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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Dark Skies Won't Last Forever

Photo: Dan Duriscoe, National Park Service.

I suffer from an ailment called over preparedness. So as soon as my flight was booked for Vegas, I was researching both Vegas, and Death Valley.

Obviously, as a photographer, any opportunity to change up my routine even for a short trip is a nice way to refresh the creative battery. By no means am I trying to imply that I have somehow run out of things to shoot close to home, actually, I have a list that could take me a few years of dedicated shooting, or a lifetime of casual shooting. Living in a place with 4 seasons you could in theory shoot the same scene 4 times a year and each one will be unique in it's own way. I always laugh when people say, "there is nothing interesting to shoot close to home." Yet often their home is someone else's travel destination.

Largely the reason why I was so excited about the aborted Wind River trip this summer was the fact that I needed a change of scenery. So while I wasn't ecstatic about my brothers bachelor party being in Las Vegas, I'm also cognizant that Vegas is perhaps one of the great jumping off points in the western US. Within a 5 hour drive there is an incredible amount to do from a natural perspective, and Vegas itself is I'm sure quite photogenic. Cheap flights and cheap car rental make Las Vegas sort of an oddly perfect place to start a trip into the Western US wilds.

Death Valley is no doubt scenic in many ways, but while it might sound a bit hippie-ish, I love trees, I even hug one every now and then. I also don't mind water, actually, I love water. Perhaps it's something to do with the human body being 60% water and life originating in the sea! The real treat for me is going to be the hopefully clear dark skies of the Mojave Desert.

Sure enough we have some places with amazingly dark skies here in the eastern US. I cannot say with any data confirmed certainty but my recollection of my trips out west is that the skies are not tremendously darker than the Northern Adirondacks on a clear night, certainly not any more dark than Northern Maine. The only exception is perhaps the canyons of Southern Utah, which seemed to reveal shooting stars every time I opened my eyes while trying asleep on the desert floor. The problem is that here in the east it's also often quite cloudy, and the chance of rain coupled with condensation, make star trails a difficult endeavor. It just so happens that I've ruined a few star trails because of condensation on my camera lenses.

So coming across the following article was quite a bit disheartening. Every time my Dad comes upstate, he comments on how it's nice to see the stars at night, and of course I laugh, but the reality is seeing the stars might not be something we should take for granted anymore. Afterall, if a place as desolate as Death Valley, which is so famous for it's dark skies that the first thing I thought of was star trails, then maybe this is something that might be just a memory in a generation or two!

DEATH VALLEY NATIONAL PARK ----- High atop Dante's View, overlooking
sheets of salt flats and ribbons of sand dunes, night watcher Dan
Duriscoe shone a laser beam at the North Star and steadied his digital
camera at the starry heavens.

Click. The sky looks dark.

Duriscoe
panned the camera toward the light factory of Las Vegas, 85 miles away
but peeking out like a white halo above the mountains in the eastern
horizon.

Click. The sky is on fire.

"You can see the
Luxor vertical beam," said Duriscoe, pointing to a time-exposure shot
on his camera-connected laptop showing the Vegas Strip pyramid-shaped
hotel's famous searchlight. "That's the brightest thing out there."

Acclaimed
for its ink black skies, Death Valley, the hottest place in North
America, also ranks among the nation's unspoiled stargazing spots. But
the vista in recent years has grown blurry.

The glitzy neon glow
from Las Vegas and its burgeoning bedroom communities is stealing stars
from the park's eastern fringe. New research reveals light pollution
from Vegas increased 61 percent between 2001 and 2007, making it appear
brighter than the planet Venus on clear nights as seen from Dante's
View.

Duriscoe, a soft-spoken, mustachioed physical scientist
with the National Park Service, is part of a roving federal team of
night owls whose job is to gaze up at the sky and monitor for light
pollution in national parks.

"What is alarming to me is, what's
going to happen three or four generations from now if this growth of
outdoor lights continues?" he asked.

Death Valley works to preserve night sky : North County Times - Californian

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Star Trails and Ski Trails, Night Skiing Under The Stars

For the winter solstice, the first night of winter, I set out to do two things:

1) Ski (duh) on the 2 feet of fresh powder. First time skiing this year, and a rarity to have actual powder and not at least heavy wet snow, if not worse. Plus, I was one of the first tracks, so it hadn't iced up yet!

2) Photography, but there is nothing like messing with wireless flashes multiple tripods/light stands, in 30mph wind gust, and 15F temps. Suffice to say direct flash WAS NOT in the plans. My idea was to have myself back lit with a wireless flash in front of me, with the spill off the snow further illuminating me. The long exposure was supposed to get the star trails.

As you've finally figured out, months or years into reading the Mountain Visions blog and photo captions, things ALWAYS go wrong. It's not that I have bad luck, actually, I find things tend to work out pretty well for me overall. It's just that it's a roller coaster of good and bad, and I'd prefer to have a more boring life!

So what went wrong:

1) In the cold the cheap Ebay triggers don't fire. Not even point blank range unless I warmed them first. In fairness the batteries are 2 years old, and they were in the cold for 30 minutes before I set up. However, blame goes to me for using the Ebay triggers and not the Elinchron Skyports I have sitting charged up on the desk next to me.

Unfortunately, the Ebay triggers (Gadget Infinity) come with a hot shoe mounting bracket, and I could not find my hot shoe bracket for the Skyports! So I could have taken the Sky ports, and used the Gadget Infinity triggers as stands, but hooked the skyports up to the sync socket! (If I lost you, don't worry).

2) The wind. Even if everything worked as planned a camera on a tripod is not going to stay still for 10-30 seconds in the 30mph wind gust. It was bad enough I was waiting for my flash to blow down into the frozen water during a few gust

3) I'm not wuss, but it was cold out in the open at Vischer Ferry Preserve. I was between two levees or something on the Old Mohawk River Canal system, which is right next to the New Mohawk River Canal, but the problem was the open ice funneled the wind. I chose that spot because it gave me a clear run to ski on, and also a clear shot of the sky (although facing the wrong direction, south towards Albany and it's inherent light pollution).

4) The sky wasn't perfectly clear. It was in and out of light cloud cover. So despite 10 attempts the only good star trail shot was just ok once blur and light pollution were factored in.

So what did I learn:

1) Battery operated stuff sucks in the cold. And that the cheaper the electronics the worse the problems. My Canon G3 was just fine in the 30 minutes I was setting up and shooting, the Vivitar 285HV and it's batteries were fine as well. Only the wireless flash triggers had issues.

2) When you have a $200 pair of wireless flash sync transmitters at home, don't take the cheap $40 Ebay triggers that you got prior to the good stuff.

3) Leave camera, and multiple tripods in car when wind is gusting to 30mph, go skiing and come back another night when it's less windy for the photography portion

4) Albany/Saratoga/Niskayuna are not quite the sticks that my brother makes them out to be. Yes we are a lot closer to the best weekend wilderness in the country, but we have a fair amount of light pollution 5 minutes from home...Of course, 1-2 hours north is the best star gazing in all of New York State.

5) Night skiing is the best. Had the place to myself as always, aside from a few snowmobilers who were on another trail. Between the wind and the snow muffling the sounds, it was eerily peaceful. I guess I'm nocturnal because I just prefer the night for most things including paddling, mountain biking, hiking, skiing, driving and photography.

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