Sand Verbena Flowers

Sand Verbena Flowers
“Sand Verbena Flowers” — Close-up photograph of sand verbena flower clusters.

This photograph is a bit of an exercise in changing my perspective. If you were in Death Valley or other places where sand verbena grows and blooms, you might first notice a pinkish-purple color out on a gravel slope somewhere. Getting closer you would see large, sprawling individual plants with large pink-purple “flowers.” But a closer look reveals that these are actually globular clusters of many small flowers.

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Playa and Plants — Imaginary Landscape

Playa and Plants — Imaginary Landscape
“Playa and Plants — Imaginary Landscape” — An imaginary desert landscape with dry mud and spring plants.

This is another of the “imaginary landscape” photographs. They all begin with the actual landscape, but then I treat the images freely, modifying them in a variety of ways, though always with the the original source material at least somewhat identifiable.

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Two Towers

Two Towers
“Two Towers” — Two backlit sandstone towers, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

Stopping to photograph these formations was almost an afterthought. We had been far down a remote road in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument photographing even more obscure locations, and we were headed back towards Escalante. Not being familiar with this area back then, I was surprised when we stopped here along the way, but then this little red rock garden began to attract me.

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Southern Death Valley

Southern Death Valley
“Southern Death Valley” — Desert gold wildflowers, dark hills with ancient Lake Manly shoreline terraces.

There is something. a little unusual about this post. I didn’t pick this photograph so much for aesthetic reasons as for its inclusion of some fascinating features in this part of Death Valley. Let’s start with the obvious. There are desert gold wildflowers in the foreground, but if you look closely you can see many more of them across this broad Vally on the dark hillside. Keep reading to learn something about that hillside.

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Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.