Category Archives: Commentary

Commentary, Tongue in Cheek

Death Valley – Worst Trip Ever

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I’m back – by the skin of my teeth – from my annual spring photography trip to Death Valley. But I don’t think I’ll be going back soon.

As you may have heard, it has been a record year for precipitation in Death Valley. With that in mind I was hoping for some wildflowers and perhaps a bit of water here and there on this visit. I should have heeded my instincts when I encountered the first problem when I drove up the Panamint Valley route from Ridgecrest and passed through Trona. Searles Lake has more water in it than I’ve ever seen! It seems like everyone in Southern California knew about it, judging from the line-up of trucks and boat trailers at the launching ramp waiting for a spot at the marina. Traffic was backed up from the Starbucks just south of town all the way to the parking lot entrance just north of the McDonalds and the bike paths were packed with folks out enjoying the fresh air. Although it was sunny, the snow level in the Panamints was almost all the way down to the floor of Searles Valley, creating a striking contrast between the rows of palm trees along the lake shore and the white slopes beyond. (I’ll try to post a photo later.)

I finally got through the traffic and headed on up the road, soon passing the outlet mall on the western outskirts of Ballarat. Since I was running late I decided not to stop, figuring that I might just try to stop on the way home. (It always looks like they are about to run out of the product you want, but I’ve learned that if you come back later they will have miraculously found more stock! :-) I left the freeway at the Wild Rose Canyon off-ramp and turned north towards highway 190, glad for the decreased number of commercial trucks. Though the traffic report was indicating some weather related issues going over Towne Pass I figured I’d give it a try. Since I have four-wheel-drive, I kept going at the chain control check-point. Hey, how bad could it be? This is the desert!

I soon found out how bad. As I approached the pass it became apparent that the road crews were stretched thin – and rather than work in the freezing cold blizzard conditions at the pass they apparently had chosen to stay down in the relative calm of Panamint Valley – probably because the mini-mart was closer! Basically, they had given up on clearing the road. Why they didn’t close the pass is a complete mystery to me. The water from the previous day’s heavy rains had frozen overnight, leaving a slick ice-rink surface below six inches of unplowed slushy snow. Cars, trucks, and buses had skidded off the road everywhere. The gale force winds were so strong that small rocks from the surrounding slopes near the pass were skidding and flying across the road. Several times I thought for sure I was going to be stranded as well, but I managed to keep the car moving forward, finally getting to the ski area parking lot at the summit of the pass. A few visitors were huddled there waiting for help, but as long as I could keep moving I wasn’t about to stop. I started down the long slope to Stovepipe Wells, more or less “skiing” the car at times.

By the time I got to Stovepipe, word about the conditions at the pass had apparently gotten down the hill, and thousands of cars were parked there, completely overtaxing the facilities – no food, no gas, no rooms… and no campsites. The authorities realized that those of us with no place else to go had to stay somewhere, so they opened up the airstrip campground located a ways out in the desert a bit northwest of the regular campground. I found a spot by the terminal that was somewhat protected by the wind, parked my car, and prepared to spend the night sleeping in the car. At this point I discovered an unanticipated problem – my “good” spot next to the terminal turned out to be right next to the Stovepipe Airport taxiway. So, every time a flight came in or left I was awakened by the tremendous roar of the plane engines and blast of wind that shook the car. The rescue helicopters were coming and going constantly. Sleep was hardly possible. On a positive note, the Cinnabon store stayed open late to accommodate  stranded passengers.

In the morning I saw clearing skies, and after the traditional stop at the Stovepipe Starbucks I decided to see if the road to the Racetrack Playa was open. The surrounding mountains were brilliant white down to perhaps the 500′ elevation – covered by better than a half foot of fresh snow. I made a few exposures (I’ll post later) and then started the drive up the Valley towards Scotty’s Castle, near which the famous road to the Racetrack starts.

Somehow, the storm that had dumped the remarkable snow near Stovepipe had bypassed the start of the road to the Racetrack.  I fully expected this road to be closed – the NPS tends to overreact, often shutting down the highway for the tiniest amount of snowfall. However, as I passed under the entry-way arch marking the start of the route there were no warning messages on the flashing overhead display, just the words, “Have a nice day!” and a smiling image of Smoky Bear! Since the road here was inexplicably dry, I decided to trust the reassuring sign and see how it would go. I filled the tank ($7.59/gallon!), grabbed a bag of Doritos and a Gatorade, and headed out.

I guess that bad weather elsewhere had scared people off, as I had the road almost completely to myself from about a half mile past the Ubehebe Crater Safeway. Sometimes the right lane is clogged with tourists pulling their rental trailers and (slowly) driving their RVs, but on this day it was clear sailing – 65mph all the way! I arrived at the motel at the Racetrack in less than an hour and quickly checked in. I got a cheap room and when I opened the sliding glass door I found that I had a great view of the playa… which was completely flooded to a depth of several feet! I couldn’t believe my eyes – I had driven all the way out here to photograph the famous sliding rocks and now the playa was flooded. What a disappointment!

