Sun, Sand, No Sea

The journey to Death Valley from the Bay Area runs around 500 miles and takes something like 9 hours (with breaks). We headed off after 9 am and arrived at the hotel around 5:45 pm. As mentioned yesterday, we took route 223 eastwards from I5 in order to take in the building wildflower display in the rolling hills outside of Arvin. S got some good pictures on that road both on the way there and back, but I have to admit defeat in shooting flowers, regardless of the conditions. However, plenty of others were stopped along the roadside happily clicking away so I'm in the minority.

Upon arrival we went out and had a look at Badwater for a sunset location. Nothing spectacular, but a good scouting exercise for what/where/when to shoot over the coming days.

Next morning, I got up early and headed off to shoot the Mesquite Dunes at sunrise. It was very windy at the hotel but thankfully much calmer over at the dune site and glad to say they have now built a new car park alongside the road to Stovepipe Wells. However, there is a downside to making the location more obvious - it was quite crowded. There was a complete party of photographers already up on the dunes, as well as numerous solo shooters. Hmm, had to rethink plans to try and find some clear space to work in. Headed south round the dunes themselves (much easier way to go) and then headed inland. Had to hustle a bit as the sun was rising fast and I was already a bit late. I found a reasonable location and was rewarded with some beautiful light with which to attack the challenge of photographing big hills of sand!

Overall, a fun morning and glad I was still able to find things to shoot without having to spend ages afterwards in Photoshop deleting random bodies from the vistas. Example result shown above.

Road Trip

We made it back safe-and-sound from our short break to Death Valley and I'll post some shots from the trip over the coming days. Weather-wise, things were fine and clear through until Sunday when clouds from a storm front coming in from the Pacific made it over the (four) intervening mountain ranges to get in the way of some shoots we had planned, but that's the way it goes. (The above was taken between Death Valley and Lone Pine, heading back towards the Sierras.)

In terms of wildflowers the best display was in fact on the journey to/from the park, on 223 just east of Arvin. Full bloom looks to be a few weeks away in Death Valley but it's hard to know how good it will be this year, especially now it's cooled off for a few days and there might even be a little more rain. Regardless, the best display of flowers in the Park S found were at the south end, past Lake Manly (which is now completely dry again).

Not sure about this week or next but last weekend the park was full, if only in the sense that all the campgrounds were sold out and there seemed to be no more than a handful of RV hookups or hotel rooms to be had. Pretty much everything is open but look out for roadworks on the road to Scotty's Castle where you can be stuck for 30 to 45 minutes if you time it wrong.

The salt flats were still a bit soggy and some surface water was visible right in the middle and towards Furnace Creek. While that's good for getting some reflections into the pictures at dawn/dusk, it's not good for footwear or clothes!

More thoughts and pictures to come.