The Landscape Impact PhotoBlog
This PhotoBlog is my place to share my experiences in the field and back in my workroom. I'll try to give a sense of the exhilaration and the challenges of finding, bringing back, and presenting compelling images from the Wild. This will be the place for short essays, thoughts, comments, announcements, and the like. I'll continue to post longer articles to the "Art & Craft" area, but I want a vehicle for getting a quick idea or observation out in a hurry.
I welcome your feedback and comments.
June 15, 2008: Report from North Shore Photo Expedition
Our Spring Photo Expedition to the North Shore of Lake Superior was great! The weather cooperated, with cool temperatures and no rain. It had been raining during the week in northern Minnesota, and as a result every river, stream, and brook we encountered was running a full force - harder than I can remember ever seeing before. There is an image in the "Rivers and Streams" gallery entitled "Gooseberry Falls Running Strong." The place I was standing when I took that shot- a few feet out from the bank of the river on a ridge of rock - was under a foot or more of hard-rushing current on Sunday!
I concentrated on the teaching aspects of the trip, but I did get in a few shots, which I decided to try in black-and-white. I've been experimenting with printing on Hahnemule's new Glossy Fine Art Baryta Paper, and I really like the results.
June 13, 2008: General Update and Reader Challenge Results
I have not posted on the Blog for several weeks. This is not for lack of interest, but personal issues have interrupted photo work. I have a close family member on the East Coast who has suffered sudden and serious health issues, and I have been putting time into that essential facet of my life.
I do have an update on the Reader Challenge from May 2. My friend finally decided she needed to take the plunge into the DSLR world, and stretched her budget (with some family help) to a Canon Rebel XT and lens kit. She had a great time shooting during the Spring Expedition, and I hope to post some of her shots on the site shortly.
May 27, 2008: Xapshot Diary, Part 4
I've had several folks ask me why I've been spending time with the Xapshot, when I could be taking "real pictures." I understand their question - it does seem odd to move backward 20 years in technology to take pictures that just can't compare in objective quality with those from my current DSLR.
The reason ties back to some of the points in my "Avoiding The Obvious Picture" and "Printing and Esthetic Choices" essays. If we don't challenge ourselves as artists, we will end up just doing the same thing over and over. For me, the experiments with the Xapshot have been a way to force myself to try different things and not take the same picture again and again. I would never have thought to try the Photoshop effects I have used over the last week if not for the limited sensitivity and detail in the Xapshot's native captures.
And while I might never do exactly the same sort of post-processing on a large, sharp image from my DLSR, I did discover at least one technique that I really like for adding depth and visual focus to close up shots. To get the false colors in the Xapshot images, I used Photoshop's "Duplicate Layer" command set to "Exclusion." But in the process of finding an effect I liked, I also worked through variations on the Layers types, and spent more time with the "Multiply" and "Color Burn" options than I ever had before. That experimentation showed me a new way to deepen my backgrounds and throw focus onto the foreground of my shots, in a manner I had just not tried before.
Here are some examples from the Memorial Day weekend, taken at the Iris Garden at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. These were all shot with my DSLR, and remain fairly naturalistic, but have been emphasized and processed with some of the new ideas I gained from working on the Xapshot series. I also found it much easier to work in the close-up form of these shots after having tried the same vantage point with the Xapshot. My artistic "muscles" have definitely been stretched thanks to working with the "obsolete" little Canon, and I think I'm the better for it. So, what have you done this week to stretch your artistry?
May 24, 2008: Xapshot Diary, Part 3
I turned back to smaller scale images with the Canon Xapshot. The camera has a macro feature (it slides a secondary lens into place over the fixed-length lens) and I wanted to see what it could do with some tighter close-ups.
There are flowers blooming all around our neighborhood, so I set out on a hunt for interesting colors and forms. I ended up shooting a small patch of tulips a few blocks from home, and experimenting with the normal and macro lenses. One problem I had completely forgotten about shooting SLRs: parallax error! While the rangefinder-style viewfinder in the Xapshot is generally pretty accurate, even a small discrepancy throws things off in a macro shot. And with no way to view the images while shooting, I was unable to note the problem until I sat down at my Mac to work on the images. Next time, I'll remember to leave a bit more space around the edges of the shot...
