Tag Archives: america

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature

Four Desert Star Flowers

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Four Desert Star Flowers
“Four Desert Star Flowers” — Four tiny desert star (monoptilon bellioides) flowers, Death Valley.

The desert star flower has become a bit of a… star here at the blog recently. It is one of the small flowers that you might easily overlook in Death Valley, but once you spot them they are abundant, poking up just above the ground, often in small groups. They are pretty flowers, but you have to get down close to the ground to appreciate them.

Big fields of wildflower color get the attention of visitors to Death Valley in a year like this, when earlier rains produced an impressive wildflower bloom. At the end of February we saw whole hillsides covered with desert gold and phacelia, and sand verbena covered the ground in some low places. But a closer look reveals a world of other small and inconspicuous flowers like the desert star.

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G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Tongue in Cheek

Blue Playa

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Blue Playa
“Blue Playa” — Intensely blue dry mud on Death Valley’s hidden “Blue Playa.”

I have photographed in Death Valley National Park for almost three decades. I have heard whispered rumors of this remarkable “Blue Playa” for years, but no one would share anything definite about it. All I knew was that somewhere in a remote and seldom-visited area of this vast park there was purportedly a small playa featuring astonishingly colorful soil which, in the right lighting conditions, is so blue that it rivals the color of a clear sky. This has been on my mind for years.

Since those who know weren’t talking, it was clear that I’d have to do some sleuthing. All I knew was that the place is remote, surrounded by difficult mountains, and not terribly large. Out of respect for the feature — and concern about potential damage should the location become widely known — I’m going to omit specific details. But here’s as much of the story as I can share publicly.

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Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sky

Morning Sky, Edge of Lake Manly

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Morning Sky, Edge of Lake Manly
“Morning Sky, Edge of Lake Manly” — Morning cloud-filled sky above the shore of Lake Manly.

It looks like I’m finally coming to the end of this season’s Death Valley Photographs. But there were quite a few, many featuring Lake Manly, the temporary lake flooding Badwater Basin. When the lake appears after a wet year it gives us an unusual opportunity in this desert landscape — to photograph reflected sky and mountains where we would usually see a salt flat.

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Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature

Sand Patterns

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Sand Patterns
“Sand Patterns” — Patterns in sand dunes, Death Valley National Park.

Our main photographic targets during our late-February trip to Death Valley were Lake Manly and the impressive wildflower bloom, but we did schedule one morning visit to the sand dunes. We arrived well before sunrise when it was too dark to see our way into the dunes. Unfortunately, this was not to be a morning for grand dune photographs, since morning overcast blocked the sunlight. So instead we focused on small subjects — plants and flowers, the morning traces of the passage of wildlife, and textures of windblown sand.

I’ll break with the tradition of the these posts and write a bit about a technical photographic topic. A challenge of photographing the sand is that, unless you photograph straight down or find a suitably slanted bit of sand, depth of field can be a challenge. I sometimes employ a solution that surprisingly few photographers seem to use. I have a tilt/shift lens adapter for my landscape camera that lets me attach a medium format zoom lens and use the adapter’s movements to angle the pane of focus to match the surface of the dunes. That’s right — movements with a zoom lens!

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G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.