Corrugation

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Corrugation

zabriskie-point-badlands-death-valley

Behind the Scenes of this Photo


Taken near Zabriskie Point in Death Valley National Park, California, on December 3rd, 2017

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While teaching a workshop in December of 2016 in Death Valley with Jim Patterson, we wrapped up our four days instruction with a final sunrise shoot at Zabriskie Point. This area is known not only for the famous features of Manly Beacon and the Manifold, but also for its incredible, tortuous, and twisting badlands. The folds of earth overlap in a mind-bending array of patterns and textures that are heaven for a photographer. After our group took their final frames and we started the short walk back to our cars I came around a bend and noticed sunlight filling up one side of a diagonal canyon. The light, shadow, and reflections made for a stunning scene so I whipped out my telephoto lens and grabbed a quick shot. But when I got home later that night I discovered I had blown the depth of field on the shot and the background was slightly blurry. I needed a redo.

So every time I visited Death Valley in 2017 I shot sunrise at Zabriskie and waited for the light to fill up this canyon the same way. But due to the changing seasons and difference in the sun angle the quality of light was never exactly the same. Until a year later. Again we were leading a workshop in Death Valley, and again our final stop was Zabriskie Point. But this time I was prepared: I knew the light would behave and I made sure I had my camera on my tripod, and the focus and depth of field dialed in exactly how it needed to be. Then it was only a matter of time till the sunlight reflected off the Zabriskie Point Badlands just how I needed it, and I snagged this photo.

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Pot O’ Golden Sand

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Pot O’ Golden Sand

zabriskie-point-death-valley-rainbow

Behind the Scenes of this Photo


Taken in Death Valley National Park, California, on November 17th, 2012

Yes, it does actually rain from time to time in Death Valley.

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Zebra-skie Point

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Zebra-skie Point

zabriskie-point-death-valley-storm

Behind the Scenes of this Photo


Taken from Zabriskie Point, Death Valley National Park, on November 17th, 2012

Zabriskie Point showcases some of the most interesting textures and forms in Death Valley, especially when painted with stripes by the rising sun.

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Burst of Life

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Burst of Life

Death-Valley-wildflowers-2016-superbloom

Behind the Scenes of this Photo


Taken at Death Valley National Park, California on March 5th, 2016

Death Valley, despite its name, is actually a place bursting with life. Every spring wildflowers bloom throughout the park, and there is a surprising variety of plants in the different regions. In spring of 2016 that flowering life was demonstrated grandly as the previous fall’s flooding helped set the stage for a profusion of wildflowers.

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Hospitable

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Hospitable

Death-Valley-mud-cracks-wildflowers

Behind the Scenes of this Photo


Taken in Death Valley National Park, California, March 5th, 2016

Just when you go and think a landscape is totally inhospitable and incapable of supporting life, something like this happens to surprise you. Just goes to show, it’s hospitable after all, given the right conditions.

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Apocalypse Wow

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Apocalypse Wow

Death-Valley-mud-cracks-stormy-sunset

Behind the Scenes of this Photo


Taken at Death Valley National Park , March 5th, 2016

During Death Valley’s 2016 super bloom I was driving somewhat aimlessly around the park looking for patches of flowers. Spying a good clump about 1,000 feet from the road I popped on my flip flops and padded out into the sand to check them out. Needless to say I was stoked to discover a large playa shot through with fractured chunks of mud adjacent to the flowers. After sunset the wind whipped the blue hour clouds into a fury of undulating textures and shapes and it was all I could to keep the drool from pouring out of my mouth onto the camera.

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The Briny Shallows

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Death-Valley-Badwater-flooded-sunset

Behind the scenes of this photo

Taken at Badwater Basin, Death Valley National Park , November 17th, 2015

On my way home from a desert climbing trip I stopped in Death Valley National Park. I explored a remote section of the Zabriskie area badlands and found some bizarre things, including giant rocks balanced on pillars of alluvial cement, locked and gated mines from a hundred years ago, and a gigantic feature I’m calling the White Cathedral. As my explorations wound on into the afternoon more and more wispy clouds began to fill the sky. I drove to Badwater Basin and hiked out onto the playa, where shallow, residual pools of water still lay as fading evidence of October, 2015’s cataclysmic flooding. As the sun set behind the Panamint Mountains it caught the high clouds and turned them a vibrant pink which reflected vividly in the pools of water I was standing in.

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Quiet Riot

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Death Valley National Park, New Zealand on March 5th, 2016

Behind the scenes of this photo

Taken at Death Valley National Park, California, on March 5th, 2016

Many of you likely heard of the super bloom that happened in Death Valley National Park in California in spring of 2016. Back in October 2015 a massive amount of rain hit the park and prompted millions of little wildflower seeds to begin preparations for a spring fling. In March of the following year those seeds began sprouting forth in a riot of golds, purples, whites, and blues. I decided to go see the bloom for myself, and while I could try to wax poetic about how beautiful it was I think I’ll just say: it did not suck.

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Into the Sky

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death-valley-cottonball-basin-sunset

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Taken in the Cottonball Basin, Death Valley National Park, on November 15th, 2012

This is not a complicated photo. There are no grandiose snow-capped mountains in the distance. There are no auroras in the sky. The composition is about as straightforward as it gets, with no twists or turns. There are no flowers, no chunks of rock, no trees. In fact, there’s very little in this photo at all: essentially just a little water and some breathtaking light. But hey, I’m a simple guy, and sometimes that’s all I need.

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Trickled Pink

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Water runoff at sunrise in the Cottonball Basin, Death Valley National Park

Behind the scenes of this photo


Taken in the Cottonball Basin of Death Valley National Park on February 21st, 2013

In February 2013 I had the great fortune to be caught in a rainstorm in Death Valley, a pretty unique occurrence in the park. The mountains surrounding the valley were swathed in great blankets of precipitation and at one point there was snow capping the hills in every direction. Amazingly, almost none of the falling water hit the valley floor due to the park’s mind-boggling rate of evaporation, and though the higher elevations were inundated, I felt a mere sprinkle or two where I was below sea-level. However, all the rain that fell in the mountains has to drain somewhere and since the basin is the lowest place around, that’s where it heads. So a full 24+ hours after the storm passed by, these little tendrils of water began to seep out of the hills and across the salt flats of Cottonball Basin.

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Devil’s Cornrows

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Death-Valley-Borax-Sunset

Behind the scenes of this photo


Taken in the salt marsh a mile or so west of Mustard Canyon in Death Valley National Park on February 19th, 2013

Here’s a little history I recently learned: borax was heavily mined (err, shoveled, as the case may be) in Death Valley around 130 years ago. Chinese immigrants were paid to push this slop into neat rows which could then easily be shoveled into wagons for processing. Once the borax was extracted it was hauled by 20-mule teams from the heart of Death Valley to Mojave. The 20-mule teams became the symbol for borax nationwide, an image that persists to present day. And if you walk out into the Death Valley salt marsh far enough you can still find remnants of those old “cornrows,” as they were called, that the Chinese shoveled into place.

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