by hankinslawrenceimages | Jan 5, 2009 | Death Valley & the Alabama Hills, Photo Locations
One of the well-known areas of Death Valley for photography is the Artist’s Drive/Artist’s Palette area. Artist’s Drive is a nine-mile one-way round through some spectacular mountains. Artist’s Palette is an area on the face of the Black Mountains known for it’s incredible colors. The oxidation of different metals in the soil has created an area covered with pink, red, green, yellow and white that stands out in contrast to the brown rocks.
We spent a few hours late one afternoon at Artist’s Palette on our Death Valley trip. Here are a few of my photos.
First, a few images of the colors on the hills in the golden afternoon light.
(c) 2008 Patty Hankins
(c) 2008 Patty Hankins
(c) 2008 Patty Hankins
The participants in the workshop Bill and I were attending weren’t the only people photographing at Artist’s Palette that afternoon. Here’s a photo of all of our shadows as we were photographing the mountains.
(c) 2008 Patty Hankins
As the sun went down, the golden light moved up the mountains. At one point, one peak was lit while the mountains below were in shadow. I loved the contrast of the shadow and golden light at that moment in time.
(c) 2008 Patty Hankins
After the sun went behind the mountains, but not below the horizen, the Artist’s Palette area was in open shade. The colors in the rocks were very different than they had been a short time earlier.
(c) 2008 Patty Hankins
Personally, I preferred the look of the area in the golden afternoon light – which probably explains why I have so many more photos of the area in golden light than in open shade.
We hope you’ve been enjoying our photos from Death Valley. We’ll continue posting them to the blog as we get them edited.
by hankinslawrenceimages | Jan 1, 2009 | Death Valley & the Alabama Hills, Photo Locations
Here are some of Bill’s photos from Zabriskie Point in Death Valley. He’s still scanning and editing his 4X5’s so these are all ones he took with a digital camera.
The first several photos were taken in the late afternoon and as the sun set.
The photo below was taken in late afternoon light. The texture of the sedimentary rock formations was absolutely amazing, and the low-angled sunlight helps to highlight the unusual shape of the formations.
(c) 2008 William Lawrence
Here is the late evening light glancing off of the rock formation as the sun sinks lower in the horizon, highlighting the texture of Zabriskie Point.
(c) 2008 William Lawrence
As the sun set, putting the valley into shadow, you can see the remaining direct light highlighting the tops of the mountains on the opposite side of the valley in this panoramic shot.
(c) 2008 William Lawrence
We were lucky that there was enough cloud cover to really add some lovely colors to the sky as the sun was setting. Below is part of the rock formation of Zabriskie Point with the colored sky at sunset. The reflection of the colors in the sky added to the color of the rocks.
(c) 2008 William Lawrence
We came back to Zabriskie point the next morning to see the effects of both evening sun and morning sun on the area. Below, the morning sun highlights the texture of the formations with the mountains on the other side of the salt flats in the background.
(c) 2008 William Lawrence
Below is another morning shot of Zabriskie point with the salt flats and the mountains in the background. The landscape really does look like it belongs to another planet.
(c) 2008 William Lawrence
We’ll have more photos from other areas of Death Valley coming soon. Bill has his work cut out for him in scanning his 4×5 film.
by hankinslawrenceimages | Dec 28, 2008 | Death Valley & the Alabama Hills, Photo Locations
One of places we photographed on our trip to Death Valley with Alain and Natalie Briot was the Playa – a dry lake bed surrounded by hills and mountains. Our first visit to the Playa was at mid-day, followed by sunrise the next morning.
On our mid-day visit, Alain encouraged us to photograph the reflections of the hills in the streams of water in the lake bed. If you haven’t seen Alain’s two photographs of the area, Playa Reflections and Playa Reflections 2, be sure to take a look at them. They are spectacular.
For me, it was a challenge figuring out how to compose a photograph that gave the sense of color and grandeur of the desert landscape. I took a few hundred photos on our first visit. These two are among the last I took. I finally figured out that what fascinated me was the way the layers of color in the hills were reflected in the water.
(c) 2008 Patty Hankins
(c) 2008 Patty Hankins
When we returned to the Playa the next morning for sunrise, we were all a little surprised by the conditions. Not only was there a fairly heavy cloud cover, but areas of the sand had turned to mud. We all had fun walking out on the playa – trying to keep from sinking in the sand.