Here are my favorite images from this shoot:
May 22, 2008: Xapshot Diary, Part 2
I've continued to experiment with my Canon Xapshot. The water level at Minnehaha Falls in Minneapolis is the highest it has been in two years, and the Falls are running beautifully. For a small urban park, Minnehaha is a surprising oasis: shady, cool, with the noise of the surrounding city and nearby highway lost in the rush of the Falls and the creek below.
I took a couple dozen shots at the Falls today, as a sample of larger-scale images than the flowers I worked on yesterday, hoping that the camera might provide another tool for my landscape work.
Here's what a shot of the Falls looks like right out of the Xapshot: it's soft, with limited dynamic range, and has lost both highlights and dark areas. Despite my hopes, I just didn't see much possibility of keeping this image in a purely realistic mode. Even a small amount of enlargement resulted in the image breaking down, and it just would not hold details in the leaves or splashing water. (You can right-click on any of these images to see a larger version.)
Instead of forcing a naturalistic result, I tried pushing the image into a more impressionistic style, hoping to bring out some of the dynamic feeling of the scene and to enrich the colors and depth. Here's what I ended up with.
I like the result: it has more of the powerful feel of the Falls in high flow, and I've brought back the color and depth of the scene. The additional saturation and contrast provide support for the dynamic waterfall, and I've been able to rescue some of the darker parts of the image. The exaggeration of the original shot works to make a more compelling image, I think.
So, the Lesson Of The Day: look for scenes where the Xapshot can provide a starting point for a heightened image, one that pushes the ordinary scene into a more intense and striking final image. This could be fun!
Here's another shot of the Falls, this one taken from below the base of the Falls, as it begins to twist and flow into Minnehaha Creek. I have again elevated the original shot, striving for a more evocative image that captures the strength of the Falls and the bright colors of the Spring foliage in the park. As you know from the images in the Galleries, I am usually a very representational artist - I like to bring back a completely accurate reflection of what I saw at the scene. The technical limitations of the Xapshot are pushing me to find a different way to show you what I felt at the scene, and I think there is a compelling aspect to these imaginatively processed images. I am really looking forward to some additional experiments...stay tuned!
May 21, 2008: Xapshot Diary, Part 1 
I was given a Canon RC250 Still Video camera as a gift, and have now assembled enough parts to have a fully working unit. It was sold in the US 20 years ago as the Canon Xapshot. There's a picture of the camera to the right. The Xapshot is not really a digital camera, but instead shoots still analog video images, like TV picture frames, and stores the files on small disks instead of video tape. In 1989, a New York Times column described a weekend with a brand-new Xapshot as, "The latest technological advance was greeted with a mixture of curiosity and skepticism, both of which dissolved into gee-whiz amazement when I showed people their pictures on their own television screens." That's right- the Xapshot has only a composite video out. The whole point of the camera was to create pictures you would show on your TV, not print like traditional film.
I took it out this week and snapped a few test shots of the geraniums blooming in pots on our front steps. Then I faced the challenge of getting images out of the camera. Here's the sequence that finally worked: play back the still images one at a time into my Panasonic digital video recorder, making a short video of stills. Copy the "movie" onto a DVD and put the DVD into my MacPro. Read the DVD with GreatVideo and convert to dv format. Play the dv movie in iMove HD and extract single frames. Open the frames in QuickTime and save as jpegs. Open the jpegs in Photoshop CS3 and manipulate the images.
As you can imagine, images saved in less-than NTSC-format quality lack a bit compared to multi-meg digital captures. But the images have some compelling features: the limited dynamic range lends itself easily to posterization effects, and the rectangular pixels can be smoothed and pushed into a pseudo grain that has some interesting potential. Colors have a limited palate, and the overall look of the images is a bit flat.
I ultimately experimented with some false color processing, and ended up with these two pics that I like for their other-worldy effect. I can push these up to about 6 X 9 inches without the image degrading, but I need to do some more experimenting with printing.
I'm going to take the Xapshot on the Spring Expedition and give it a try in some large field-of-view settings. It will be interesting to see what sort of landscape shots I can bring back. I found a site that was using the Xapshot to produce QT panoramas several years ago, and I am a sucker for pano shots! I also want to experiment with pulling black and white prints from the Xapshot images.
