Tag Archives: salt

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

Salt Flats Near Badwater, Evening

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Salt Flats Near Badwater, Evening
Salt Flats Near Badwater, Evening

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

Black and white vertical format photograph of evening on the salt flats of Badwater Basin, Death Valley National Park, California.

Yes, I’m still mining the Death Valley photographs from my late March trip. And there are more to come… :-)

This photograph was made in evening light on the salt flats of Badwater Basin, not far from the “official” Badwater area – but far enough away that there were only a couple other photographers out here enjoying the solitude and the beautiful evening light. A few weeks earlier this area had been flooded by unusually heavy rains in Death Valley. From all appearances (and from photographic evidence that I’ve seen) the photographers who were first on the scene had to do a bit of wading to get out onto the salt flats. Some of them were rewarded for their efforts with wonderful and unusual images, including reflections of the Panamint range in the circular pools between the polygons of raised salt.

By the time I arrived the area was no longer flooded, though it was clear that the playa beneath the drying salt crust was still wet. In places some of the water appeared in cracks and in other spots walking on the salt felt a lot like walking on winter pond ice. During the flooding, the usually tall ridges between the salt “polygons” seem to have dissolved. Typically they are perhaps up to a few inches tall and contain large cracks. At the time I arrived, the counter had apparently been set back to zero – and the salt surface was almost completely flat, though it is obvious that the polygon outlines were still visible and beginning to rise a bit. The vertical ridge leading away from the camera position in the lower portion of the frame is a good example.

I went with black and white in this rendition since the sky had not really lit up yet – in other words, color wasn’t necessarily the main feature of the scene. I also liked what I could do with the clouded sky and the distant ridge in black and white.

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 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM at 35mm
ISO 100, f/16, 1/25 second

keywords: salt, flat, polygon, pattern, landscape, nature, geology, hills, mountains, sky, dark, clouds, evening, dusk, sunset, haze, atmosphere, light, shadow, badwater, basin, death valley, national, park, california, usa, north america, travel, scenic, black and white, monochrome, texture, curve, stock

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

Salt Flats and Sunset Clouds – Near Badwater

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Salt Flats and Sunset Clouds - Near Badwater
Salt Flats and Sunset Clouds - Near Badwater

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

Sunset clouds above the patterned salt flats near Badwater, Death Valley National Park, California.

This photograph was made in the evening at the “secret” spot on the salt flats just south of Badwater. Reports and photographs from this location a couple weeks ago indicated that it had been flooded by earlier heavy rains, but by the time of my visit there was little standing water left here, with the exception of a few open spots (one seen in the middle distance on the salt flats) – though it did appear that the flats might still be wet beneath the salt crust. Walking on this was an odd experience that reminded me a bit of walking on newly frozen winter ice. The appearance of the salt flats was quite changed by the water. Typically the ridges between the flat “polygon” sections of the salt are more distinct, being as tall as a few inches and sometimes almost seeing to break over one another like the edges of ice floes. But at this stage the flats are almost, well, flat.

Shooting this scene in the evening often provides a few technical challenges. In the past I’ve shot from a lower camera position in order to get a closer view of the salt. This time I decided to place the camera bit higher so that I could capture a larger expanse of the salt flat texture. Another issue is the color of the salt. We “know” that salt is white, and when one walks on the playa it registers as white to the eyes/mind. But if you observe carefully – or look at a photograph later – you find out that this salt is anything but white, mostly because it is illuminated entirely by the open sky and therefore picks up the sky coloration. When the sky is clear the salt can become so blue that corrections are needed, in my opinion, during post-processing. On this evening the blue was not as pronounced since the colorful clouds balanced it out to some extent. A third issue is the tremendous dynamic range of the scene, ranging from some very bright sky below the clouds near the left side of the frame, through the much less brightly-lit salt flat, to the very dark foothills on the horizon at the right. In order to manage this I had to do two things. First, instead of using a graduated neutral density filter to lighten the foreground and control sky brightness, I made two exposures one stop apart and combined them in post. Secondly, I used layers to separately adjust sections of the image, primarily differentiating between the salt (which need to be lightened up a bit) and the sky (where the brightest areas needed to be controlled).

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 at 17mm
ISO 100, f/16, composite: 1/6 second and 0.3 second

keywords: badwater, salt, flats, polygon, pattern, playa, death valley, national, park, california, usa, north america, evening, dusk, sunset, cloud, colorful, pink, orange, blue, sky, landscape, nature, light, travel, scenic, geology, mountains, stock