In contrast to the shades of brown of the previous day, the early light made the area appear in shades of blue. The patterns in the clouds echoed the patterns and textures of the dried sand along the edges of the water.
(c) 2008 Patty Hankins
The dried salt and sand made some for some incredible textures that were great fun to photograph.
(c) 2008 Patty Hankins
As I was finishing up photographing I happened to look back and see what happens when a group of photographers walk across the damp sand early in the morning.
(c) 2008 Patty Hankins
While we were careful to leave nothing but footprints, the group of us certainly left an awful lot of footprints. 🙂
by hankinslawrenceimages | Dec 22, 2008 | Death Valley & the Alabama Hills, Photo Locations
The morning after we photograped sunset at Zabriskie Point, we returned to the same spot to photograph sunrise. At sunset, we watched and photographed the rocks as they went from direct light to shade. In the morning, we saw the light come across and highlight the rocks as the sun rose. Here are a few of my photos from sunrise.
Early on, the hills were not lit directly and the sky was wonderful soft colors of pink and blue.
(c) 2008 Patty Hankins
As the sun rose, the first place the direct light lit up was the mountains across the valley. The sky quickly turned very pale, so I’ve cropped it out of most of the photos.
(c) 2008 Patty Hankins
And then we watched and photographed as the light moved across the landscape directly in front of us.
(c) 2008 Patty Hankins
(c) 2008 Patty Hankins
(c) 2008 Patty Hankins
Our morning at Zabriskie Point was a good reminder that sometimes the best light is after the sun is up – when the gorgeous morning light moves across the landscape. There was so much more to this sunrise than just the soft colors in the sky before the sun came up.
by hankinslawrenceimages | Dec 20, 2008 | Death Valley & the Alabama Hills, Photo Locations
One of the cameras Bill and I took on our trip to Death Valley was his Canon Rebel XTI that has been converted to do infrared photography. Infrared photography can give an “otherworldly” look to your photographs. Foliage tends to reflect infrared, so leaves, grass and such tend to be near white. Still water and clear skies go quite dark, but clouds remain light.
Here are some of the photos he took at Zabriskie Point using the infrared camera.
This photograph gives a sense of the height of the overlook where most of our photos of the Zabriskie Point area were taken from. The lone park bench on the skyline caught Bill’s eye.
(c) 2008 William Lawrence
This is the same area that appears in the middle two of my sunset at Zabriskie Point photographs. The infrared adds an interesting contrast to the rocks, and highlights the few clouds that are in the sky.
(c) 2008 William Lawrence
This is the packed sand and sediment at Zabriskie Point showing the unusual contours of the terrain, as well as the texture of the rock.
(c) 2008 William Lawrence
The infrared really gives the photographs of Zabriskie Point a different look and feel. We’ve found that the infrared does best with primarily clear sky with a few clouds to appear as highlights. These were taken early afternoon, and were are main infrared shots from the trip, as the skies were most cooperative on this day.
by hankinslawrenceimages | Dec 16, 2008 | Death Valley & the Alabama Hills, Photo Locations
On the first evening of the Death Valley photo workshop that Bill and I attended, we photographed sunset at Zabriskie Point.
At first, I wasn’t sure how to photograph the scene. Usually, I’ve got a sense of where the light will be and have a general idea how I’ll be framing my photographs. At Zabriskie Point, there were hills, mountains, packed piles of lake sediment – all forming incredible shapes. As the evening progressed, it became clear that the light and the way it reflected on the hills was going to be constantly changing.
The first light that captured my eye was the golden light of late afternoon shining on the hills. The rocks were incredible shades of golden orange.
(c) 2008 Patty Hankins
As the sun went behind the mountains, the hills were in open shade rather than direct sunlight. The colors of the hills became more subtle while the mountains in the background were a lovely shade of blue. In this light, the sediment layers became very distinct and colorful.
(c) 2008 Patty Hankins
(c) 2008 Patty Hankins
When the sun finally set, the sky lit up in shades of pink and blue. In this light, the hills appeared bathed in shades of pink.
(c) 2008 Patty Hankins
This sunset was a great introduction to the ever changing nature of the light in Death Valley – and how it would effect the way we saw the natural formations of the amazing landscape.
