Death Valley

My company (in my day job of Software Engineer) decided to have a furlough this quarter due to the ailing US economy. We could use vacation days, so at least I was paid, but I really did not want to waste a vacation week just sitting around the house like I did over the Christmas break. But where could I go in February that wouldn't 1) cost a fortune and 2) get the wife mad at me and 3) have to risk bad weather. Ultimately I decided to do a trip I nearly did a few years ago - fly into Vegas (and using miles this cost me nothing) and drive to Death Valley for a few days. (A few years back we flew into Vegas and then went to Zion for a few days instead in Winter).

I'd seen some incredible images from Death Valley and it seemed to be exactly what I was looking for to take my photography to the next level. Lots of interesting shapes and colors to do some more abstract landscapes than some earlier work. I knew going in that most of time would be spent at the Dunes and at Zabriskie Point. I was also hoping for some good shots of the salt flats and of the Racetrack, plus some sweeping vistas and some canyon shots.

I flew into Vegas on a Sunday and then immediately drove the 3 hours to the park. It was well after midnight when I checked into my room at Stovepipe Wells. And, of course, my body was still on East Coast time, so I was pretty exhausted. I would get up at 5:30 am every day to make it to a prime photo shooting destination. My first of this would be the nearby dunes (Mesquite Springs). The first morning would be something of a dud when it comes to light (the most important ingredient of photography), but I did wind up with a few I liked. No real sunrise though, and things soon turned to a rainy day. I was hooked by what I saw though and knew I would have to return to the dunes later in the trip. I ended up returning for late afternoon the next day and then for another sunrise my final day. Although hiking up and down the dunes with a full bag of camera gear was exhausting, it was well worth it to this all three times. As you can see by some of the images.








I could go on and on posting incredible images just of the dunes. But I'll refrain. Check out the gallery at http://rodneyboles.zenfolio.com/deathvalley for more.

While the Mesquite Springs Dunes were my favorite, Zabriskie Point wasn't too far off. It has been shot and shot and shot, so finding that image that really says something is a bit more difficult. I did end up with some pictures I loved and some I liked an awful lot though.




Again, more in the gallery.

After those two spots, a lot of the rest is anticlimactic. I had some good hikes (including a fun ranger-led hike in Mosaic Canyon learning about the geology of the park) and enjoyed just driving around in the middle of the day with the windows open and music playing taking in the massiveness of the park. I enjoyed walking out to the salt flats. Sadly, the combination of rain on my first day and the midday sun made for less than ideal photographing of the Badwater salt flats. And forget about getting to the Racetrack on muddy roads, as it was flooded anyway. So there remains plenty to see and do the next time I visit.

I did get some interesting Canyon pictures. I'll post just one here in the blog and save the rest for the gallery. This one is of Golden Canyon, which connects to the bottom of Zabriskie Point. And, yes, it is an HDR, although I've been careful to make it as realistic as possible to capture what my eyes were seeing.


The trip was too short, especially with the first day having so much rain. I returned to Vegas and had a quick overnight before an early morning flight. My time in Vegas mainly consisted of walking across the street from the Flamingo (where I was staying) to the Bellagio for the Buffet, but I did venture out a bit and snapped a few nighttime pictures of the Strip.




A few takeways from the trip:

1. Shooting RAW (NEF), using Mirror Lockup and Photix Wireless cable release on a solid tripod was essential to getting the best image quality. The RAW files gave me a lot of leeway in the digital darkroom to get the look I wanted (which were often quite different than the default that Apple's Aperture applied to the file).
   
2. Getting up well before dawn and getting out there for the shot more than paid off. The distances were always further than the looked. The light changed incredibly fast. I was often disappointed just how little of a shooting window I had.
   
3. Patience, grasshopper. Instead of just shooting because I felt like I should be shooting something, I really took my time, especially at the dunes, to find the right shot.
   
4. Lens selection - I was a bit surprised to analyze my "keepers" when I got home. Nearly all of them were shot with my 70-200mm. Oftentimes you think about landscape photography being wide angles, but the distances in the West are so vast it really took a long lens to isolate the interesting subjects. And this was on a DX body (D300). On further review, the 70-200mm on an FX body like the D700 would have been absolutely perfect for this trip as most of the shots were at the short end of the 70-200mm on the D300, and most of the other keepers were at the long end of my 17-55mm.
   

I think I got possibly the best pictures I've ever taken on this trip. Certainly up there among the best. And I also got probably the best ratio of keepers to shots taken. It was just a resounding success and really makes me all the more dedicated to this great hobby/artform/etc.

Thanks for looking (and don't forget to check out the gallery).