Death Valley

Issue #001 - Death Valley, California

Photographing Death Valley is largely a matter of timing. Forget about a summer visit and even a late spring trip is risky. Plan now for your photo trip for the last part of November through the first two weeks of March. This fifteen-week period of mid-winter is the only safe time to travel there. A recent April visit ran into 102˚ F. temps. Easter vacation trips in the past usually coincided with spring winds that blew sand and dust into all my gear. Summer temperatures range over 100˚ The summer of 2024 brought record temps, in the 130 degree range. Your camera equipment is too valuable for that kind of treatment. If you want to avoid any crowds...skip Easter Week, President’s Birthday weekend in February and the 49ers Death Valley Encampment, a regular event, held every year around the second weekend of November.

Look at your feet... don’t miss the strong, wind-blown patterns of sand all around you. Try a wide-angle lens to accentuate the relationship of those patterns around you to the patterns of the distant dunes. A 28mm, 24mm, 20mm, or even wider lens, especially used in a vertical format, will exaggerate these spacial relationships and will produce a strong image. If you were lucky, a strong overnight wind came up last night and blew away any foot prints while you slept. If foot prints are visible in your viewfinder, you should probably stick to the longer telephoto lenses and shoot over them. ​Unless you are trying to show man’s effect on this environment, you will probably not want foot prints all over your sand dunes. Bring out your wide-angles and concentrate on the panoramic shots. Watch the skies for vapor trails of jets.