I love it when you can compose a detail image so that when you are done, it’s hard to tell if it’s an aerial or a close-in image – at first glance, anyway. This morning was our last and only one participant joined us for the sunrise. Ironically, the sunrise itself wasn’t memorable, but these very cool patterns in the edge of the water in Cottonball Marsh were amazing! I photographed them before the sun, and then when the rays of light were just high enough to skim the surface, I did this picture. Something about the low angle of the light and the way it rakes across the surface changes it for me to where, even though I know what it is, it still looks a bit like an aerial photograph.
When we run our photo workshops and tours, we are always on the lookout for photo opportunities beyond the icons of the places we visit. We like to encourage people to find personal images and to see beyond the obvious. I’m sure that our participant thought at first we were crazy walking down the stony wash! And had it been a great sunrise, the location would have been fantastic for a landscape image; but in the end, she was excited to see these formations, too.
Thanks for visiting!
It does look like an aerial photo. Very cool! If you had to choose, would you go to Death Valley or the Mojave Desert on the way to Yosemite from Las Vegas?
Remind me when you are going to Yosemite – I think you said late May? If so it will be VERY HOT in either place, maybe hotter in D Valley by a few degrees…so about 90-105 degrees. But if you go out for early light, it will be fine. Afternoon light will be HOT.
It will be the middle of May. So if we go, we should just plan on sunrise only. Can you recommend the best places to shoot there? If so, I would greatly appreciate any advice. Thanks! I’m sorry about duplicate messages. I kept getting messages that I was timed out. Feel free to delete doubles. 🙂
Ah, well bring LOTS of water with you!! So, for sunrise, you would want to be out in the sand dunes at Stovepipe Wells area; Zabriskie Point; Badwater (although there will likely not be any water there the salt formation should be really nice by then); Devil’s Golfcourse; and from the top of Dante’s view, it’s an aerial perspective, but about an hour’s drive from Furnace Creek Ranch. and sunrise will be early. Those are the icons; the other sunrise locations for me are in different areas of the park that can’t be described and I don’t have GPS coordinates for those – they are view along the valley between F. Creek and the Beatty Cutoff. I hope that helps, and have fun!
A big thank you!
Whaaaa? You mean sunrises are optional? 😉
Wonderful photo op. Sorry people chose to miss out.
PS: Happy 2016!
Thanks for visiting, Gary. Happy 2016 to you as well.
Yes, some choose not to go now and again, and they make that decision knowing they might miss out! We had two mornings where that happened. Some missed a wonderful sunrise at Zabriskie due to needing to ‘rest’. I figure I’ll rest in the next life rather than miss sunrise…
Wonderful Brenda. Love this one.
Thank you so much, JB.