I drove down I5 in California's central valley, hitting all the major national parks as I went south. At Fresno, I turned east on rt. 180 and drove into the Sierra Nevada mountains, heading for King's Canyon and Sequoia National Parks. I was lucky as it was Monday when I arrived and the the campgrounds near the entrance were not completely full. I picked a site high up in the far reaches of the campground, expecting it to be dark as I wanted to play with star photography. Imagine my surprise when, upon returning late from my evening's photo expedition, I was greeted by an overwhelming light display from the central valley bathing my campsite. So much for taking star time lapse. I might as well have been in LA for all the light pollution. It's becoming a big issue for all the national parks I understand. Very few qualify as good places to do astro photography. Only Death Valley had the required certifications. Maybe light pollution isn't a big thing for most of you but it's a huge issue for photographers. Our time is an hour before sundown until an hour after sunrise and anything that disturbs those hours in a major issue.
Death Valley Sunrise
Death Valley can be brutal ... especially in the summer. Near Furnace Creek temperatures are routinely measures in the 120s and 130s. Not a place where any sane person wants to be wandering in the heat of the day. My plan was to leave the rest area on state route 395 around 1:30 in the morning and make the drive over the mountains so as to arrive well before sunrise. I had wanted to photograph a sunrise over the salt flats and I needed to find out where the best spots were in time to get there. That was the plan but it didn't come out exactly as I wanted. I arrived in Furnace Creek just after 4 where I met a group of commercial photographers who were shooting at the sand dunes in the early morning light. A friendly ranger who was escorting them suggested I head south and take the west road to a field he considered pristine. Nice idea but I had two problems ... the sun was already warming the horizon and this spot was a good hour from where I wanted to be and on a dirt road to boot. Scrap plan A. The other big issue was the heat ... it was only 4:30 and the thermometer at the visitor's center read a depressing 95 degrees. The forecast didn't add to my confidence ... 127 by 2 pm. A guy could die in heat like that. So I switched to plan B ... scout the valley, looking for good places to shoot and come back in the winter when it was much cooler and clouds actually formed over the valley and surrounding mountains. So, at 5 am I started driving south along rt. 190, stopping at attractive places and making notes. There's a lot of interesting real estate in the valley but you need to find it ... like diamonds in the rough. I was watching the shadows creep across the valley when I came on a sign ... painter's pallet ... and decided that maybe I could find something interesting there. I drove up this winding road, drawing nearer and nearer to the mountains which were the main attraction. Colors like you wouldn't believe ... whole mountains painted as if by a small child with an errant paint brush. Wild, exuberant colors. So I parked the truck and started walking up a nearby hill to get the proper vantage point. It took forever ... the little hill turned out to be rather larger than I first imagined but finally I found my spot. I took several panoramas as the sun came up and this is the best of the lot. It's been pushed quite a bit as the sun in Death Valley is very intense even before it comes up. But I think the colors are as I remember them ... it was an amazing display for sure.
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| Death Valley Sunrise - 35mm(1.6 crop),f/11,HDR,ISO 100,license CC BY-NC 4.0 |
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