Death Valley, Dream

Death Valley Dream

'Only by going alone in silence, without baggage, can one truly get into the heart of the wilderness. All other travel is mere dust and hotels and baggage and chatter'....John Muir

Mesquite Dunes

Mesquite Dunes, Death Valley

'Joy in looking and comprehending is nature's beautiful gift'.........Albert Einstein

Death Valley, Mesquite Dunes 13

Death Valley, Mesquite Dunes #13

'Choose only one master - Nature'.......Rembrandt

Death Valley, Mesquite Dunes 2

Death Valley Dunes, Stovepipe Wells

'Come forth into the light of things, let nature be your teacher'.....William Wordsworth

I have been to Death Valley on four separate occasions and have made around 5000 images in various locations. All in all the sand dunes are up near the top of my favorite list and also the most difficult. Get there at the wrong time and there are footprints from the many visitors. The best time for me is sunrise, which is even better if a high wind blew away the footprints overnight. If not one needs to get as far out as possible to avoid people and prints...not always as easy as it sounds.....

Death Valley, Mesquite Dunes, Stovepipe Wells

Death Valley, Mesquite Dunes, Stovepipe Wells

'Even Castles made of sand, fall into the sea, eventually'....Jimi Hendrix

Death Valley - Mesquite Dunes

Mesquite Dunes, Death Valley

'This sand seemed to us the connecting link between land and water. It was a kind of water on which you could walk, and you could see the ripple-marks on its surface, produced by the winds, precisely like those at the bottom of a brook or lake. We had read that Mussulmans are permitted by the Koran to perform their ablutions in sand when they cannot get water, a necessary indulgence in Arabia, and we now understand the propriety of this provision'...Henry David Thoreau

Publish Post

Sands of Time..

Mesqutie Dunes, Stovepipe Weels

'Even Castles made of sand, fall into the sea, eventually'....Jimi Hendrix

Mesquite Dunes

Mesquite Dunes, Death Vally, California

'Whoever loves and understands a garden will find contentment within'.......Chinese Proverb

Everglades

Moon Setting, Mangroves,  Chokoloskee Bay, Everglades

Funny story on this image. I drove down to the Everglades last year to go swamp walking with a photographer named Clyde Butcher. Went a day or so early and rented a boat with a guide to investigate a few of the 10,000 islands in Chokoloskee Bay.

First morning we get out there before sunrise and upon arrival at this location the guide tells me to get out of the boat and prepare for sunrise - 'the best images are made standing out on the oyster bed' he says. I was planning to shoot from the boat but soon realized he was right about getting out on the oyster bed. Very difficult to get a crisp sharp image on a moving boat in low light - lesson learned.

Needless to say I got over the fear and over the next few days found myself walking in swamps and waist high water in the bay - camera in hand. Never saw one alligator or Anaconda....

Sand Dunes - Death Valley

 

 What I enjoy most about photography is the camera's ability to define in a much different way from the eye - always a mystery and later a surprise. Not any particular object, but the relationships of objects; or the isolation of an object that catches my fancy. We se what we believe is there. I need to relax my eyes and mostly my emotions for each image and make my best effort to record it as I see it. This can become extremely emotional and very very personal - as no one else has my vision and no other image will look like mine.

Sand Dunes are the perfect muse for self expression - they can be sensual, exotic, dark, rhythmical, elegant and melodramatic to name a few. Basically the dunes offer a fabulous background with which to express oneself, but you must take your time and think carefully about what it is you are looking for. Once found it becomes necessary to explore this decision from all sides before moving forward. 

This was my third visit to the Mesquite Dunes near Stovepipe Wells and the first time I walked away with images that felt correct in terms of what I was in my thoughts at the moment of capture.