Death Valley- A Land of Extremes Photography Workshop

Death Valley is a location that, I think, has capture the imagination of photographers for quite a few years now. It has almost turned into a place of pilgrimage for some and for others it is kind of like a land of mystery filled with roads and trails unnavigable to average cars. Luckily for us we know Nic and Nic doesn’t have average cars.

Here this past December we here at Nature Photo Collective set out on our December photography workshop in Death Valley. The goal of the workshop was to show a land of extremes. This included images of the highest peaks in the lower 48 and traveling to the lowest place in the lower 48. All of this within a few hours of each other. A surprisingly large swing within a relatively short distance.

For me, I am the newest photography instructor to join Nature Photo Collective, so this writing will be from my perspective and my experience leading our guests and teaching and helping people explore for the first time. So, sit down, buckle up and enjoy a good read.

Day 1- To the Heights

Day one began around 2PM at a café in a sleepy little town called Lone Pine. This was the designated meetup location where we were going to get food, make introductions and then load up gear and head into the unknown; which happened to be 15 minutes away.

The first location of our adventure was the Alabama Hills. These hills are known for their beauty and the fact that Hollywood uses these mountains constantly for filmmaking. Iron Man was filmed a few minutes down from where we camped and my boyhood favorite, Tremors, was filmed about 10 minutes from there as well.

The views at Alabama Hills are stunning. The regions is filled with granite jumbles of rocks that have small secrets tucked into them. Famous rocks like Mobius Arch and Boot Arch are found here. Also tucked in here are hundreds of smaller unnamed arches and rock formations that catch the eye constantly. Hiding amongst the rocks are stunning barrel cactuses that make for absolutely amazing foreground elements.

Sunset came and went that evening, but the real adventure was to begin the following day.

Day 2- To the Valleys

Sunrise was in the Alabama hills and frankly it was pretty awesome. No clouds though so we worked a lot with small scenes and focusing on the beautiful predawn light. Post sunrise, breakfast was served and then we set off into Death Valley.

Our first day in Death Valley was to be at Eureka Dunes. These are a set of dunes at the north end of the park that are pretty remote and somewhat difficult to get to. The road wasn’t too bad this go around, though there were signs of what would have been very difficult conditions. To our surprise there was a lake that had formed by the edge of the dunes so we let our guests out to photograph this rare ephemeral site while us guides set up camp.

After relaying people back and forth from the afternoon photoshoot we were caught between getting food cooked and photographing. This turned out to be one of the more annoying realities of photographing in Death Valley at this time of year. Dinner for me is generally around 5PM. Sunset is also around 5PM in Death Valley at this time of year too. So Nic took one for the team and I set out with the guests into the desert to photograph the dunes.

For a few minutes we had stunning light on the dunes and for those who were willing to push it to the distance they were able to get shots of the rolling hills after dusk. I ended up hiking out about a  mile or so with one of the guests to see what he could see; but to also get an idea how long it takes to walk out to this area as this was my first time too here.

Night came and we sat around our fire pit, shooting the breeze and had a jolly good time. As the night settled in, people slinked off to their tents for the night, while I sat out in the cold making sure everything was put away. Just as I was about to go to bed, I noticed a couple glowing orbs of light in the distance… a coyote. He was working his way across the desert coming to check us out.

Day 3- The Flooded Tracks

Nic has a secret to finding mud cracks in Death Valley. If you join us on our next adventure, I’ll tell you. Safe to say our sunrise was a race against the clock. The sun was rising and for the first time we had clouds. As we scooted our way to the mud cracks, we were also having to make compositions on the move as the clouds were lighting up. I helped a few guests along the way, but was also trying to scout for everyone as well. In the end a nice mud playa was found, and we set up as a group on a small track of cracked earth that had not been graced by another human.

Nic gave some instructions, I talked about focus stacking and composition, Nic told a story where I flopped as a photographer and ended up botching a photoshoot.

All good times.

People had a laugh and in the end, there were some good photos taken. The hope on our second Death Valley workshop, we get out here a bit earlier to see if we could find a bigger mud field. There might even be some after that lake evaporates and disappears.

The roads to the Racetracks were long and bumpy, but so is everything out here. Our jeeps handled it like a charm and we were able to make decent time on the drive. We arrived at the Racetracks in the afternoon and to our surprise the field where the rocks lay was flooded. There was about an inch or two of water across the playa.

Dang

This threw a wrench into our plans because we can’t walk on the playa when it is that wet. So, we ended up scouting the rest of the playa for a few rocks that had wandered out that far.

This is a good time to stop and talk about making lemonade out of lemons. I could see the disappointment on people’s faces, but in all reality, we were still in a pretty cool spot. So, putting on my teaching hat I talked about isolating texture, focusing on the fact that we had these wide wandering lines from the water creating different colorations in the mud playa. We still had a few wandering rocks to see and we had nice conditions.

Se we tried and worked and I did my best to keep spirits up. That’s what you have to do as a guide sometimes, you just have to focus people on the things they have, not the things they don’t.

Starry Night

One guest had high hopes and dreams of going out to the racetracks and photographing the night sky. This required some fenagling but in the end, I went out with him to the lonely wilderness with him to help him get his shot. So around 10PM, me and him set out into the dark and wandered out onto the playa for an hour or two so he could get his shots. This was the one thing he really wanted to do out of this entire trip.

Sometimes you have to make a mans dreams come true.

Day 4- Leaving Death Valley

Day four started with some bad news. I had killed the shocks on our overlanding trailer, so we ended up not taking the more remote way out of the park and stuck to the main roads. This worked out well because everyone got to swing by a gas station, use a real bathroom (ours are nice, but its really nice to have a real toilet that flushes), and get some snacks for the road.

The drive out to Trona Pinnacles is fairly unremarkable, but we did happen to stop where some mules were being noisy. It was kind of fun.

The Trona Pinnacles are a series of tufa stacks that range from a few feet tall to over 100 feet tall. I had seen photos of the place before, but frankly it was way cooler to see in person, even though it kind of sits on the edge of an industrial hellscape.

Not only is it cool, but it also is a place where you can fly a drone, so for the first time in the adventure I pulled out a drone and photographed the landscape from both the ground and the sky.

Once again way cooler than I thought it would be.

Then mother nature threw us a bone, and we ended up with the best sunset of the entire trip. Colorful clouds, great colors in the distance and epic landscapes.

Here I gave the most instructions of the trip. I taught one guest how to take night pictures as he had never had a chance to do that. I then pushed other guests to work on their compositions (fill the frame). Then I really pushed the idea of layers, creating a sense of depth so your images have multiple depths to look at.

Day 5- Goodbyes

Sunrise at Trona was stunning and we got wonderful colors and warm tones across the landscape. I took a group out with me and the others scattered across the region. In the end, I got some of my favorites images from this area this morning.

After sunrise and breakfast, it was time to take guests back to Lone Pine to pick up their vehicles. We said our farewells and I set out to fulfill one more promise.

One of our guests (Marty) had a father who was a fish biologist. As a kid, his father would talk about these special little fish found in Death Valley. Some years ago, Marty’s father had passed away without ever getting a chance to see them, so in honor of the fallen, I took Marty to where these special little fish live. Unfortunately, some recent population declines had occurred (about 37 are currently alive), so seeing them was challenging. We were able to photograph them… which mostly looked like a small blue blur, but he did get to see them.

So, with promises fulfilled I dropped off guests in Las Vegas and returned to southern Utah.