I'll post more as I continue to work with this new/old tool.
May 17, 2008: New Dates for Spring Expedition
I have been struggling with the dates for the Spring Photo Expedition to the North Shore of Lake Superior. It's been set for next weekend, based upon (1) my assumption that we would have a "normal" Spring and temperatures would be good by then, and (2) the scaffolding that has been in place around the Split Rock Lighthouse coming down this week. While the Historical Society seems to be on schedule with their renovation work, the weather has not done so well.
I really hate to change schedules after they have been public for months, but I also want to ensure a good experience for the students going on the Expedition. I'd been waffling about what to. Then one student ran into an unexpected scheduling conflict this week, and that gave me the final impetus I needed.
So, as you can see on the home page and in the "Classes and Trips" section, I've moved the Expedition back two weeks, to June 7-8, 2008. I believe this will give us a better weekend to explore the North Shore and find some great shots, without having to contend with cold mornings that can take the fun out of a good trip.
There are a few spots left for the Expedition, and if you had a problem making the original dates, we'd be glad to have you join the group in June!
May 2, 2008: Working a Budget — Reader Challenge!
I've been trying to help a friend who wants to get into digital photography (and will be going on the Spring Photo Expedition) to choose a new camera. She has a budget of $500, and is basically starting from scratch (old gear no longer available to her.) While I could find a new (old stock) Canon Rebel XT with Canon's EF-S 18-55 kit lens for about $450, we still have to add at least one memory card and card reader, a spare battery, UV filter, and tripod. I was hitting $575 by the time I priced out the whole necessary package. Equivalent Nikon, Olympus, and Sony DSLRs were also over the budget once we priced in all the pieces....
So I expanded my search, and looked beyond just digital SLRs. My requirements were: ability to shoot in aperture priority and manual mode; option to shoot RAW, reasonable lens length coverage, and available image stabilization in some form. After a good bit of hunting, I think I may have a workable compromise: the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ8. This is compact digicam, with a 7 meg sensor, RAW mode, manual controls, in-camera IS, and a 36-432mm (equivalent) lens.
DP Review gave it a "Highly Recommended" rating, and as long as you avoid high ISOs, it has the ability to produce clean, crisp shots, and has a good RAW converter provided with the camera. Staying just on Amazon, I could put together a complete kit of camera, 2 SD cards (2 gig each) and reader, a spare battery and car charger, filter pack, tripods (tabletop and full-size), a soft bag, and Photoshop Elements 6 for $426 delivered!
This strikes me as a good way to get her back into photography with a solid camera that will take some time to outgrow, plus everything she needs to really exploit the camera's abilities (including post-processing.) While the prices of DSLRs have come down significantly in the last 12-18 months, we're just not there for her budget (and I want to stay with new gear - she doesn't need the hassle of used equipment.)
What do you think? Am I on the right path, or do you have experience with the FZ8 that would suggest staying away?
Here's the challenge: can you put together a DSLR package (camera, mid-length lens, storage/reader, spare battery, and field tripod) for no more than $500, that you see as a better compromise? All comments or suggestions here, please!
April 23, 2008: Another photo travel story...
Several folks have commented on my Death Valley photo trip notes from last month, and I've gotten questions about other out-of-the-ordinary treks. One of my favorite trips was to the Canyonlands National Park in November of 2006, which included a fantastic day trip up Horseshoe Canyon to see the Great Gallery of pictographs. I've had a panorama of the Great Gallery up in the "Vistas and Views" section, but I hadn't told the story of getting that image. So, if you click here, I'll tell you about that day in November...
April 21, 2008: More on photographer Sam Abell
I had jotted down some of my reactions to the Sam Abell presentation last week. My photographer friend, Steve Fredrickson, who attended the presentation with me, had some additional notes that I thought fleshed out Sam's key comments quite well, and I got his permission to share those here:
• “Compose and wait” for something to enter or leave the frame. Don’t give up on situations. Be patient - photographers are impatient as a group, but the results have made him a believer in “compose and wait."
• Use layers to make the picture from back to front - layered and framed photos have depth and interest.
• Photography is not about cameras or technique, it is about learning to see. Be out in life with a camera, because curiosity leads to photos!
