One more and if nobody comments I ain't posting no more!

Sam

As the evening sun slides below the surrounding mountain peaks the mysterious rocks of Death Valley continue their inexorable race across the playa. We may not be privileged to know the purpose of this, but we can enjoy and bare witness to this marvel of nature.


Sam

Sexy6Chick

Sam wrote:

As the evening sun slides below the surrounding mountain peaks the mysterious rocks of Death Valley continue their inexorable race across the playa. We may not be privileged to know the purpose of this, but we can enjoy and bare witness to this marvel of nature.


Sam

It's hard to get comments on this board, but no one wants you to stop posting. This is a place for sharing pictures, just like the one you posted. And it's a great picture that definitely captures quite a site, one I would love to see today.

Eclipsed

Death Valley is the kind of place that you could spend ages photographing. There are a lot of opportunities.

Hey, if you stop posting, we will all feel sad...:cry

Enitsugua

Sam wrote:

As the evening sun slides below the surrounding mountain peaks the mysterious rocks of Death Valley continue their inexorable race across the playa. We may not be privileged to know the purpose of this, but we can enjoy and bare witness to this marvel of nature.


Sam

Those rocks are wild. Another SmugMuger, Jon Cornforth http://cornforthimages.smugmug.com, recently had his image of this published on the cover of Outdoor Photographer. See http://cornforthimagesblog.com/2010/02/25/outdoor-photographer-cover-image-april-2010/.

Eclipsed

Has anyone here actually seen the rocks come down?

redleash

Sam - Please keep posting.

I like this shot. Most of the shots I've seen tend to include just one rock, so I like seeing your view with multiple rocks, coming and going in different directions. It must be an amazing sight to see in person!

Lauren

Sam

Thanks guys!

I was just getting a little frustrated. While not looking for praise or adulation a comment or two, you like, you don't don't like, give up photography what the heck is it? is appreciated.

And poor Wilber is beside himself in the journeys section. 243 views and not one comment. The poor guy (duck) put up with high winds, freezing temperatures, harsh roads, no bathrooms, my cooking, and sleeping outside.

Oh wait...that was the good part.

Here is the little trooper ready for a good nights sleep.

Sam

bgarland

Sam wrote:

Thanks guys!

I was just getting a little frustrated. While not looking for praise or adulation a comment or two, you like, you don't don't like, give up photography what the heck is it? is appreciated.

And poor Wilber is beside himself in the journeys section. 243 views and not one comment. The poor guy (duck) put up with high winds, freezing temperatures, harsh roads, no bathrooms, my cooking, and sleeping outside.

Oh wait...that was the good part.

Here is the little trooper ready for a good nights sleep.

Sam

Wilbur looks like great travel companion. What a trooper.

And yes your shots are great, nicely done. I hope to get over there someday.

JC

redleash wrote:

Sam - Please keep posting.

I like this shot. Most of the shots I've seen tend to include just one rock, so I like seeing your view with multiple rocks, coming and going in different directions. It must be an amazing sight to see in person!

Lauren

Actually, if you look closely, there may be two sets of rocks with different paths, but for the ones with well defined paths that we can see, they are all moving in sync.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Sam
As the evening sun slides below the surrounding mountain peaks the mysterious rocks of Death Valley continue their inexorable race across the playa. We may not be privileged to know the purpose of this, but we can enjoy and bare witness to this marvel of nature.


Sam

This is actually a really cool shot, you can see where/when the wind changed direction.

DavidTO

Sam wrote:

Thanks guys!

I was just getting a little frustrated. While not looking for praise or adulation a comment or two, you like, you don't don't like, give up photography what the heck is it? is appreciated.

Sam

Sam, to be honest, I've given up on reading most of your posts since you won't embed your images, and instead insist on a very long string of singly attached images, like this: http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=163867 . If you want critique, you could start by making it easier on your viewers.

CWSkopec

Cool shot, Sam!

I'd never noticed that there were different sets of rocks traveling on differing routes. I guess I always figured that they all travelled the same direction.

JC

CWSkopec wrote:

Cool shot, Sam!

I'd never noticed that there were different sets of rocks traveling on differing routes. I guess I always figured that they all travelled the same direction.

According to the prevailing theory, close groupings of rocks should have been traveling the same direction. However, it looks like the center rock (between and slightly behind the two curved track rocks, doesn't have the final (northern?) curve to it.

