Rocks – Page 7 – Ken's Photography and Travel Blog

Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada – March 2023 – Part 12 – Sunset Shoot

There was a late day storm on the eastern horizon during this cloudy, sunset shoot. Such desert storms contribute to the slow, but certain evolution of the rock features found here. These are a few of those images.

I made many images, capturing the changes in the sky as the storm and the late day lighting progressed.

I hope the similarity of these images is not boring to the reader. It was fascinating to see how the sky changed with the storm’s advanced across the landscape and the subtle changes in the light on the landscape.

Until next time,

Ken

Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada – March 2023 – Part 11

After a morning shoot, my son and I decided to take a short hike in another part of the park, before. the crowds of tourists began to get out and about.

It is not surprising that this area is a popular one in which to film portions of western movies. The image above is of the remains of one of those movie sets.

A portion of our early morning hike went through a slot type canyon. The many footprints in the sand indicates the number of people that have recently hiked this way.

That’s all for now.

Ken

Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada – March 2023 – Part 10

It was a cloudy, overcast morning for this outing in Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada.

I’m always amazed at how some desert shrubs can survive with very little in the way of actual soil in which to put down roots.

A narrow wash with an apparent dead end, but is it the end of this canyon in the making or is this wash continuing to grow into a canyon? I suspect erosion will continue at a very slow rate and this short, shallow wash will grow into a deeper and longer canyon over a geologic time interval.

This was supposed to be a sunrise shoot, but as one can see there was little sunshine early this morning.

Stay tuned for more of Valley of Fire,

Ken

Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada – March 2023 – Part 9

More hiking and scouting photos in Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada.

This simple photo was chosen for Flickr’s Explore page (April 13, 2023) and as of this writing has garnered 6801 views and 237 faves.

The rock layers upon which these couples are walking is the feature that forms the well know “Fire Wave” feature in this park.

Stay tuned for even more Valley of Fire and desert photography,

Ken

Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada – March 2023 – Part 8

More scouting and exploration photos in Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada.

Natural Imperfections or Non-Photogenic Nature?, iPhone Photo

Nature is messy and cluttered. Photographers don’t like clutter, even if it is a part of nature. I cropped this photo to remove some of the natural clutter, mostly on the bottom left. There remains some clutter on the bottom left and what about that unkempt looking bush and roots on the pond border? Is it really necessary to clean up a natural scene, to make a more pleasing photo? It depends upon one’s vies of the world and one’s idea of photography and purpose of the photo. Sometimes one may want to show the clutter, sometimes not. Sometimes clutter can’t be avoided.

The way my eyes look in the morning.

More desert scenes to come,

Ken

Valley of Fire State Park and Nearby, Nevada – March 2023 – Part 6 – Monochrome Desert

This is a continuation of hiking and exploration in Valley of Fire State Park and nearby areas, Nevada. All of the photos in this post were shot with an iPhone 14 and converted to monochrome.

This “Dark Shelter” is not in Valley of fire. This is along a 4 wheel drive road outside the park.

Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada – March 2023 – Part 5

This is a continuation of scouting and exploration in Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada in March of 2023.

The geology here is fascinating. The rocks have interesting variation in texture and color.

If one looks closely, one can just barely pick out hikers on the right side slope of that big dome in the background.

To be continued,

Ken

Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada – March 2023 – Part 4

A continuation of images made during a hike in Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada in March of 2023.

There were a few arches in the canyon walls bordering this hiking trail. Small arches are plentiful in this area.

This trail ends at a drop off into a narrow chasm, which at this time of the year contained a pool of water.

Another small arch atop a rock outcrop.

Another small, but still sizable arch along the trail.

Light bouncing around inside some of the smaller arches and holes in the rocks creates interesting color, bringing out the patterns in the rock. This one looks like an eye in a rugged face.

More exploration photos next,

Ken

Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada – Part 2

There are many arches of various sizes all through out Valley of Fire State Park and in this area, in general, where the sandstone has been eroded away over long time intervals of exposure to wind, rain, freezing and thawing. The arches are not on the size of those found in Utah’s Arches National Park, but seemingly more numerous.

Sunlight reflects around inside the arches, creating wonderful lighting on the rock surface.

The arches in this post are found along a short hiking trail and can be spotted by looking up into the canyon walls, which can be spectacular, too.

There is an open area along this trail with many nice cholla cacti. I had to refrain from trying to photograph each one, as I’ve always found these enticing.

We stopped short of completing this hike today, since we wanted to get to an area that we had chosen for sunset photos.

We will revisit this area later,

Ken

Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada – Part 1

My oldest son, also a photo enthusiast and excellent photographer, met me in Snow Canyon on the first morning of my stay. The weather forecast called for considerable rainfall for our location over the next few days, so we began to consider our options. After some discussion and exploration of not too far away areas, we decided it best to move into Nevada in the vicinity of Valley of Fire State Park.

Valley of Fire State Park has two camping areas, one with full hookups for RVs and another with no hook ups, but water available. At the time of our visit, those campgrounds were still on a first come first serve basis. This is a popular destination in the spring, so it is difficult to get a camping spot. We stayed a few miles outside the park on BLM land for the first several night, traveling into the park and into adjacent areas. We made a few passes through the campsites, while in the park, looking for open sites. It was not unusual to see would be campers waiting in line for a campsite to be vacated that could be claimed.

As is our normal practice, we scouted areas for photography and I made many photos with my iPhone, during these outings. So part of this series of blogs will contain mostly those scouting photos.

I got down low to photograph this small cactus, making it look much larger than it is.

Late day sunlight lights up the rocks in Valley of Fire, enhancing the color, shadows and textures.

We spotted these two desert sheep as we were driving. I shot these from the vehicle. That slope is much steeper than this image makes it appear and the soil is loose, making their hooves slip with each step. These animals have a remarkable balance and the ability to navigate steep rugged terrain.

There is an old CCC (Civilian Conservation Corp) multiple room crude cabin used by CCC members, who worked in the park during the Great Depression, in the park. The following image is from the larger of the three rooms.

More later,

Ken

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Tag: Rocks

Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada – March 2023 – Part 12 – Sunset Shoot

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