• Bracket your exposures and use a tripod.
• Favorite place to photograph: North Slope of Alaska and Canada: nearly 24 hours of daylight during summer, and no trees.
• National Geographic now looks to hire only still photographers who are also video-trained!
April 20, 2008: A Great Resource, Updated
With ads in every Sunday paper and on the Net for storage cards for your digital camera, which one do you buy when you need more space? One great resource that I rely upon is the CF/SD Performance Database that Rob Galbraith maintains on his Web site. The Database has read and write speeds for scores of CompactFlash and SD cards (the two most widely-used formats) as they actually work in over a dozen different Canon and Nikon cameras, as well as in camera-to-computer connections. Rob has just announced that the Database is being rejuvenated and expanded, with test results being added for the Canon 40D, 1D Mark III and 1Ds Mark III, plus the Nikon D300 and D3.
I always look up a card's performance in the Database when I see a great price and am contemplating a purchase. The difference in actual speeds - in use in a camera body - can be astounding. For example, in a Canon 30D, the fastest card (a SanDisk Extreme IV 2GB) wrote RAW files over twice as fast and JPEGs almost twice as fast as the slowest card (a Delkin Devices PRO 8GB.) That's a huge difference, and would translate to both snappier performance both in the field (more continuous shots, faster clearing of the camera's memory buffer) and back home when uploading the day's work. Check out the Database at http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007. Just pick your DSLR from the pulldown list and see how 30-40 different cards performed in your camera.
April 18, 2008: Quiet Inspiration
I spent a wonderful, quiet evening with photographer Sam Abell last night, as part of he National Geographic Live! season in Minneapolis. Mr. Abell has had a 25-year career shooting for National Geographic, and for the bicentennial of the Louisiana Purchase in 2003, he photographed the mighty Mississippi River for a National Geographic book. He spoke on The Photographic Life as well as The Mississippi, and was inspirational on both. I took away two ideas about the art of photography: search for the setting for a great picture and then be patient as the scene unfolds, and compose from the background forward.
On the first point, Sam's message was that you need to look for a physical setting with the elements for a great picture, and carefully take the technical steps you need to have the ability to capture the scene. Then it's a matter of patience, waiting for the best possible set of details to emerge. As an example, he showed a wonderful shot of several trees in sunset silhouette, each with a large eagle's nest at the top. He had located that spot, arranged his camera and tripod to catch the colors and shadows of the scene, and then waited for an eagle to come settling in for a landing on one nest. He took the picture as the eagle was touching down to the nest - perfectly timed and captured.
On the second point, he reviewed the classic compositional technique of having near, middle, and distant layers in a shot, and urged us to develop our compositions from the distant to the near. I certainly admit to usually thinking about my compositions from near to far, and I plan to apply this mental discipline to look for new ways to make a scene more interesting and communicative.
The lecture/presentation was at the classic State Theatre in Minneapolis, and proved how a simple technological approach (one large screen, a series of slides) can convey everything of importance, without the need for booming soundtracks or Flash animations. Just a quiet Midwestern voice in the darkness, sharing experience and gorgeous images. I haven't spent as enlightening two hours in a very long time!
April 12, 2008: It's All Over...
That's it, I'm selling my camera gear. I'm going to learn basket-making and never leave home again. Paint the windows black so I can't see outside. Get an unlisted phone number and disconnect the Internet.
Yes, it's still snowing in Minnesota. Two inches here yesterday (a foot in Duluth) and snow in the air most of today. It's that useless in-between sort of weather: too cold and windy to enjoy being outside, but not enough snow cover to do any sort of winter-related activity. Just frustrating, waiting for the break you know is coming but keeps being put off by late-season nastiness.
I weep for Spring.
April 7: It is a Privilege to Live in Minnesota…
I was going to write an entry today about how Winter was just about over, and Spring had come to Minnesota. I was going to explain that all the snow in our yard had melted, except for that tiny patch in the shade on the north side of the house. I was going to show you a picture of the pussy willow buds, all popped out and promising that Spring was breaking through. But I stepped out to get the newspaper this morning, and it was SNOWING! Not heavily, but there were flakes blowing across the yard and sticking to things…like the pussy willow buds. I am a patient man, but this is really going too far; I want Spring and I want it now!!! Depressing picture of ice on pussies follows - I'm at a loss for words.