I sat down on one of the deck chairs, cracked open my Gatorade, finished off the Doritos, and pondered what to do next while absent-mindedly gazed out at the lake. Soon I noticed that the small rowboats floating on the surface of the water were very gradually drifting downwind. That seemed odd – the strong wind should have moved them much faster. As I watched I saw that a bass fisherman was in one of the boats and busy with a rope near the stern – he seemed to be struggling to pull something up. Finally he succeeded in pulling a large rock attached to the rope into the boat, and the boat immediately began moving quickly under the force of the wind. A moment later he tossed the rope and rock back into the water and the boat’s forward motion slowed to a crawl as a plume of muddy water appeared near the stern.

(More to come: Bar closes at Scotty’s Castle, Zabriskie Point closed to photographers, gas down to $2.19/gallon at Furnace Creek, Rhyolite deposit discovered and Keane Wonder Mine reopens, Ubehebe Crater hot springs report, Badwater sky pilots blossoming, new pay outhouses installed throughout the park, Titus canyon temporarily blocked by jack-knifed big-rig, rivers rising as snow melts, hailstorm peppers salt creek, Stovepipe ice rink closes for the season… or not.)

(NOTE: There is a reason that this post was written on April 1st… With that in mind, you should check with accurate sources of current and official information before taking your trip to Death Valley. Some parts of this report are, uh, not quite accurate. :-)

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell or others where indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Commentary, Equipment, Ideas, Printing, Technique

A Question About Noise and Prints

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A reader asks:

I’m curious if you know the answer.  I don’t print very often so I’m not experienced with it.  I keep reading about noise in digital of course.  I also have read many remarks about noise not being visible in print under some conditions.  So I’m curious if there is a threshold.  For example, on the 5D2, what is the print size where noise becomes visible at a given ISO?  The 7D?  I realize that where it becomes objectionable may be subjective, but I thought it may be interesting to know when it is visible or invisible in print.

Let’s assume other technical details are handled well… good exposure, good focus, sharp lens, and no camera shake.

Thanks for writing. This is a great question and a subject that lots of people worry about. I’m not sure I know the answer, but I have an answer based on my own experience. The situation turns out to be a bit fuzzy in the end – in other words, if there is a threshold a number of factors could change your notions of where it might be. (I welcome comments from others who have experience to share.)

From reading photography discussions one could get the idea that image noise in digital photography is a terrible and limiting problem. Discussions often focus on questions like “which camera produces less noise?” and “how do I fix this noise problem.” We see 100% magnification crops of images in which noise is, indeed, quite visible. There are most certainly noise issues that we have to concern ourselves with, but all too often people get worked up over noise issues that are insignificant or even imperceptible – and which are often easy to resolve. Continue reading A Question About Noise and Prints →

Commentary, Ideas, Photographers

Two Photographers: Two Videos

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I came across a couple of interesting videos of photographers on the web today.

The first is a wonderful video of Michael Kenna photographing in the snow in Hokkaido, Japan. The video is partly an interview, partly a visual narrative of Kenna at work, and partly a collection of interesting scenes and images associated with some of his photographs. There is a lot to think about and consider in the video, and it struck several chords for me. Among many was his use of the word “hunt” to describe the act of looking for and finding photographic images, and not perhaps just in the sense of tracking and capturing an image, but also, I think, related to the need to be patient and to understand the “quarry.” I often have thought about the “hunt” aspect of looking for subject. (Link originally seen at George Barr’s Behind the Lens blog.)

The second video is rather different but also features a very talented landscape photographer, Charlie Cramer. Unlike the slow moving and rather poetic video of Kenna with its long silent shots and occasional sparse music, this video interview (on the Marc Silber show)  is pretty “straight ahead” – basically a record of Charlie talking about his ubiquitous framing guide, a sheet of mat board with a 4 x 5 cutout that he uses to help him visual photographs while he is in the field. This is interesting and Charlie makes a compelling case for using this “tool.” (I’ve thought about it, but never “gone there.” Perhaps I will now…) More interesting to me were a few side comments that Charlie makes in the course of the interview. For one, he refers to the frame as a “blood pressure meter,” and suggests that he more or less “just knows” when a scene is going to work because when he views it in the frame he feels his blood pressure rises. (In another context he has spoken of hearing the scene whisper, “Take me!”) The point, I think (and forgive me if I have this wrong, Charlie!) is that all of the rules of composition in the world won’t help you that much in the end – essentially you need to be able to look at the subject and “just know” that it will work and how.

Commentary, History, Ideas

Photographic Musing of the Day

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If we lived in some alternate universe in which the current level of digital photographic technology (digital backs/cameras, digital post-processing, and high end inkjet printing) and the current level of chemical photography technology both appeared in the world simultaneously and photographers were asked to make a choice, would anyone actually chose the wet chemistry darkroom over the digital “darkroom?”

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