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Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Dusk Clouds, Badwater Basin Salt Flats

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Dusk Clouds, Badwater Basin Salt Flats
Dusk Clouds, Badwater Basin Salt Flats

Dusk Clouds, Badwater Basin Salt Flats. Death Valley National Park, California. March 29, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Late light illuminates dusk clouds above the salt flats of Badwater Basin, Death Valley National Park, California.

First, my disclaimer: I really am getting very near the end of the photographs of Badwater Basin shot on this late March evening. Really, I am. I’ve posted a number already, but I don’t see how there could be possibly be more than two additional images at this point. :-)

To recap, for anyone who didn’t catch the earlier posts, I visited this spot near Badwater Basin on an evening that turned out to have a wonderful combination of somewhat unusual salt flat conditions and interesting evening clouds. The “unusual conditions” were due to recent heavy rains in Death Valley that had flooded this section of the the salt flats a few weeks earlier. The flooding had subsided – at this point there was some water below the salt crust but the surface was mostly dry – but the character of the salt “polygons” had been “reset to zero” by the water. What had been very jagged and worn and cracked material had been flattened and smoothed. While the joints between the sections of the salt are clearly still visible, they were almost flush with the surface of the flat at this time.

On top of this somewhat rare condition, I was very fortunate to be there on an evening when there were clouds and, in addition, the cloud conditions evolved beautifully as the evening progressed. I saw this possibility earlier in the afternoon, which was one reason that I chose to shoot here, but you can never really know for sure what will happen… until it happens. The clouds started out thicker than what is seen in this photograph but as the day came to an end they began to thin and separate – enough that the colorful light from the evening sun began to light the clouds during the last moments of the day.

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.

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Technical Data:
Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Canon EF 17-40mm f/4 L USM at 17mm
ISO 100, f/16, composite of two photographs at .4 and .8 second exposure time

keywords: late, evening, sunset, dusk, clouds, sky, light, orange, blue, pink, badwater, basin, salt, flat, polygon, white, death valley, national, park, california, usa, north america, landscape, nature, scenic, travel, mountain, amargosa, panamint, range, horizon, stock

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Dusk Clouds, Badwater Basin Panorama

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Dusk Clouds, Badwater Basin Panorama
Dusk Clouds, Badwater Basin Panorama

Dusk Clouds, Badwater Basin Panorama. Death Valley National Park, California. March 29, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Colorful dusk clouds against darkening sky above the salt flats of Badwater Basin and the distant ridges of the Amargosa and Panamint mountain ranges.

This was one of the final photographs I made in fading light on this evening. (I made another series a few minutes later when the sky and clouds and salt flats were all various stages of blue – I may ultimately post that image here as well.) The very last light was catching the clouds above Badwater and the central portions of Death Valley, and the color was already fading quickly in the darker area to the east over the Amargosa Range.

As I have mentioned before, the very wide dynamic range between the shaded surface of the salt flats and the bright bit of sunlit cloud and sky at the far left necessitated the use of two exposures which were then combined in post. (Even after this light finally faded I was not yet finished for the day. An hour or so later I was doing night photography under the light of the rising full moon at Zabriskie Point.)

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 17-40mm f/4 L USM at 17mm
ISO 100, f/16, composite of two exposures in the 1/2 to 1/4 second range.

keywords: badwater, basin, salt, flat, polygon, pattern, white, texture, panorama, evening, sunset, twilight, dusk, dark, sky, color, orange, pink, blue, amargosa, panamint, mountain, range, ridge, horizon, death valley, national, park, california, usa, north america, landscape, travel, scenic, nature, stock

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

Badwater Basin Salt Flats, Dusk

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Badwater Basin Salt Flats, Dusk
Badwater Basin Salt Flats, Dusk

Badwater Basin Salt Flats, Dusk. Death Valley National Park, California. March 29, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Newly formed salt polygons extend to the horizon as evening clouds gather above the Badwater Basin salt flats, Death Valley National Park, California.

This is one more – and perhaps the last – in a series of photographs I shot on a late-March evening in the Badwater Basin of Death Valley National Park. The light goes through a long and interesting transitional process at this location. Because of the tall Panamint Mountain range to the west, the direct sun leaves the surface of the salt flats quite early, though the hills along the east side of the valley and the more distant mountains can still be sunlit for some time. Once the sun drops behind the Panamints, the “white” salt actually can end up being quite blue since it is illuminated entirely by the diffused light from the blue sky. As I have mentioned before this creates some interesting subjective questions for the photographer. Should the salt be white? Should it be as blue as it looks in the capture? Should it be somewhere in between? I’ve seen interesting and effective photographs that seemed to take each of these approaches.

In this case, because I shot a bit before actual sunset and while some clouds reflected less blue light onto the playa surface, the need to alter to color balance was diminished a bit – which is not to say that I didn’t do some work to balance the colors so that they looked more like what I remembered. A second issues is related, namely that the sky remains very bright while the salt flat surface, in deep shade, is very dark by comparison. On the scene, the eyes/brain compensate and the difference seems less than what the camera records. So, again, some adjustment in post is needed. In this case I made two exposures one stop apart. On just barely handled the brightest portions of the sky without blowing out, while the other did a better job of holding the details for the shadowed salt formations. I combined the two source images in post.

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 17-40mm f/4 L USM at 17mm
ISO 100, f/16, composite of 1/13 second and 1/6 second exposures

keywords: badwater, basin, salt, flat, desert, polygon, water, playa, crust, pattern, sky, cloud, evening, dusk, sunset, blue, mountain, ridge, range, distant, death valley, national, park, california, usa, north america, landscape, nature, scenic, travel, geology, horizon, stock

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Winter Sunset Clouds, Pigeon Point

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Winter Sunset Clouds, Pigeon Point
Winter Sunset Clouds, Pigeon Point

Winter Sunset Clouds, Pigeon Point. Pacific Ocean Coastline, California. January 9, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Winter sunset clouds at over offshore rocks and surf along the Pacific Coast at Pigeon Point, California.

I admit to still being a sucker for good sunset clouds. So, after I finished making a few photographs of the iconic Pigeon Point Lighthouse along the California coast highway between San Francisco and Santa Cruz I decided to simply point the camera out towards an interesting off-shore rock formation, include a bit of ocean, surf, and horizon at the bottom of the page, and shoot the sunset color in the clouds and sky.

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

keywords: california, usa, landscape, winter, stock, pacific, ocean, seascape, sea, shore, pigeon point, sky, water, rock, evening, sunset, san mateo, county, pigeon, point, lighthouse, rock, island, surf, wave, foam, horizon, sky, color, twilight, evening clouds, pink, orange, blue, haze, fog, mist, seascape, landscape, nature, stock