March 30: Nature in Brooklyn
More trekking on foot through Brooklyn. The highlight of the day for me was our exploration of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. We started with the Japanese Hill-and-Pond Garden - the first Japanese garden to be created in an American public garden, originally built starting in 1914 and opening to the public in June of 1915. It was laid out by Japanese landscape designer Takeo Shiota, who came to the U.S. in 1907 to create, "a garden more beautiful than all others in the world."
Spring colors were just starting to break out in the garden, and I was able to get some shots with cherry blossoms and freshly leafed-out shrubs. In another week or so, there will be color everywhere - sad to miss that!
We also spent time indoors, checking out a bonsai exhibit and exploring several environments, ranging from tropical to southwest desert. Got some great close-up shots of blooming plants.
March 29: NYC trekking
Carolyn and I are in New York City, visiting our daughter (Dean of Students at a High School here.) We made today a walking tour of Brooklyn and Manhattan, starting by hiking across the Brooklyn Bridge. Got some great architecture shots of the stonework and cables on the bridge. This is truly a wonderful walk - you get such a sense of proportion, human to bridge to city. If you haven't walked across (don't bother trying to buy the Bridge, I already did) the Bridge, I very highly recommend you do so on your next visit to Gotham. You won't be disappointed.
March 25: Timing is Everything…
I tried to get a quick bit of shooting in after a meeting today in San Francisco, and headed to the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park. I arrived just as they were closing the gate! Never one to let a small thing like a complete lack of access slow me down, I shot some (fairly nice) pictures there at the gate. The cherry blossoms were at their peak, so I grabbed a few shots contrasting the natural with the artificial. Not too bad a recovery from a botched outing, but I would still have liked to go through the gate…
March 24: Getting some Altitude - Sequoia National Park
What a difference a day and 7,000 feet can make! I was sweating at 90 degrees yesterday in Death Valley, and today I drove up from the Ash Mountain entrance to Sequoia National Park the 6,490 feet to the Giant Grove in the south end of the Park, and stood in snow looking up at the immense trees.
I really didn’t have any specific plans for shooting at Sequoia - I wanted to see the Park and it was generally on the way to San Francisco, where I was headed for non-photography meetings. 
It was unexpectedly difficult to photograph the tall trees in the Giant Forest. The General Sherman tree, for example, tops out at 275 feet. I just couldn't find a way—that I was happy with—to convey the awesome power of those huge and ancient trees.
I eventually abandoned the attempt, and went for other features: the contrast between several tree trunks seen up close, a small waterfall near the trail, the tumbling rapids of the Middle Fork of Kawea River. I'll definitely have to come back when I can get access further into the Grove (that would have required snowshoes today) and can find better opportunities for capturing the majesty of the sequoias. Now on to San Francisco.
March 23: Death Valley - Day 3
Last night, I looked through my shots from Zabriskie Point, and I was really not satisfied; I headed back to the Point this morning to try again. I started shooting from a different location, down a trail apart from the usual overlook, hoping to get a better perspective. That trail lies in a bit of a slot between the large rocks of the Point, and the shape of the area creates a wind tunnel effect. The trail has a serious pitch to it, and I was actually concerned about seeing my tripod blown over (or down the slope.) I hooked the center post of the tripod to my backpack, and the 20 pounds or so in the pack anchored the tripod and camera down enough that I could both work without concern (other than slipping myself) and get stable telephoto shots.
I had taken quite a few shots the first morning, but looking back on them a day later, I decided too many of them were just too factual, and not sufficiently emotive. That is, I had concentrated on getting the literal truth of the scene, but the images were too general and just recorded the overall area without enough focus to help a viewer feel the power of the Point. I was determined to try to break out of that pattern and capture more powerful images.
