Dusk, Death Valley Dunes. Death Valley National Park, California. March 26, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
Dusk light on plants and wavelike patterns of Death Valley Dunes, Death Valley National Park, California.
The drive to Death Valley from the San Francisco Bay Area is a long one, and even though I try to leave early I almost always arrive at Death Valley in the middle or late afternoon. This was the case on my visit during the past week. I arrived just before dinner time, set up my tent at Stovepipe Wells (or “Stove Pipe Wells” according to some of the literature at the lodge), grabbed a quick bite, and headed over to nearby Death Valley Dunes (sometimes a.k.a. “Mesquite Dunes”) to do a quick shoot in sunset and dusk light from a position along the road using a long lens. Some of the other photographs show a more “traditional” dune view, focusing on some of the larger dunes, the transverse dunes, and even the foothills of the Amargosa Range to the east, but for this one I decided to focus closer and photograph the plants growing along the closest dunes – plants greener than usual from the recent rains in the park.
This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.
G Dan Mitchell Photography | Twitter | Friendfeed | Facebook | Facebook Fan Page | Email
Technical Data:
Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L IS USM at 260mm
ISO 200, f/11, .5 second
keywords: death valley, national, park, california, usa, north america, landscape, nature, desert, mesquite, dunes, evening, dunes, dusk, sunset, evening, light, plants, sand, pattern, wave, folds, travel, scenic, landscape, nature, stock
Dan – this is really nicely composed, with the “scoop” of the sand dune at the top and the plant in the foreground, and the succession of “waves” and S-shaped hill leading to the distant dune. The lighting here is really great too, with the tops of the dunes having an irridescent quality to them.
I also thought your “April Fool’s” was great! Even with all of the unusual elements (Safeway store at Ubehebe?!) – I kept going with the story all the way through to the rowboats on the Racetrack Playa. Quite the tale! Thanks – it really made me smile!
Richard, thanks for the comment on the photograph. I’m sure you remember that view – I first became aware of the possibilities of this type of shot when we shot together in DEVA and dashed down to this spot at sunset on the first evening.
Glad you enjoyed the April Fools Day spoof. I was surprised that several people believed all too much of it. I won’t name names, but I have since added a short disclaimer at the end of the piece that included a link to the wikipedia page on the April Fools tradition.
Dan
Dan,
I just got back from a scouting trip of the dunes with my 300mm lens. I see that there is a promising late evening shot from about 1 mile in on the Mosaic Canyon road looking down at the dunes. But the way I would do it is as a panorama – take multiple shots with the 300mm lens in portrait position using the Really Right Stuff pano rail and then stitch the exposures. It should come out as a nicely compressed landscape with the Tucki mountain backdrop. I don’t have the RRS pano rail so I will have to pass up on this visit. By the way, the dunes were teeming with people mid-afternoon today. I guess this must be one of the busiest weekends in DeVa given the holiday weekend.
Thanks for the great update. I’m headed that direction this weekend.
Excellent! I think this is going to turn out to surprise everyone – in terms of both the extent of the flower displays and the surprisingly late peak. I felt certain that the number of flowers only increased during my visit.
Dan – Death Valley is ablaze in flowers this morning, even more than yesterday. I made Macros of Desert Five Spot, Desert Gold, Purple Mat, Globemallow etc (using the 500D Canon diopter on my 24-105L).
Rajan, you are on the right track in thinking about using the 300mm lens. The dunes provide a lot of interesting options like this with the longer lenses. I think that the Mosaic Canyon road would have some interesting possibilities, though 300mm might not be enough from there – the dunes are miles away!
David, the flowers are really starting to emerge in Death Valley right now. I think that those who predicted a late but quite decent wildflower season there had it right. One thing that I saw this time that I haven’t see recently was that even normally very dry and arid places often had a fringe of green from the many small plants coming up everywhere. If you get down and look closely, everywhere that plants can possibly survive you’ll find them right now. On the day I left the desert gold flowers were starting to pop up everywhere on the gravel fans along the valley, and it places it was just beginning to remind me a bit of the “bloom of the century” from a few years back. Along the road to the Racetrack I saw many very healthy looking cactus plants – more than I recall from previous visits – and the Joshua tree “forest” along the higher portion of the road was looking very green.
I did some foliage photography – though that wasn’t necessarily my main focus this time – and I’ll include a few among the images that I’ll be posting over the next week or more.
Dan
Beautifully composed and executed. The soft hues of the sands and the splash of green mesquite blend well. I think I like this as much as the traditional images of saturated golden dunes that one normally sees. I am going to try and use my 300mm f/4 lens this afternoon and see if I can make something like this. I seem to remember that the road coming down from Mosaic Canyon affords quite a panoromic view of the dunes and I wonder if I can abstract out a pattern from that vantage point.
Dan… hope you had a good visit. The greens look pretty vibrant in this one, and am wondering if you had any luck with wildflowers in the valley? Looking forward to seeing more :)