“Death Valley Wildflowers” — Hillsides covered with wildflowers after a wet winter in Death Valley.
We just returned from another visit to Death Valley National Park. Wildflowers are blooming in California’s deserts and the show is far from over. It has been an odd weather year in California, but desert areas received abundant well-timed rainfall that is producing an above average (and perhaps earlier than usual?) wildflower bloom. We saw the potential back in December and scheduled our return to the park accordingly. We were not disappointed.
Is this one of the proverbial “super bloom” years? Few are using that term at the present moment, but it is clearly an above average year. Some areas, like this gravel fan below desert hills, are covered with fields of desert gold flowers. Small flowers are underfoot everywhere. Other locations are green with sprouting plants that will continue to produce new blooms over coming weeks.
“Mountains, Sky, and Water” — Desert mountains and hazy light above Lake Manly, Death Valley.
Many of my Lake Manly photographs look out into Badwater Basin, across the lake, and towards the Panamint Range rising in the west. For this photograph I found a camera position a bit north of the “usual spot” and pointed the camera south to including the sequence of desert mountain slopes beyond the lake. This view includes the interrupted reflections of those slopes along with salt flats along the edge of the lake.
This photograph is related to another I shared recently that also featured layers of desert mountains extending into the far distance. Both feature “atmospheric recession,” in which haze lightens more distant features and obscures their details. In addition to elements such as converging perspective lines, this effect also can suggest depth and distance.
“Distant Mountains, Reflection” — Manly Lake reflects distant mountains and morning haze.
The scale of Death Valley is monumental. It is one of the few National Parks where you encounter distances so great that faraway features disappear into the light and haze. The absence of familiar reference points like trees makes it harder to comprehend these distances. It is perhaps a mile to the nearby hills in this photograph, but the distant mountain range is many tens of miles away.
We arrived before sunrise to photograph the colorful dawn light. Later I turned my camera away from the main scene and back toward these hills whose forms were reflected in Lake Manly. Beyond, the distant Amargosa Range glows softly through the haze in the early morning light.
“Fire Trail, Calero Hills” — A trail through Central California oak grassland with winter morning light.
This is an unusual post — a “make up” post to restore a lost photograph to the archives. It is an old photograph from 2006 that probably once appeared on this website but seems to have disappeared. I regularly share older “From the Archive” images on social media, and as I prepared this photo for sharing I was unable to find an original post here. Consequently, I worked up this slightly revised version and am sharing it here today.
The photograph comes from a San Francisco Bay Area park where I have hiked and photographed for decades. I visit at all times of the year and in all imaginable conditions. This one comes from a morning hike in the winter, when the low angle sun cast strong shadows across the landscape beneath the skeletal forms of winter trees.
Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.
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