The combination of a different vantage point, and my intent to 
discover the feeling of the Point helped push me to concentrate on more isolated portions of the area, and to get to the heart of the place: the forms and colors that were glowing in the early morning light. I was much happier with the shots I was getting, and moved back to the general viewing area for the Point. The observation area is at the end of ridge that runs up from the parking lot, but I didn’t go up ridge as I had the prior day. Instead, I hiked off one edge of the ridge, looking for more interesting aspects of the Point. I was rewarded almost immediately: the ridges and shadows on that side of the Point were striking, and a great subject for close-up shots. And then a hiker walked out on one of the ridges below me, and stood at the end of that ridge. He immediately changed the whole feel of the scene, as he was such a small figure in this vast wasteland. The sense of scale and balance of power was palpable! He stood there long enough for me to get several different shots - it was the high point of the morning!
After that, I did a quick swing through the Artists Drive area, and tried a few more shots in the different light. The colors were better than the sunset shots, but I didn’t like the harsh nature of the morning light. I headed out to the West side of the Park, catching a few wildflower shots along the way, and passing the sand dunes in the Stovepipe Wells area. I stopped for a few dune shots with a long telephoto, but decided against making the 3/4 mile hike out to the dunes - my heel was still slowing me way down. The temperature was back to 90 just before noon, and I watched a middle-aged father stop his Mercedes convertible, and hike out towards the dunes with two young daughters (both looked to be under 10 years old.) None of them was wearing a hat or carrying any water, and all were in shorts, t-shirts, and Tevas. I hoped they weren’t going to go very far, because they were woefully unprepared for the heat and exertion that a hike all the way to the dunes would represent.
The rest of the day was spent driving to Sequoia National Park. While the two parks aren’t very far away by airline distance, the mountain ranges between the two Parks mean the drive took almost five hours.
March 22: Death Valley - Day 2
I started the day with a sunrise shoot at Ambrosia Point, 
and explored some of the mud flats in the south end of the Park.
My goal for this afternoon and evening is to head north to the Playa and try to catch some of the Racetrack rocks. I stopped at the Furnace Creek Visitor Center to ask if there were any current issues about the road to the Playa. The response was “there are always issues” - followed by a lecture about how the sharp volcanic rock cuts tires open all the time, and that I should not even attempt the drive unless I had off-road, extra-ply tires on a heavy-duty truck. Hmm - I’m driving a rented Ford Escape, a car-based light SUV, and it has highway-tread tires. So now I have this terrible dilemma: this is one the key reasons I wanted to come to Death Valley, but I certainly don’t want to get stuck somewhere on a 27-mile dirt road to and from nowhere, with no cell phone coverage.....
So I head north to look at the road and decide what to do. All my guide materials suggest that the road is passable (unless it rained recently) with a high-clearance vehicle; none of them has raised the concerns noted by the Park Ranger. It’s over an hour to get to the trailhead for the Playa, way in the North end of the Park, but I need to see the road for myself before abandoning the attempt. The road doesn’t look too bad - certainly better graded than a road I bounced down at Agua Fria National Monument a couple of years ago in a Subaru Outback, and all I did on that drive was dent the heat shield over the catalytic converter. (I noted at the rental return counter that the car buzzed at about 58 mph, but I was assured “all the Subarus do that.” I don’t think that one did before the dent, so maybe I was just bringing it into compliance.)
After some soul-searching, I start down the road, taking it easy and trying to avoid everything that looks like a sharp rock. That works, but it means I’m going about 12 mph - which means I won’t get to the Playa before dark. As I’m trying to decide what to do, a Nissan Murano (an even more highway-optimized SUV) blows by me down the dirt road. That gives me courage - it probably means I am overly concerned about the supposedly sharp rocks, and if I do have a problem, those folks have to come back this way and can rescue me!
I push the speed up, still working my way around the big rocks, and nothing horrible happens. My average speed is now about 25 mph, and I start to get confident that this will work. The miles start to slip by, and the road varies from narrow and rutted to two-lane, wide and quite smoothly graded. No big holes, fairly flat, some tight turns and twists; no signs of distress from the Escape. I pass a great road sign at the Teakettle Junction.
I finally spot the Playa ahead - a huge, flat dry lake bed where the light color of the dried mud contrasts with the dark surrounding hills and the almost black dolomite outcropping that pokes out of the center of the Playa like a long-forsaken island. There’s a parking lot on the west side of the Playa, and I join the Murano there and hike out onto the lake bed. My right foot is in bad shape - I’ve layered on the Band-Aids and tape, and I’ve still torn the skin off most of the heel, and each step is painful when I lift the back of my foot. There is a small sign at the edge of the Playa - “most of the sliding rocks are found at the south end of the Playa.” Great - so I’ll be hiking in...
