Congratulations to gdanmitchell for winning Feature Thread of the Week with 7 votes - View Previous Winners
In contrast to my recent set of photographs made in the confines of Death Valley canyons, these focus on grand open spaces and big features of this immense park. These all come from my (relatively) recent late-February visit to the park.
Enjoy
Dan
*FWIW, there will probably be on more set of photographs from this year's 5'day visit to the park, a set from a one hour "accidental shoot" at Zabriskie point. I'll explain later.
This was a very productive visit Dan! Great series, all pictures are good but I am drawn to the abstract with the pastel colors...thanks for posting these.
Dan, this is a very fine set of art from DV, one of the best I’ve seen on this forum. Especially # 1 amazes me, the feel of movement like waves on an ocean is remarkable. As always, your compositional skills are equaled by your subtle and natural processing (which actually take a lot of work and skill to achieve - garish and unnatural is easy). Congrats. There is outstanding competition right now for the May 2 thread of the week, but your exemplary work has earned my vote.
Dan, another great set of images. The first image is absolutely amazing. I like how you used the daylight to capture different subjects. Nice work and easy vote from my end. Thanks for sharing these.
keepclicking wrote:
Dan, another great set of images. The first image is absolutely amazing. I like how you used the daylight to capture different subjects. Nice work and easy vote from my end. Thanks for sharing these.
Thanks.
There's bit of an ironic story about that first one.
I had spent the day in an entirely different and more remote location, but late in the day I knew I'd be returning past the dunes and I figured that I'd photograph them in the late-day, sunset, and dusk light. However, the sky gods had a different idea, and high clouds came in and killed the light.
I knew of this location since I've shot from it for well over a decade. I figured that I could work with the softer light on that subject. It took a very long lens to narrow the field of view down to that small section of the dunes, so instead of using my full frame system I was shooting with my APS-C camera (Fujifilm XT5) with the longest lens I have and and a 1.4x TC.
Meanwhile a nice lady and her husband arrived and we started talking. She was the photographer and he was the driver. She seemed to be new to this whole photography thing but enthusiastic about it... and was struggling with her camera and a (less than optimal) lens... so I popped the long lens from by full frame system onto my second tripod and invited her to attach her camera and see how she liked it.
There's bit of an ironic story about that first one.
I had spent the day in an entirely different and more remote location, but late in the day I knew I'd be returning past the dunes and I figured that I'd photograph them in the late-day, sunset, and dusk light. However, the sky gods had a different idea, and high clouds came in and killed the light.
I knew of this location since I've shot from it for well over a decade. I figured that I could work with the softer light on that subject. It took a very long lens to narrow the field of view down to that small section of the dunes, so instead of using my full frame system I was shooting with my APS-C camera (Fujifilm XT5) with the longest lens I have and and a 1.4x TC.
Meanwhile a nice lady and her husband arrived and we started talking. She was the photographer and he was the driver. She seemed to be new to this whole photography thing but enthusiastic about it... and was struggling with her camera and a (less than optimal) lens... so I popped the long lens from by full frame system onto my second tripod and invited her to attach her camera and see how she liked it.
Those are the best experiences. Finding someone super enthusiastic and eager to learn. Awesome that you were able to share the lens and give her a whole new experience and probably love for the desert.
I had a similar experience on a MW shoot years back on a beach. The instructor had left everyone that was on his tour and a few participants remained behind and we were all shooting together. Their settings were all off and we spent an hour tweaking their cameras and compositions and they were super happy. Also showed them how to light paint the foreground. They were ecstatic and I had a great time.
All of these are great. The first one from that dirt road turned out absolutely fantastic. I have not been to DV since Lake Manly. Have the Badwater polygons reformed?
GroovyGeek wrote:
All of these are great. The first one from that dirt road turned out absolutely fantastic. I have not been to DV since Lake Manly. Have the Badwater polygons reformed?
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fotografur wrote:
Stunning light and compositions Dan!
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morris wrote:
A delight to view Dan
Morris
Thank you to all three of you!
Groovy, I kind of think of that first location as the one by the utility poles... Using a very long lens allowed me to limit the frame to just sand with no extraneous stuff included this time.
I can't give you an update on the polygons since I didn't go that way on this visit. I did cross the playa on my way to a road into the backcountry that I hadn't driven to its end before, but that section of the playa is more the Devil's Golf Course kind of texture.
All of these are excellent images, but something about the first one keeps bringing me back to it.
It invites me to see the desert as an ocean in (very) slow motion.
Karl Witt wrote:
First one is a winner all on its own for me Dan Morning Dunes follows along as does Fractal.
Awesome on mountains and sky, that is sweet!
Karl
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fotografur wrote:
I keep coming back to look at these. Voted!
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ElvisD wrote:
All of these are excellent images, but something about the first one keeps bringing me back to it.
It invites me to see the desert as an ocean in (very) slow motion.
Thanks to all of you.
Karl, I've been working on the subject of the "Fractal" photograph for a few years, and I'm pretty pleased with what I got this time. I think maybe I've figured it out!
That first one does seem to "work" for a lot of people. It is another subject that I've been working on for years, having first photographed it over a decade ago. I like that "desert as an ocean in slow motion" notion is really very, very accurate.
Beautiful work Dan , the contrast between the tight canyons of Death Valley and the park must offer a fascinating perspective ,it’s indeed a productive visit ,I like the colors
Groovy, I kind of think of that first location as the one by the utility poles... Using a very long lens allowed me to limit the frame to just sand with no extraneous stuff included this time.
I can't give you an update on the polygons since I didn't go that way on this visit. I did cross the playa on my way to a road into the backcountry that I hadn't driven to its end before, but that section of the playa is more the Devil's Golf Course kind of texture.
Dan
I looked at my own rendition of this location. I like the colder tonality of yours better, shows off the inherent color of the dunes better, especially the blues. Like you I rarely shoot from there. It's like shooting fish in a barrel. Put on a 400mm, point in the general direction of the dunes and press the shutter. Almost impossible to screw up the comp 😀
Morning Dunes follows along
as does Fractal.