Desert Sunrise (nearly missed)

Here we have a partial section of a larger, eight frame panorama that I shot just as the first rays of morning sun were sweeping across the dunes at Mesquite Flat. It was the night to set the clocks back an hour for the end of Daylight Savings time... and since there was no cell phone signal, I thought it would be safe to use the alarm in my phone to wake up for sunrise without changing anything, but somehow the time got set back during the night even without a signal, so we overslept and had to make a mad dash to get out here before the sun.

What a sight to see the whole scene go from dark and flat to brightly side-lit in just a few seconds, revealing all the amazing wind carved shapes and desert colors. I don't know if I will ever do anything with this as far as printing.. there are quite a few tracks in the sand rather bothering me, beginning just at what is here the left edge and continuing into the next section, but I thought it was at least worth a look. If enough people seem to like it I may take the time to do the necessary touch up in order to make a large print. Cropping out the sky is also an option... sometimes I have to look at these things for a few months before I can make a proper decision. (As usual, some nice clouds would have made my day). Look carefully and you can see another photographer kneeling on the crest of a dune over toward the right side, off in the distance.

Nature does not create works of art. It is we, and the faculty of

interpretation peculiar to the human mind, that see art.

- Man Ray

Light+Shadow=Pure Form

Finally working up some presentable frames from Death Valley a few weeks ago...

For the first night, we stayed right by the Mesquite Flat Dunes at Stovepipe Wells, and getting some good stuff out on the dunes was my main goal, so I might as well start there. This is the perfect kind of place: a wilderness where you can just wander around anywhere and anytime you want, totally undisturbed and with a limitless source of ever-changing light, shadow and beautiful sweeping shapes to keep you busy for hours.

At first impression, you might think that you can just point anywhere and get a great shot, but I find it really challenging to pick out and isolate just the right portion of the whole scene that might make an interesting composition. A certain shape or shadow will catch my eye from a distance, but by the time I walk towards it to find the right distance and angle, it's all gone.. point of view is everything here. Also, some otherwise nice scenes can get messed up by all the tracks in the sand.. (you kind of hope for a windy night followed by a quiet morning, but can't honestly expect that kind of perfection very often). I used a long telephoto (which I rarely do) for many shots, and it seemed to be a really effective tool for once.

This is one of my favorites so far... shot in the very late afternoon just before sunset; the light seems like it was just swept across the foreground by a painter with a large brush... and I love the warm golden glow of the sand against the flowing, soft blue background shapes. The smaller image is actually the larger; you can click for a screen filling view of this one because I think it gives an interesting sense of scale, especially with the figure of the guy walking on the crest. I want to call this one "Sword in the Sand".. can you see my thinking for the title?

Rethinking the Dunes

I wanted to briefly go back and wrap up my post regarding the Algodones Dunes: "Solitude and Civilization", that I posted a few weeks ago.  At the time, I mentioned working some exposures from that session in both color and monochrome, so here is one B&W version that is very similar in composition to the color one posted previously.  You can see that it's essentially the same shot, although I shifted position slightly to lessen the size of the deep shadow on the right side of the frame.. it seemed a little overbearing in this monochrome version. Other than that, I don't have any strong preference between the two, maybe slightly towards the B&W, so I'd be interested to hear any opinions.

Check out lots of fine B&W images at: The Monochrome Weekly Theme page.  

Solitude and Civilization

There are several large areas of dunes in California; the best known are in Death Valley and here, in the extreme southwest corner of the state right next to Arizona, are the Algodones Dunes. More commonly known as the Imperial Dunes, because that is the name of the recreational area set aside for all the dune buggies, ATVs and dirt bikes that buzz around burning gas literally by the tens of thousands on any given weekend. Especially in the winter when it's cool, there is basically a temporary city of campers and motor homes each weekend as thousands migrate here to play in the sand. Fortunately, the much larger part of the area is set aside as a pure wilderness... no vehicles or other man made activity is allowed except for hiking and nature watching. So, as peaceful and desolate as this image may look, a mile or so behind from where I took this is all the motorized craziness. Wandering out in this direction, you can barely find another human footprint, but if you look closely in the foreground you can see part of a few prints that look like a coyote had walked by, and we found numerous beetle and bug tracks in the undisturbed sand also. There are no trails, obviously... you can just wander around up and down the dunes wherever you want until you get tired, which doesn't take that long walking in the loose sand. Dangerously hot here in the summer, but winter is very comfortable.
I mentioned this area briefly in a previous post, and have been struggling a bit since then with how to present these; going back and forth between B&W vs. color so many times that I'm not sure which I prefer... depends on what particular day I happen to look at them I guess. For today, I'll show a color image and then maybe a B&W one later... I'm always curious about what people prefer. Since it was winter and the days were short, we stuck around until late in the day to capture the low golden light and deep shadows just before sunset.
You can get a sense of scale and see an interesting shot of the dunes taken from the international space station here.