I've never been to White Sands, but I hope to go at some point. From what I can tell, the base condition there is a lot different — and quite attractive — with the paler color of sand. (DEVA's sand is perhaps best described as being "tan," though it is hard to separate the color of the sand itself from the color of the light.)
And, yes, there are a lot of photographs of Death Valley out there! It is quite a photogenic place. I think that there is an even higher number right now because we're coming into "Death Valley Season" and — not unrelated — there have been a few recent, large workshops out there.
I'll continue to consider that book possibility.
Finally, I'm planning to be back out there again in a matter of weeks.
NonDecaf wrote:
How easy is it to change lenses in these conditions?
Most of the time in DEVA it is no harder to change lenses than anywhere else. But when the wind rises and dust starts blowing, the combination of those two factors can create some challenges. How I respond depends on the specific conditions and what I'm photographing.
When it isn't too terrible, a quick lens change with the open camera body facing away from the wind can work. If I ready the lens I'm going to attach and work quickly (with the camera or lens on a tripod) the chamber may only be open for a second or so. As things get worse I try to minimize lens changes — I start out with a lens that I think is likely to work (and I rely on zooms) and try to work that focal length range rather than changing if possible. In some cases I have worked from the downwind side of a vehicle, and when things get really bad I may photograph into the maelstrom from outside of it or even photograph from inside a vehicle, if possible.
How do you plan your shots?
As to how I plan my shots, that varies a lot. In a few cases I may literally have a specific shot in mind, most often if it a subject that I have previous photographed and thought about ahead of time. But most of the time I'm looking at a location and/or conditions where I think the odds of _finding_ a subject are good. I think a lot about light, obviously, and this leads to attention to the direction of the light, what might interfere with it, how the immediate subjects may respond to it, and to consideration of things like clouds and haze.
But once I'm on the scene, I usually "hunt." I'm looking for immediate opportunities presented by the landscape and the conditions rather than coming for a specific image. That was very much the case with the dune photographs here, all of which were made in a location that was new to me. So what we end p with is a soft of visual exploration or discovery.
While I may spend a lot of time in a particular spot, when it comes to actually making photographs I tend to work pretty quickly, trying to take advantage of sometimes-fleeting opportunities as they arise. As such, I know that not every exposure is going to "work," and I in a way I think of what I'm doing as gathering images that I can work with in post more than as capturing the one perfect subject.
I don't know if this will surprise you or not, but many times when I finish a session I'm unsure of the success of what I've just done — because I worked quickly and tried many things. True confession: When I concluded this five-day shoot in DEVA, I thought that I might have only have two or three good photographs.
After years of visiting and photographing locations like DEVA, I carry around a sort of mental archive of subjects, concepts, bits and pieces of images... and I'm looking for (and can often quickly recognize) analogs to those in the immediate landscape.
There's a whole lot more I could say about this subject, but I've probable gone on too long here already. ;-)
Exquisite set Dan. I particularly like the first one and "Dune Plants, Morning Light". I've spent considerable time shooting in Death Valley and have shot from the same locations as some of your images here, but not nearly as well. Thanks for sharing these masterful images and inspiring me to continually improve.
gdanmitchell wrote:
Thanks, DanielJStein, manzico, and NonDecaf!
Most of the time in DEVA it is no harder to change lenses than anywhere else. But when the wind rises and dust starts blowing, the combination of those two factors can create some challenges. How I respond depends on the specific conditions and what I'm photographing.
When it isn't too terrible, a quick lens change with the open camera body facing away from the wind can work. If I ready the lens I'm going to attach and work quickly (with the camera or lens on a tripod) the chamber may only be open for a second or so. As things get worse I try to minimize lens changes — I start out with a lens that I think is likely to work (and I rely on zooms) and try to work that focal length range rather than changing if possible. In some cases I have worked from the downwind side of a vehicle, and when things get really bad I may photograph into the maelstrom from outside of it or even photograph from inside a vehicle, if possible.
As to how I plan my shots, that varies a lot. In a few cases I may literally have a specific shot in mind, most often if it a subject that I have previous photographed and thought about ahead of time. But most of the time I'm looking at a location and/or conditions where I think the odds of _finding_ a subject are good. I think a lot about light, obviously, and this leads to attention to the direction of the light, what might interfere with it, how the immediate subjects may respond to it, and to consideration of things like clouds and haze.
But once I'm on the scene, I usually "hunt." I'm looking for immediate opportunities presented by the landscape and the conditions rather than coming for a specific image. That was very much the case with the dune photographs here, all of which were made in a location that was new to me. So what we end p with is a soft of visual exploration or discovery.
While I may spend a lot of time in a particular spot, when it comes to actually making photographs I tend to work pretty quickly, trying to take advantage of sometimes-fleeting opportunities as they arise. As such, I know that not every exposure is going to "work," and I in a way I think of what I'm doing as gathering images that I can work with in post more than as capturing the one perfect subject.
I don't know if this will surprise you or not, but many times when I finish a session I'm unsure of the success of what I've just done — because I worked quickly and tried many things. True confession: When I concluded this five-day shoot in DEVA, I thought that I might have only have two or three good photographs.
After years of visiting and photographing locations like DEVA, I carry around a sort of mental archive of subjects, concepts, bits and pieces of images... and I'm looking for (and can often quickly recognize) analogs to those in the immediate landscape.
There's a whole lot more I could say about this subject, but I've probable gone on too long here already. ;-)
I continue to work on the images from this visit and I may have a few more. Probably won't start a new thread for them here, but eventually they will show up on my website (where all of them appear with more extensive background info) and my social media.
