This was cool to see. My kid, Eimear (rhymes with femur), and I did a quick trip through Death Valley on the way to Palm Springs a couple years ago and I stopped by the Devils Garden for pre-dawn pictures and breakfast. We were in my favorite RV - the Roadtrek Sprinter.
I shaved shortly after this picture was made.
I did a bunch of pictures and a bunch of them came out nicely. This one remains my favorite from the morning. The night before I did the one of the rain clouds with low sun making cool colors and so I went back the next morning instead of to the sand dunes. Getting the kid to do a pre-dawn hike out onto the dunes would’ve been a major hassle and I wasn’t up for the argument.
Seeing this reminds me of the line in Return of the King when Gandalf says, “White shores, and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise.” Though this isn’t quite a beach and those hills aren’t particularly green. It just that the sun rose swiftly that morning with clean shadows on the valley. It made an interesting line on the salt shape blocks in the garden. Cooler in the shadow and warmer in the light with a nice line between.
The Yin and Yang of daylight and night playing out in a few minutes on the floor of Death Valley. This was done in the springtime. So the temperature in the predawn shadow was quite cool. If it were summertime a person wouldn’t last much longer once the sun hit and starts blasting the incredible heat of this place.
I checked the technical details (lens only - because the lens is the most important part of a camera) and it was shot at 23mm on the venerable Nikon 14-24 f2.8 lens. This is one of the two best zoom lenses I’ve ever used with the other being the simply amazing Canon RFR 28-70 f2.
The picture I shot the night before in the same location but looking to the right at the western mountains lining Death Valley.