Tag Archives: wash

Star Trails, The Manifold, Zabriskie Point

Star Trails, The Manifold, Zabriskie Point
The Manifold, Star Trails – Zabriskie Point

Star Trails, The Manifold, Zabriskie Point. Death Valley National Park, California. March 29, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Star trails above the Manifold, Zabriskie Point, Death Valley National Park, California.

One of my goals on my late-March trip to Death Valley was to do some night photography, in particular to take advantage of the nearly full moon near the end of my visit. Some of my plans did not quite work out – for example, on the night when I intended to do night photography of the moving rocks at the Racetrack Playa it was cloudy all night! However, on the final night of my visit the weather gods cooperated and I was able to make a few exposures from Zabriskie Point as the moon rose. As if to partially make up for messing up the intended Racetrack shots, the “cloud gods” were kind enough to provide me with a few high thin clouds at Zabriskie. This was one of those wonderful occasions when things actually did go as planned!

Anticipating the full moon at Zabriskie, I made a point of camping in the vicinity of Furnace Creek at the Texas Springs campground. (I expect that my habits mystified a few nearby campers. I drove in at about 2:00 p.m., grabbed a site and “marked” it by leaving a chair and a tarp, and almost immediately left – not returning until nearly 10:00 p.m. Then I was up and gone well before sunrise.) In any case, I headed down to the Badwater area in the late afternoon to photograph sunset light on the salt flats and evening clouds – following an impromptu “dinner” at the back of my car at the Badwater parking lot. It was getting fairly dark by the time I finished up at Badwater, so I headed straight up to Zabriskie. By the time I arrived the moon was just coming up over the mountain range to the east, with its light at times filtering through high clouds. During the hour I was there I made three exposures. With exposure times in the 8 to 12 minute range and followed by “dark frame exposures” of equal length, this was a slow and quiet process.

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 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM
ISO 200, f/8, 787 seconds (not a typo!)

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Ruins, Dawn, Rhyolite

Ruins, Dawn, Rhyolite

Ruins, Dawn, Rhyolite. Rhyolite, Nevada. April 1, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Cloud-filtered dawn light washes over crumbling ruins in the ghost town of Rhyolite, Nevada with Death Valley National Park, California and snow-capped Telescope Peak in the distance.

(More of my Death Valley photographs)

Looking back through my photos from Rhyolite in early April of this year, I found this image of several ruined and crumbling buildings against the backdrop of Amargosa Valley, Death Valley National Park and Telescope Peak, and an cloudy interesting dawn sky. One reason I thought I’d share this one is that it is a somewhat different image of the Rhyolite ghost town in that it doesn’t really include any of the iconic structures – just a more typical scene of buildings in a state of ongoing desert decay.

This photograph is not in the public domain. It may not be used on websites, blogs, or in any other media without explicit advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

keywords: cloud, filtered, sky, blue, morning, dawn, sunrise, light, wash, abandoned, building, structure, wall, window, school, crumbling, ruins, ghost, town, rhyollite, nevada, mining, desert, amargosa, valley, mountains, panamint, range, telescope, peak, death valley, national park, california, usa, landscape, scenic, travel. stock, sage, brush

Morning, Manley Beacon

Morning, Manley Beacon

Morning, Manley Beacon. Death Valley National Park, California. April 3, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The iconic view of the morning sun striking Manley Beacon at Zabriskie Point with the Panamint Range in the distance – Death Valley National Park, California.

Yeah, it’s an icon… :-)

But I don’t think I’ve posted any photographs of similar landscape icons recently, so what the heck.

I shot this on the final morning of my early April, 2009 trip to Death Valley. I really didn’t go there to shoot this icon precisely – I originally thought that there might be some interesting clouds that morning (there weren’t) and my main goal was shooting detail photographs of the eroded landscape below and to the left of the camera position – actually more than 90 degrees to the left. But if you are at Zabriskie, there is a moment when the sun light finally makes its way across the valley and suddenly washes across Manley Beacon that is hard to resist – you’d have to be a stronger photographer than I am to not swing your camera in that direction.

In the end it is a pretty “vanilla” photograph of Manley Beacon – pretty much straight ahead lighting, no dramatic clouds in the sky, and I did not crank the contrast or saturation as you often see in photographs of this mountain. This is really pretty much what it looks like.

This photograph is not in the public domain. It may not be used on websites, blogs, or in any other media without explicit advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

keywords: manley, beacon, zabriskie, point, icon, mountain, hill, ridge, sunrise, dawn, morning, distance, death valley, national park, california, usa, scenic, travel, landscape, shadow, light, folds, eroded, gully, color, wash, stock

Detail, Zabriskie Point Folds in Morning Light

Detail, Zabriskie Point Folds in Morning Light

Detail, Zabriskie Point Folds in Morning Light. Death Valley National Park, California. April 3, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Morning light on variously angled curving ridges below Zabriskie Point, Death Valley National Park.

This is another in the series of photographs of details of the geology surrounding Zabriskie Point in Death Valley National Park – for the most part the interesting patterns of folded and twisted earth rather than the grand epic landscape to the west.

This photograph is not in the public domain. It may not be used on websites, blogs, or in any other media without explicit advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

keywords: zabriskie, point, fold, gully, angles, wash, ravine, morning, light, sun, death valley, national park, california, usa, desert, dry, landscape, scenic, travel, stock, shadow, geology, colors, shape, form, hill