Death Valley, Deadly To Photography Plans

Not feeling well, I'm spending a night in Vegas lying on the couch, watching TV, and hoping I throw up (yes, hoping) while everyone is out on the town. Granted last night was fun night, I am not sure if I'm sick, hung over, or hung over and sick.

Pretty much confined to the couch (and jacuzzi), I decided to take a look at a few shots using the Acer Aspire netbook which has proved it's value on this trip as a jack of many trades, including a GPS with both topographic and road navigation software. This shot turned out pretty well, although the screen on the netbook has not been calibrated so the colors you see might be a bit off from the final version.

George and I flew out a day early to spend about 36 hours in Death Valley National Park, but after a series of snafus en route, and some delays at the car rental due to long lines and the self serve kiosk being out of order.

Finally on the road, 3 full hours after we were supposed to be and a combined $100 poorer due to travel issues, we arrived in the valley. The bad news is it was cloudy, windy, and terrible weather for photography.

So rather than waste time in the wind where star trails would be impossible, I ran down the list and figured that out best chance to escape the winds was to get into a tight canyon.

The natural bridge was directly across the road and just a few miles away from where we were, so we headed up the canyon and to some degree escaped the brunt of the wind. The sky finally cleared, and the moonlight was perpendicular to the canyon creating nice side lighting. We spent a few hours working the canyon with both film and digital cameras while trying various techniques.

More to come, but rest assured while mother nature was uncooperative in helping us get the most compelling photographs, we did have a great time.

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