconic locations. I arrived Friday afternoon, scouted around a bit, and then went out to Badwater Basin for sunset. In my last blog I shared some of the inspirational Death Valley pictures I found on FlickR and knowing that I was limited to two sunsets and two sunrises, I drew up a short list of places I wanted to try to visit. Badwater Basin was first on my list. 

This image from Badwater Basin with the polygon shaped salt residue in the foreground and the setting sun kissing the Black Mountains is called  "Black Mountain Glow". I spent the first few days of this week processing images from the trip (you can see some of the results at my website) before getting back to cruising FlickR looking for interesting Photographs.

So over the last couple of days I poked around on FlickR and found the following 5 images:

"The View in February" by 2boys2day

"Majestic Sunrise from the Summit of Mount Fuji" by Sprengben

"Second Beach at Sunrise, La Push Washington, Olympic National Park" by Edward Mendes

"Marshall Beach" by Joe Azure

"| Ancient Statues |" by oNe.SwEeT.wOrLd

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Have a good weekend.

Favorite Death Valley FlickR Fotos 2012

I am going to Death Valley National Park for the first time. As is true for many photographers, photographing Death Valley is on my bucket list. I have been doing some research including reading "The Photographers Guide to Death Valley" by Shellye Poster, two of the Photograph America newsletters (#001 and #104) from Robert Hitchman and visiting the NPS Death Valley National Park website. While researching where to go, what to shoot, time of day, etc. I searched FlickR for images.

There are a lot of great Death Valley images on FlickR. The ones I am referencing here are 10 of the favorites I found while searching recently:

Death Valley - Artist's Palette by Steve Sieren Photography

Charcoal Kiln's with Snow by MKMPHOTO5

Ice Capades by von kessels

Mesquite Dunes, Death Valley by Rudi1976

Eureka Dunes Sunset by Nitschke Photography

Planet Salt (Badwater, Death Valley National Park, California) by chaybert (Brian Rueb)

Sand Dunes Death Valley, CA Roll 431- 7 ---10-31-81 by km6x0

Racetrack Star Trails by jmgoldstein

Dante's View Inferno - Death Valley California by Steve Kody

Dunes, Eureka Valley, Morning by G Dan Mitchell

I hope you find these photos as inspiring. I did.

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