“Corkscrew Peak, Evening” — Evening light on the giant alluvial plain leading up towards Corkscrew Peak.
This peak has long intrigued me — along with the entire ridge that it lies on. Perhaps the name first caught my attention when I was trying to identify landmarks in photographs I took from out in the Valley. Hint: it does not really look much like a corkscrew, though I can see how the tilted rock layers that seem to run around it inspired the name.
I photographed this on my first evening in Death Valley back in February. After a very long drive from the Bay Area I set up camp, rested a bit, and then it was time to go find something to photograph. Since it was late in the day I wanted to keep it somewhat simple, so I headed to this spot along a road leading out of the Valley, arriving just in time to photograph the day’s last light.
“Funeral Range, Last Light” — The last direct light of the evening shines on the Funeral Range, Death Valley.
Am I the only person who has a set of odd little personal spots where they like to stop — places that others might pass by without noticing anything special? Over the years I’ve collected quite a few: a rock outcropping in Tuolumne Meadows, a bench at the high point on a local trail, a particular tree in the Central Valley, and this place in Death Valley National Park.
Years ago I turned off the road that passes through here and walked to the top of a small rise with my camera. There are no icons visible from the place, but it is in the middle of a portion of the immense, still, quiet space of this park. Something about it resonated with me, and I go there on every return trip. This time it was evening when I arrived, and I photographed the very last sunlight of the day on the Funeral Mountains.
“Desert Mountains, Morning Shadows” — Early morning light casts long shadows across desert mountains, Death Valley.
This photograph was sort of “unintended” — I made it after I finished with my primary subject for the morning. A plan to photograph shallow water near the edge of salt flats brought me to this spot well before sunrise. The Panamint range (behind the camera position in the photograph) catches the first light, and I photographed from its arrival on the highest peak until it worked its way all the way down and across the valley floor.
This was a period of focused and continuous photography which sometimes entailed working quickly as the light changed — and refocusing a tilt/shift lens setup that I was using. Eventually the light came to my camera position, and the landscape of light and shadow that I had come for was now behind me, literally and temporally. I paused, looked up, took in the full circle of the landscape, and for the first time noticed the morning shadows stretching across these desert hills and mountains.
“Badlands Detail” — Photograph of details of badlands gullies in soft morning light, Death Valley National Park.
The pink color of the formations in this photograph was a big part of its appeal. It was early morning, and the direct sunlight had worked its way back across the valley to the tops of ridges nearly, and the light’s warm color washed over the nearly-white material of these ridges and valleys. Again, the Death Valley landscape, which can be rather subtly colored, served as a canvas for the effects of colorful light.
The location is at Zabriskie Point — I’m not giving away any secrets by mentioning this well-known location. It is one of the two or three most popular places in the park to view the sunrise. It was an unanticipated turn of events that brought me to this location, and I was originally going somewhere else when I set out before dawn.
Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.
Manage Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Join the discussion — you are welcome to leave a comment or question. (Comments are moderated and may not appear immediately.)