Sam

DavidTO wrote:

Sam, to be honest, I've given up on reading most of your posts since you won't embed your images, and instead insist on a very long string of singly attached images, like this: http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=163867 . If you want critique, you could start by making it easier on your viewers.

David,

Thanks you for your thoughts. I guess I don't understand how this makes it harder for people to see or read?

I would like to understand this a little more. It seems like a lot more work to post that way. Most of the images I post here aren't on my website, so it would be extra steps to upload to my Smugmug site and then to link to them, and maintain. If I ever delete the images they would disappear from the post.

But If I can understand and see a reason, I will absolutely look into it.

Sam

DavidTO

Sam wrote:

David,

Thanks you for your thoughts. I guess I don't understand how this makes it harder for people to see or read?

I would like to understand this a little more. It seems like a lot more work to post that way. Most of the images I post here aren't on my website, so it would be extra steps to upload to my Smugmug site and then to link to them, and maintain. If I ever delete the images they would disappear from the post.

But If I can understand and see a reason, I will absolutely look into it.

Sam

Sure, Sam.

It would be less cluttered, and easier to read.

You need to upload the images somewhere, and rather than do it one by one you could batch upload.

Your images look better when embedding, our attachments are brutal on your images as far as compression goes.

You need to resize the images manually in order to attach, if you embedded you could skip that step.

If someone wanted to quote your post, and select a few images for comment, you're making that step more difficult, as well.

There are lots of shortcuts for embedding images. I use TextExpander, grab just the photo ID from the URL, then type in my magic command "smimg", which formats and pastes the proper URL from the image ID only (which I grab from the URL bar instead of having to go "get a link".

Even using a free service like Skitch (plasq.com/skitch) would be better and easier for you and your viewers than attaching.

I'm sure I could think of more, but that's a start. Let me know if you want any help with it. I assume offline would be better so that we no longer hijack your thread.

wfeller

CWSkopec wrote:

Cool shot, Sam!

I'd never noticed that there were different sets of rocks traveling on differing routes. I guess I always figured that they all travelled the same direction.

Think strong winds and dust devils.

After analyzing their rock trail map, researchers found that the longest, straightest trails are concentrated in the southeastern part of Racetrack Playa. In this area, wind is channelled through a low point in the mountains, forming a natural wind tunnel. In the central part of the playa two natural wind tunnels focus their energy from different directions. It's in this area that rock trails are the most convoluted.

So the evidence suggests that strong gusts of wind and swirling dust devils, in combination with a slick playa surface may set even the heaviest the rocks in motion. Off they go, scooting along downwind until friction slows them down and they come to rest. There the stones wait for the next time when slippery mud and wind spur them into action again.

http://digital-desert.com/death-valley-geology/racetrack/

Here's a link with some trail maps.

http://sophia.smith.edu/~lfletche/deathvalley.html


& Yes, linked images are kind of a PITA.
-

Wil Davis

DavidTO wrote:

snip…
If you want critique, you could start by making it easier on your viewers.

like using a font colour which doesn't disappear against a light background…

(sigh…)

- Wil

Sam

Next post I will give it a try.

Sam

Sam

Wil Davis wrote:

like using a font colour which doesn't disappear against a light background…

(sigh…)

- Wil

Font color????

I just use the default Dgrin color?

Sam

Wil Davis

Sam wrote:

Font color????

I just use the default Dgrin color?

Sam

Somewhere, your font colour is being set to white ()

Here's what it looks like on my screen (all others' posts & quoted posts show up as black (i.e. #000000):



- Wil

Sam

Wil,

I think I may know what the problem is. Sometimes I type posts in a word processer and change the font to white. Some how I guess the default color for Dgrin can be seen against dark and light colored backgrounds.

Sam

David_S85

The default color in the forum always produces reliable results. When composing a long post, I use a simple text editor like Windows Notepad, which doesn't format anything. The cut and paste results are predictable that way, though you might need to check line returns. Using anything more advanced might result in unreadable posts when cut and pasted here.

riddim_maker

Now that I've soon this image Death Valley is next on my list of places to visit :ivar
Thanks for sharing Sam

AndMan

Very nice shot Sam.

Sexy6Chick wrote:

It's hard to get comments on this board .....

I agree though I don't understand why it should be.