Central California

High and Low

High and Low
Zabriski Point Panorama Death Valley National Park, CA Willie, Zack, and I arrived at Death Valley in the evening, checked into our hotel, grabbed some food and began looking at the forecasts to figure out the details for our Death Valley trip. There was a chance that the clouds would roll into position in time for sunrise so we woke up before dawn and raced over to Zabriski Point. We were the first to arrive! Since it was dark and we hadn't scouted earlier, we setup where we thought we should be and waited for sunrise. As was the theme of the trip, we had no color in the sunrise except for a faint glow. The moon was full and setting and we managed to take advantage of that and capture a few shots with the setting moon (I did not pull a "Peter Lik" and place the moon in this shot). As many of you know, Zabrsiki Point is a pretty mind-blowing place. There's some awesome shapes, amazing hills, snow covered mountains (although without snow), and just a giant escape. Behind the view here is Badwater Salt flats, the lowest point in the U.S. Above badwater, you can make out 14,000 ft mountains! Pretty insane to have the 2 juxtapositions in the same scene. I decided that a single exposure couldn't properly capture this place and took a pano of Zabriski Point with the moon setting. A little bit of pink color came out in the sky and I absolutely love the shapes here! Rather than edit out the people, I thought I'd leave the other photographers and on-lookers in the photo in an attempt to give this place a sense of scale! Nikon D700 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S: Multiple Exposures at 35mm, f/11?

2012aaron meyers photographycaliforniad700death valleyeastern sierraslandscapenaturenikonnikon d700photographypointsierrasierra mountainssunrisezabriskizabriski pointcloudscolorlinesmoonmoonsetpanopanoramapath