Valley of Fire (first photos from the Southwest)

coscorrosa

How not to take good landscape photos:

1) Arrive at a huge state park with only 45 minutes of light left
2) ...Where you've never been before
3) ...And never researched
4) ...Shooting landscapes and formations that are completely foreign to you

With those caveats in place, here are some shots from the Valley of Fire. I arrived in Las Vegas on Friday afternoon and almost didn't go as I didn't think I'd have any time, then I figured I might as well go just to see it even if I was only going to have a few minutes before dark.

These shots are all backlit (contrast ratio was ridiculous, probably need to reprocess all of these more carefully) and wide-angle (couldn't really think of any good comps with my 24-105 having never shot this type of subject before, most of these are "rocks in the back, plants in the front" compositions).

I spent all Sunday at Death Valley and think I got some better shots as I wasn't as pressed for time and had done a little research beforehand.

Next time I'm in Las Vegas I'll try and have more time here as it is pretty increditble. I was going to do some star trails but it was overcast.

Anyway, enough of that, here are the photos from Valley of Fire.

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Dooginfif20

Ron your work is great! I think some time in the future we should meet up and show me some tricks of the trade. Im only about an 2 hour drive from Seattle. Are these one exposure shots or did you do HDR with them?

anwmn1

Welcome to shooting in the Southwest Ron. It is a love hate relationship down here. Have to love those big dead skies.

I am sure you will concur the desert on a return trip.

kdog

Sweeet!! But where's the sunset? You holdin' out on us? :cool

bryanj87

These look great. I was there in mid afternoon sun and 100 degree heat, so I mostly got snapshot type stuff. Can't wait to see more.

coscorrosa

Dooginfif20 wrote:

Ron your work is great! I think some time in the future we should meet up and show me some tricks of the trade. Im only about an 2 hour drive from Seattle. Are these one exposure shots or did you do HDR with them?

I think they're all HDR, one of them might have been a single exposure. I don't really know any tricks of the trade, I just take a million shots and keep the three that aren't horrible

coscorrosa

kdog wrote:

Sweeet!! But where's the sunset? You holdin' out on us? :cool

Nope, that was the sunset! Lots of cloud cover, plus the sun proper was blocked by some hills. Some of these are 30 second exposures. The sky went from blue, to dark blue, to dark dark blue, to dark dark dark blue, and then black. No color. No clouds. And these shots were all back-lit so the contrast between the foreground and background was crazy.

But I had fun. Didn't step on any rattlesnakes, so that's good.

coscorrosa

anwmn1 wrote:

Welcome to shooting in the Southwest Ron. It is a love hate relationship down here. Have to love those big dead skies.

I am sure you will concur the desert on a return trip.

Heh, I'm happy with the compositions, just the light isn't great, most of that was because of my unfamiliarity with the location. Obviously more dramatic skies would have helped (I could have converted these to B&W then), but that's OK. It was still fun.

BeachBill

coscorrosa wrote:

Nope, that was the sunset! Lots of cloud cover, plus the sun proper was blocked by some hills. Some of these are 30 second exposures. The sky went from blue, to dark blue, to dark dark blue, to dark dark dark blue, and then black. No color. No clouds. And these shots were all back-lit so the contrast between the foreground and background was crazy.

But I had fun. Didn't step on any rattlesnakes, so that's good.

Not bad for the circumstances!

I think I've been in that exact location a few times...

No worries about rattlers this time of year, it's not rattlesnake season yet.

AngryRed

Valley of Fire is one of my favorite places and it's only an hour drive from my house in Vegas.

Great work, just like your Death Valley stuff.