Nature – Page 10 – Ken's Photography and Travel Blog

Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada – March 2023 – Part 26 – Sunrise Near Campground

My son and I decided to walk from our campsite into the nearby area for a sunrise shoot on our final day in Valley of Fire State Park. The scenery near the campground is not as impressive as in other areas in the park, so I was not sure how this would turn out.

The early morning light enhanced the color in the rock features and highlighted the desert grasses, but as I edited the photos, I felt that a monochromatic treatment was more appropriate for many of the scenes that I captured.

The early morning light was good, the color in the rocks good and I always like the way the low elevation sunlight highlights the desert vegetation. To be sure the light quality was what drives us to get up early to photograph the landscape, but maybe it was the lack of spectacular features and the clear, bland sky that inspired me to go with monochrome for these few selected photos.

I’m still trying to decide whether to post other photos from this morning’s shoot or move on to our final sunset shoot. My indecision and the need to review more images, plus other distractions, might create an interruption of my goal of posting twice weekly.

Indecisively yours,

Ken

Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada – March 2023 – Part 25 – Another Sunset Shoot

This is a continuation of a late day shoot in Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada, March 2023.

My oldest son (on top of the peak in the lower right) shot the storm from other higher elevation vantage points and complained that I did not come up to join him. I have not seen his photos, so I don’t know how to compare his to mine, but he is of the opinion that he had better views than I did. I was busy shooting what I saw from my location and I thought I might miss out on the scene by taking time to move elsewhere and at least I know that we did not get identical shots.

This wraps up today’s sunset shoot. Next up, sunrise in the desert near the campground in Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada.

Until then,

Ken.

Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada – March 2023 – Part 24 – Another Sunset Shoot

This is a continuation of a March 2023 sunset shoot in Valley of Fire, Nevada.

I made many images with the late day light changing as the sun sank into the western horizon with clouds moving overhead and a distant storm on the easterly horizon. I’m presenting a few selected images in this post.

To be continued,

Ken

Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada – March 2023 – Part 23 – Another Sunset Shoot

It seems suitable, at this time of the day, that the clouds in the sky and the geology in Valley of Fire, Nevada came together to create an hourglass shape, if one has the imagination to see it.

Another late day storm was brewing over the desert, which resulted in dramatic sky for background.

I composed this image to have the rocks along the diagonal pointing towards the distant storm.

Then I thought maybe I had too much in this image, so I moved in close to the end portion of the foreground rock, keeping a portion of the little bush at the edge of the rock.

This emphasized the foreground rock, but reduced the background and the stormy, cloudy sky, which I think is not an improvement. The wider angle view is better, I think.

I like the way the rock texture looks, even on its own, but with the late day light and a stormy sky background it seems to really pop.

In this image I like the foreground shadows that contrast with the late day light on the middle ground and the background sky and the rugged geology.

Skyway – Walk this way to reach the clouds.

Symmetric Reflection – Earth and Sky Symmetry

Maybe the correct word is “symmetrical”, but the image is not exactly symmetrical, so I will stick with the “Symmetric” label.

I used the many linear features in the rock as leading lines in this photo, which is a cropped version of the original. The original included much more of the foreground, as I like those linear features, but upon reviewing, I thought maybe I over did it with the foreground.

To be continued with much more of that late day desert storm,

Ken

Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada – March 2023 – Part 22 – Sunset Shoot

This is a continuation of a multiple part blog of a sunset shoot in Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada.

The rock features in Valley of Fire take on different looks as one moves around, viewing these from various positions.

To Reach the Gold, One Must Overcome the Obstacles

The Funnel is my name for this location. The rock texture just seems to “funnel” one into the scene.

Light tops off the distant rocks like a sweet, golden frosting on a multilayered cake, with a dollop of whipped cream on the edge.

Everything in this image is in the previous one, but less. I moved in to reduce the scope of the image, then cropped in more in post processing to make the sky more prominent and emphasize the large rock feature at the bottom right, which was in the bottom left of the previous image. I think this makes the scene more dramatic, but that is in the eye of the beholder.

Evening sky flows and glows over Valley of Fire, Nevada, highlighting some features and casting others into deepening shadows.

This wraps up this sunset shoot, but there will be another.

Ken

Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada – March 2023 – Part 21 – Sunset Shoot

This is a continuation of a multiple part blog of a sunset shoot in Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada.

In Part 20 of this blog, I included a similar photo made by standing closer to the big rock in the foreground. I think that image is more dramatic, but I backed up to included the little bush at the bottom left in this image to add a bit of “life” in the image.

It is the “rainy” season here and there is new greenery softening the hard rock desert.

Occasional small ponds give evidence of recent rains in this soon to be baking landscape.

Pathway – Muted footprints of previous visitors in the sand

To be continued,

Ken

Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada – March 2023 – Part 17 – Return from the Fire Wave

On our hike back to the parking lot, we took an obvious route towards a large feature that we had hiked past on our way in. This route went alongside the rock outcrop from which the Fire Wave is formed.

That large rock feature towards which this outcrop points, is our destination for joining up with the official trail back to the parking lot.

Early morning shadow and light seem to be divided by the meeting of two different rock formations. The meeting of these two different rock deposits forms a low area, where sand accumulates and desert vegetation takes root.

I noted many small pebbles accumulated in the ridges of this rock outcrop. Initially, I thought maybe tourist were tossing these into the grooves, but now I think it is a natural accumulation. Maybe strong winds blow the pebbles along the rock face until the pebbles drop into a place that is somewhat protected from the wind.

That’s all for this hike and early morning shoot,

Ken

Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada – March 2023 – Part 15 – Sunset Shoot

This is a continuation of a sunset shoot in Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada.

This concludes the sunset shoot on this day.

Until next time,

Ken

Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada – March 2023 – Part 14 – Sunset Shoot

This is a continuation of a sunset shoot in Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada.

To be continued,

Ken

Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada – March 2023 – Part 13 – Sunset Shoot

Photos from another sunset shoot in Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada. The day after the storm at sunset, we returned to the same area for another photo shoot. Some of the photos in this post are similar to the evening prior, but with different lighting and sky

To be continued,

Ken

Category: Nature

Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada – March 2023 – Part 26 – Sunrise Near Campground

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