Roadtrip Images

Landscape photography is a low percentage game. Great photo’s are infrequent. Many times, despite your best efforts, you strike out.

The Death Valley Salt Flats are the lowest point in the United States at -282 feet below sea level. The salt forms hexagonal patterns and extends for miles. It’s quite an interesting hike, in the winter. In the summer you could get cooked out there. It’s called Badwater Basin because although there can be standing water at times, it’s obviously salt water and unfit to drink. There is a parking area on Badwater Road that serves as the trail head to hike out to the salt flats. The hike itself is flat and about 1 mile depending on how far out into the salt flats you want to go. The salt flats extend for miles but most people only go out to where the salt flats start.

For photographers, the patterns in the salt flats make for an interesting foreground. Lots of lines to lead the eye into the image. The different lighting conditions during the day can also serve to highlight different aspects of the flats. Generally, early or late in the day works best to give low angle light that accentuates the ridges in the salt. Mid day the light is very harsh and not very flattering.

On our most recent trip to Death Valley we made three attempts to shoot sunset at the salt flats. We struck out each time. Contrast that with sunset at the mud flats from the previous post. We were hoping for a similar scene but it wasn’t to be. A weather system moved in and brought a cold front with it. Behind the cold front was mainly clear skies.

Our first attempt was during a windstorm which I believe was the leading edge of the cold front. There were some dramatic clouds but there were also winds gusts of 40-50 mph. You could hardly stand upright. Weather transitions are generally good for photography but this was pretty crazy. We did go out during the morning and tried to shoot but we called it quits after a couple hours because it looked like a rainstorm was blowing in. The image above and below are from that outing. Not bad but not great either.

Strike two was the next evening. During the afternoon there were some high altitude clouds which generally make really good sunsets so we went back out to the salt flats. I set up facing the Panamint Mountain Range to the west so I could have the salt flats in the foreground and the mountains and sunset in the background. Things were looking pretty good until the sun slipped behind the mountains. Once the solar heating from the sun disappeared, so did the clouds. The air was so dry they just vanished. A sunset with no clouds means no image. We’ve seen this movie before so we made plans to come back the next day.

Strike three was the following day. An almost carbon copy of day two. High, thin clouds during the day but then they just vanished at sunset. What I did do was get the sunburst as the sun was dipping below the mountain range to the west. At least I had an image from the outing. Not a great one but an image nonetheless.

There are tons of great images online from beautiful locations around the world. It almost seems as if some of these photographers take nothing but great shots. The truth is that a great image comes along very infrequently. It’s a percentages game. A small percentage of the shots you take will be “keepers”. And a small percentage of your “keepers” will be great shots. And finally, there will be a large number of shots you just need to delete. No matter how good a photographer you are. If you don’t shoot very much, you’ll have a very small number of really great shots unless you’re just incredibly lucky. If you are that lucky you may want to try your hand at the Lottery too. If you’re more like the rest of us you just need to increase the amount of time you’re outdoors shooting. You have to be there when the weather does something really unusual.

For this scene, things just didn’t line up. We tried three times and still struck out. But that happens. A lot. We were only able to stay in Death Valley for a week on this trip so we didn’t get the photo we were looking for from the salt flats. Is that discouraging? Yes, a little. But we did get a magnificent sunset at the mud flats just a few days prior. Expecting another one of those was just asking too much. Besides, the weather systems were just working against us.

So I settled for the sunburst image. Will I add this one to my portfolio? No, it’s just on OK photograph. I’ve added it below.

It’s the pursuit of “next time” that keeps most of us going. The pursuit of the perfect shot that we all have in our mind that keeps photographers going out time and time again. A lot of the attraction is the journey, the pursuit. Being outside in these amazing locations is in itself a reward. If we can keep that foremost in our minds then even the unsuccessful shoots will not be a bust. We were “out there” which is more than most people get to do. And when we do get lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time, it’s truly a gift. Something we’ll remember for a long time. And it’s those times that keep us coming back for more.

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Nikon D850 with Nikkor 16-35mm at 16mm. f/11 at 1/60th of a second. ISO 64 for top image.