I made the first of this year's two annual forays to Death Valley near the end of January. (The next visit will be closer to spring.) I had plans to visit some locations that turned out to be more or less inaccessible due to washouts and other damage from storms in 2022 and more recent rains. Main road north of 190 were closed, along with a number of backcountry routes that I hoped to use. When I arrived at the permit kiosk I asked the ranger about one of them and she explained that the first route I planned to follow had been completely washed away in two places, and later conversations with people who tried to go anyway confirmed this.
As a result, I changed my plans. I ended up exploring some locations in more central areas of the park. While a couple of them are pretty popular, by wandering around in places that I had previously eschewed I managed to find some interesting surprises.
Here are a few photographs from the visit. (There are and will be more at my website, and perhaps I'll share a second batch here later on.)
I post additional background and context for the photos on my website, but I'll respond here, too.
junglialoh wrote:
Nice classic and retro style image set - feel like great film age photos
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hpfish10 wrote:
Beautiful set! I like #3 and #4.
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dakel wrote:
Beautiful Dan. I feel a sense of delicacy when I view these photos. Red Cliffs Sunrise is my favourite.
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csenior wrote:
Great images of one of my favorite places. All have a film-like quality to them. #2 and #5 are my favorites.
Thanks, all. If there's a film-like quality in these, it might be because I shot film for many more years than I have shot digital... and I suppose that doesn't wear off.
The "favorites" reports always fascinate me. Sometimes they are consistent and a particular image seems to jump out. Here, though, there isn't yet a pattern... and the one that has been requested as a print (not by someone here) is one that no one here has mentioned yet. :-)
Funny story about the Red Cliffs image. When photographing that area I realized that a number of (very tiny and very distant) people were in the frame. I decided to not retouch them out as they are so small that a) they probably aren't noticeable and b) they might suggest the scale of the scene to anyone who spotted them. Weeks later, I saw some photographs by a friend and fellow photographer, not of this scene, but from the spot where the people are, and the atmosphere looked a whole lot like what I photographed that same morning. I contacted her and found out that she actually was there and possibly one of the ant like dots. I went back to my photographs of this area (though not the one in this collection), blew one of them way the heck up... and she recognized other individuals in the scene and we _may_ have found her!
Brad Williams wrote:
Another nice set of photos Dan!
Thanks, Brad. I'm looking forward to heading back for another (almost) week in the park next month! Photographing there in spring is a different experience than in winter.
The photography is great too, but I'm also here for the word "eschewed." Underrated word And as we're weighing in, "Holly in the Sun" was my immediate favorite.
JWRisinger wrote:
The photography is great too, but I'm also here for the word "eschewed." Underrated word And as we're weighing in, "Holly in the Sun" was my immediate favorite.
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Sunny Sra wrote:
Dan,
Fantastic set of photographs as usual from you. Thanks for sharing these.
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MTGFender wrote:
Amazing series! Thanks for sharing.
Pramote
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dlev16 wrote:
Digging the second and last one. Nice colors and timing
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DaleBerlin wrote:
Really nice. Love that 1st one.
Thanks, all. And, JWHisinger, glad you appreciated "eschewed." ;-)
There's a little bit of a story behind the first one. I had photographed from a place I did not previously know about, and from there I could see a small wash below. I went back on a different day and thought, "I'll just walk a few hundred feet into that wash." I did. And I kept going. Soon I came th the much larger wash into which it flows. I turned left, back up into the mountains and followed it. At first it was perhaps a hundred or more feet wide, but eventually in narrowed down to the point that I was sometimes scraping against both sides as I continued. in a wide spot far up the wash, a few feet short of where I finally turned around, I found that plant, just catching the last light coming over a ridge from the west. I was the tonly thing I photographed on this walk.
And as we're weighing in, "Holly in the Sun" was my immediate favorite.