I start limping my way south, and after about 10 minutes I spot some interesting-looking round forms sitting on the lake bed a bit further down and in the middle of the bed. I turn towards them, and hike the half mile to get to them. They aren’t rocks at all, I discover when I get there; they are just clumps of vegetation! I take some shots anyway, but I am seriously disappointed. I decide to walk a bit further south, but realize my right foot wants me to turn back soon. Just as I’m about to give up, I spot some rocks ahead - they are 8 to 10 inches in diameter, and - yes - there are sliding trails!
There is a group of four rocks, sitting within 20 feet of each other, and each has a trail behind it. It looks as though they had been racing each other, and they’ve ended up in a photo finish! I start shooting, even though I’m losing the light due to a long shadow from the rock ridge to the west of the Playa that is now shading all of the southern end of the lake bed. I think I’m getting some good shots, and try to find creative ways to capture this unusual scene.
I finish up, and start hobbling back to the Ford. I pass several other interesting rocks on the way - none with trails, but neat contrasts with the cracked mud surface in which they are embedded. I get back to the parking lot as dusk sets in - nothing interesting is happening with the sunset sky, unfortunately, so I see no reason to stay any longer.
The road back is even less fun in the dark, but no incidents mar the return trip, and I manage to get back to the Furnace Creek Ranch 30 minutes before they stop serving dinner. It’s been a long day, but I think I have some good shots in the bag!
March 21: Death Valley - Day 1
I’ve started my time in Death Valley, after an uneventful drive from Las Vegas (despite the best efforts of the airline and car rental company to make it impossible to get here.)
I am starting to get some sense of the Park. First, it is huge - over 3.4 million acres, which means it is the largest national park on the mainland. The only option for getting around the Park is your own vehicle, and driving times between photogenic locations can be an hour or more.
Second, there is an extraordinary variety of terrain within the Park, from the (almost) dry lake bed that is the lowest point within the US (282 feet below sea level), to Telescope Peak that tops out at 11,049 feet and overlooks that same lake bed, to crenellated ridges of different-colored rocks that remind me of the Badlands of South Dakota (but frankly not as wildly colored), to 100-foot tall sand dunes.
Third, it’s hot! The temperature hit 90 degrees F today under a cloudless sky. The notion of trying to accomplish physical labor here in the Summer is almost beyond contemplation. I had picked up a 2-1/2 gallon container of water at the grocery store in Pahrump, Nevada, and I’m going through the water quickly and still feeling the effects of the heat.
Fourth, always check your supplies before leading home. I developed a nasty blister on my right heel today, and when I pulled out my bag of first aid supplies, I found that I had used up all the moleskin and had not replaced it before leaving home. The little General Store here in the Park sells only Band-Aids and cloth tape, so I’ll be lashing something together and hoping for the best. Rats!
March 20: Death Valley - Getting Ready
I’m setting off for Death Valley National Park today. “Why?”, you ask, “Isn’t that the home of Twenty Mule Borax and the bleached bones of dead animals?"
Well, yes, Death Valley was the source of over 20 million tons of borax between 1883 and 1888, much of it hauled out in 16-foot long wagons pulled by a team of twenty mules. But is is also the location of some amazing landscapes. In particular, I am excited about looking for the “traveling rocks” at the Playa/Racetrack area, as well as exploring the badlands throughout the Park.
This is also one of the few periods of the year when exploring Death Valley seems reasonable. Daily high temperatures in the Summer can hit 130 degrees F! That’s just not appealing. And the Winter months don’t seem much better - temperatures between 39 and 65 degrees and barely a trace of precipitation.
In contrast, average temperatures in March swing from 80 during the day to 53 at night. That actually sounds better than Minnesota’s long-lasting Winter this year, as Spring seems to be only a mirage here in the North Star State (4+ of snow on March 18 - need I say more?)
I plan to fly into Las Vegas and drive to Death Valley, spend three days there, then head to San Francisco with a stop in Sequoia National Park on the way. I’ll post as I work my way through the Park.
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